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Building History

William W. Wurster (1895-1973) designed this San Francisco city house for the physician, Francis Leven Albert "Frank" Gerbode (born 02/03/1907 in Placerville, CA-d. 12/06/1984 in San Francisco, CA) and his wife Martha Barker Alexander Gerbode (born 11/11/1909 in Piedmont, CA-d. 10/19/1971 in San Francisco, CA). The pair wed on 12/24/1931 in Piedmont, CA. (See Ancestry.com, Source Information Ancestry.com. California, U.S., Marriage Records from Select Counties, 1850-1941 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014, accessed 07/25/2024.)

Martha was a member of the Alexander Family, one of the "Big Five" sugar-cane-producing and landowning Euro-American families in Hawaii. Her father Wallace McKinney Alexander (1869-1939) managed the far-flung Hawaiian agricultural and real estate operations of Alexander & Baldwin, Ltd., which for many years, owned an interest in the Sugar Factors Company and Matson Navigation Company. Martha would have been one of the wealthiest heiresses living in the Bay Area in the 1930s.

On 10/16/1940, Gerbode worked for the Stanford University Hospital, Clay and Webster Streets in San Francisco. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; Wwii Draft Registration Cards For California, 10/16/1940-03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147; Box: 648, accessed 07/25/2024.) Gerbode became a highly acclaimed cardiovascular surgeon. He performed the first open-heart surgery west of the Mississippi River in 1954, using a heart-lung machine that he, in part, designed. (See Sally Smith Hughes, University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Regional Oral History Office.edu, "Frank Leven Albert Gerbode: Pioneer Caridiovascular Surgeon," [Berkeley, CA: Bancroft Library, 1985].)

In 1940, the value of the Gerbode House was estimated at $45,000, a large sum for the time, but in line with other dwellings in this section of upper Pacific Heights.

Alterations

The firm of Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons made alterations to the Gerbode House between 1950 and 1964.

PCAD id: 25402