Henry Doelger built thousands of houses in San Francisco's Sunset District from the late 1920s into the early 1940s, then moved his operation south and built Westlake in Daly City. His firm, Henry Doelger Builder Inc., worked from an Art Deco sales office on Judah Street that is now a city landmark. The San Francisco Planning Department's 2013 landmark report says Doelger "is widely considered San Francisco's most prolific and significant merchant builder active during the pre-War era."
This guide draws on SF Planning's Sunset District Residential Builders, 1925-1950 historic context statement (dated April 3, 2013), the Doelger Building landmark report, the Sunset survey lists and Daly City's General Plan.
Who Henry Doelger was
According to the context statement, Doelger was born in 1896. In 1922 he bought and sold his first Sunset District lot and began speculating in raw land. City directories list him as "real estate" in 1925 and 1926, "real estate and builder" in 1927, and "builder" from 1928 on.
The move into construction came out of need. According to an account quoted in the context statement, when lots wouldn't sell in hard times, Doelger "hooked up with Carl Vedell," hired a few carpenters and built a few houses, and when those sold he built more. In 1927 he built his first house, a barrel-front house on 39th Avenue, and later that year began his first tract on the same block, between Judah and Kirkham Streets. SF Planning describes that row of barrel-front Mediterranean Revival houses as "largely intact."
His younger brother John, a carpenter on the early houses, was the company's vice president by 1934. Doelger died in 1978, according to the landmark report.
How Doelger built: crews, buying power and numbers
SF Planning describes a "Fordist" method modeled on Henry Ford's assembly line. Workers were organized into specialized crews for foundations, framing, sheetrock, siding and roofing. In later developments he ran his own planing mill at the job site. He bought nails, lumber and gypsum in bulk and marketed the savings as "buying power."
By 1940 his Judah Street operation employed 26 people, including designers, draftsmen, sales and administrative staff, plus seven crews of carpenters totaling 300 men. Chester Dolphin, his lead in-house designer for more than 20 years, and staff designer Ed Hageman developed standardized plans for five- and six-room houses. Doelger gave each house a serial number and posted numbered job cards in the basements. A caption in the context statement notes that his 3,230th house, on 33rd Avenue, was built in 1942.
The size claims don't agree:
The context statement says that from 1934 to 1941 he was the largest home builder in the U.S., averaging two houses a day with 500 employees, which earned him the nickname "the Henry Ford of housing."
It credits his firm with approximately 11,000 buildings in San Francisco, but warns that Doelger destroyed his business records and the figure "may overstate his building activity."
A 2008 Parkside District context statement, produced for the city's Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, notes that a 1983 thesis credits him with 25,000 houses, mostly in the Sunset.
The Sunset District houses, 1927 to 1942
These are not mid-century modern houses. SF Planning's context covers 1925 to 1950, and Doelger's Sunset work runs from 1927 into the early 1940s. He built many of the houses bounded by 27th Avenue, 39th Avenue, Kirkham Street and Quintara Street. A 1940 brochure defined "Doelger City" as 26th to 36th Avenues between Noriega and Quintara Streets, though SF Planning found "numerous non-Doelger buildings" inside it. He also built larger, often detached houses in Golden Gate Heights and Sunset Terrace.
The basic house, per the landmark report, had five rooms in slightly less than 1,000 square feet: living and dining rooms at the front, kitchen and one bathroom in the center, two bedrooms over the rear yard, all above a two-car tandem garage. Variations added a breakfast nook, a sunroom or a third bedroom. His ads touted an internal patio, a "Pullman" breakfast nook, a center atrium, a reverse floor plan and a "daylight" kitchen.
The look changed over 15 years:
Late 1920s. One style and identical massing. Only window muntins, cornice trim and alternating parapets differ.
Early to mid 1930s. A few interior layouts behind "miniature chateaus and castles": Spanish Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, French Provincial, Mediterranean Revival and Storybook facades.
Late 1930s. With FHA-era mass production, facades became "more standardized," plainer and quicker to build.
1937 to 1942. Streamline Moderne options marketed as the "Styleocrat" and the "Rainbow House," with glass block walls, curved balconies, flat parapets and porthole windows. Ed Hageman recalled the glass block as "dog-and-cat hospital architecture."
1942. Several dispersed blocks of split-level houses on 31st and 33rd Avenues, "a rare typology in the Sunset District," per SF Planning.
The Doelger Building, San Francisco Landmark No. 265
Doelger bought the lot at 320 Judah Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, in October 1931 and hired architect Charles O. Clausen to design a headquarters. The landmark report dates the commission to January 1932; the context statement gives 1931. The Art Deco building, with a 1940 Streamline Moderne addition that doubled its frontage, served as headquarters, warehouse and sales office. The report calls it one of the neighborhood's first Modern buildings.
The Board of Supervisors approved the designation on March 26, 2013, effective May 10, 2013. Doelger moved to temporary offices in Westlake around 1950 and sold the building on April 26, 1951.
