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Building History

This residence, built for Luke and John Fay, Jr., nephews of the soap magnate David Fay, was completed in 1912.

Alteration

This property had a garden designed by Thomas D. Church (1902-1978) in 1957 for Brigadier General Paul Berrigan of the US Army Corps of Engineers (1905 -1998) and his wife, the heiress of the house, Mary Eugenie Fay (1911-1988). The Cultural Landscape Foundation said on its website: "In 1957 the couple hired Thomas Church to design their garden. In his 1969 book, Your Private World and an article he wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle a decade earlier, Church, described the existing space as a large unwieldy garden with a specimen pepper tree (Schinus molle) at its center and exposure on three sides. Remarking on the steeply sloped hillside occupying a large portion of the property he said that the existing cobble-edged paths “plodded up the slope” but didn’t lead to anything. Church converted the large lot into an accessible and attractive garden. His symmetrical scheme included flowers and fruit trees in terraces that stepped up the hillside along with parterres and landings. He also established two lawn areas and several hard-surface areas for relaxation and entertaining, and he retained the pepper tree in its original location, slightly off-center, in the middle of the garden. The relationship of indoor-outdoor spaces, a signature design element in Church’s work, was addressed through redesigned decking off the kitchen and sunroom on the home’s main living level. The deck’s basket weave pattern is the same design used at the 1948 Dewey Donnell Garden in Sonoma. As the sunroom itself opens directly onto the main terrace of the garden, the deck became an extension of the interior living area. To integrate the Edwardian house with the more “modern” garden, he designed a classic balustrade, which is repeated at different levels, as the guard rail of the deck and the upstairs porch. Off the west end of the deck, exposed aggregate concrete walks with wood joints, a favorite paving choice of Church’s, define the flower and herb beds for the main level of the garden. The pattern is repeated in the upper level surrounds for the gazebos and lawn." After the deaths of General Berrigan in 1998, the house was bequeathed to the City of San Francisco for use as a public park. Fay Park, the only former Church garden for a private residence, was renovated in 2006, in part to make it ADA-compliant.

PCAD id: 25880