Hollow Brick Discovery

During my recent vacation trip to San Francisco I took a walk around the neighborhood near our motel.  At the northeast corner of Vicente Street and the Great Highway in San Francisco's Outer Sunset neighborhood I discovered this beauty:

Built in 1927, it has a fascinating history which I will leave to the reader to discover at this link.  What caught my eye was the large brickwork.  I've always thought the brick used in AHM's structures was oversized.  It is, for standard brick, but not for "hollow brick" or "hollow tile", a material that came into use in America in the 1920s but has long since fallen out of favor.  I've mentioned this material in a previous blog post on the meat market mock-up. 

This building stood out in a sea of structures known for their sameness.  Most of its neighbors are wood and stucco, all on narrow lots, shoulder to shoulder*.  But the big draw for me was the brick itself.  I had never seen it first hand and it wasn't until reviewing my photos from the trip that I realized what I had captured.  The brickwork, Deco detailing and Spanish influence seen in the porches and tile roof all combine to make this a stand-out structure worthy of prime real estate on any 1920s era model railroad.

*To be fair, there are some real architectural gems in those row houses, many with Art Deco and Streamlined Moderne styling; some preserved but most modified over the years.  See this wikipedia entry and links within for more information on the development of this area.  Blog readers might find the "Carville" link especially interesting.