Westlake in Daly City
The landmark report calls Westlake his most ambitious project, an "iconic midcentury subdivision," and sets out the timeline:
1945: Doelger bought a 1,350-acre tract of hog and cabbage farms in San Mateo County.
1947 to 1949: initial grading, a ceremonial groundbreaking in March 1949, and shopping center construction from July 1949.
1950: the first tract of 32 houses was completed.
1952: five homes a day and 1,200 workers.
1965: he sold the shopping center; by 1969 he had sold most of his remaining coastal land in the county, about 8,000 acres.
Over about 20 years he built roughly 6,500 single-family houses, 3,000 apartment units and a central 40-acre shopping center. The report calls Westlake "Northern California's largest planned community constructed during the 1950s."
Daly City's history page and General Plan environmental report tell it differently: Doelger bought "some 600 acres of sand dunes and cabbage patches," the land was annexed to Daly City in 1948, and he later doubled his land purchases. The landmark report gives 1,350 acres.
Daly City's General Plan Land Use Element dates the Westlake subdivision to the early 1950s. Its single-family homes are "generally split level, detached units constructed on 3,000 square feet or larger lots," at 12 to 15 units per acre, with "a greater emphasis on building design" than other neighborhoods west of I-280, which differ "only in the building facade treatments."
He was not the only builder there: the city's environmental report says "he and other builders" built thousands of homes in St. Francis Heights and Serramonte. During World War II, SF Planning adds, he built an estimated 3,000 military dwelling units for the Army Corps of Engineers in South San Francisco, Benicia, Vallejo and Oakland.
For another Bay Area merchant builder, see our history of David D. Bohannon's Hillsdale and South Bay tracts. For the city's mid-century houses, start with our San Francisco page.
Owning a Doelger house today
In San Francisco. SF Planning wrote the context statement for its 2012 survey of about 2,800 buildings in a central area of the Sunset, reviewed only from the public right-of-way. Its July 2013 lists name 84 buildings that appear individually eligible as historic resources. By our count of the lists, Doelger is credited with 23 of the 38 on the Streamline Moderne and Art Deco list and 3 of the 46 on the Period Revival list. The survey's FAQ sheet says the survey is not a landmark designation, but that certain alterations to buildings over 50 years old require environmental review. Ask SF Planning about a property's status before exterior work.
Signs of change. The context statement says Sunset tract houses of 1925 to 1950 had wood sash windows, and "aluminum sliders were not installed prior to the 1950s." Original garage doors were paired, paneled wood doors with glass, and "very few buildings" keep them today.
In Westlake. Daly City's 2030 General Plan includes tasks to keep zoning rules that preserve older neighborhoods' character and, as one example, to provide for three-foot side yard setbacks in Westlake "where there is currently no side setback required." The city's Residential Additions Guidelines say rooms added downstairs within the existing foundation are generally feasible if they stay out of required parking areas, that outside additions are limited by lot coverage, and that second-story additions need plans by a California registered architect or engineer. Confirm current rules with the Daly City Planning and Building Divisions. This is general information, not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
Is a Doelger house in the Sunset mid-century modern?
No. His Sunset houses date from 1927 to the early 1940s and use Period Revival styles or, from 1937, Streamline Moderne. The landmark report uses "midcentury" for Westlake, begun in the late 1940s.
How can I tell whether Doelger built my house?
Start with the original building permit and the assessor's record, and look for a numbered job card in the basement or garage. SF Planning warns that even "Doelger City" has many houses by other builders, so don't rely on looks alone.
How many houses did Henry Doelger build?
No one knows exactly, because he destroyed his business records. SF Planning gives approximately 11,000 San Francisco buildings, with a caution, and other estimates run higher. Westlake added roughly 6,500 houses and 3,000 apartments.
Do Doelger houses carry old deed restrictions?
Some may. SF Planning's 2013 context statement found no deed restrictions on his 1932 Period Revival tract on 31st Avenue, but says racially restrictive deeds "appear to be standard practice" on new houses in his large-scale development by the late 1930s, and that such covenants were ruled unconstitutional in court cases beginning in 1948. To remove old covenant language from a deed, see our guide to restrictive covenant modification.
Related reading
Bohannon Homes: David D. Bohannon's Hillsdale and South Bay Tracts
Is My House Historic in California? Lists, Criteria and Review
Sunstream Homes and the Gellert Brothers: A San Francisco History
Stoneson Brothers Builders: Lakeside, Stonestown and the Sunset
Chris McKeon's Happy Homes: A Sunset District Builder History
Oliver and Arthur Rousseau: Builders of the Sunset's Boulevard Tract
More guides on this topic: Mid-Century Modern Architects & Builders
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Researching a Doelger house? Call or text the Boyenga Team at Compass at (408) 373-1660 or (650) 383-8606, or contact the Boyenga Team to talk through the house and its history.
