Oliver and Arthur Rousseau were trained architects who turned to building houses in San Francisco's Sunset District during the Depression. Through their Marian Realty Company they built Storybook-style tracts from 1931 to 1933, ending with the 93 houses of Rousseaus' Boulevard Tract next to Sunset Boulevard. San Francisco Planning drafted a landmark district ordinance for that tract between 2016 and 2018. The city's records we read today show no designation.
We worked from four SF Planning records: the tract's draft Article 10 ordinance (May 2018), the department's archived project page, its list of Article 10 districts and the Sunset District Residential Builders, 1925-1950 historic context statement (dated April 3, 2013). The Rousseaus built 1930s Period Revival houses, not mid-century modern ones. We cover them because the same context statement frames the Sunset builders whose later work reaches into the postwar years.
Who the Rousseau brothers were
According to the context statement, the Marian Realty Company was founded in 1922 and led by Arthur Rousseau and his younger brother, Oliver. Unlike many Sunset District builders, both were trained architects. Their father, the Victorian-era architect Charles Rousseau, had been their partner. The statement's builder table lists Marian Realty as active from 1922 to 1933 and names Oliver and Arthur Rousseau themselves as its architects.
The two split the work. Arthur, the firm's president, handled development financing. Oliver designed the houses. In the early 1930s Marian Realty partnered with the Whitney Investment Company, which Oliver headed, to build single-family tracts in the Sunset "one block at a time."
SF Planning's chapter on builders says Sunset merchant builders typically had no formal architectural training, "with the notable exception of Oliver and Arthur Rousseau." It names Oliver Rousseau among the master builders it uses to judge historic significance, alongside Henry Doelger, the Stoneson Brothers and the Standard Building Company. The statement also says that of the 53 Sunset District buildings from 1925 to 1950 recorded in the city's 1976 Architectural Survey, nearly all were designed in the early 1930s by Oliver Rousseau.
From big buildings to Sunset houses
In the 1920s the Rousseaus designed and built large apartment buildings, hotels and office buildings. After the 1929 stock market crash dried up demand for that work, SF Planning says, the brothers switched to single-family houses.
The Sunset District years were short. The context statement dates the brothers' Sunset building to 1931 through 1933 and estimates that they built fewer than 200 houses there. It still credits those houses with a pronounced effect on the neighborhood. Later builders and designers, including Henry Doelger and architect Charles Clausen, "often directly incorporated signature design elements from Rousseau buildings."
Their first Sunset development was 24 houses on 33rd Avenue between Kirkham and Lawton Streets, completed in May 1931. SF Planning also lists smaller clusters of Rousseau houses on 26th, 35th, 38th and 43rd Avenues and on Irving and Noriega Streets, without blocks, years or counts. It says the Rousseau tracts moved the Sunset away from near-identical houses in one style toward a mix of Storybook, Tudor Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival, French Provincial and Mediterranean Revival designs, united by a common setback, form and massing.
Rousseaus' Boulevard Tract
The firm's Sunset work ended with the houses next to the newly paved Sunset Boulevard. The context statement describes it as three blocks and 93 houses, completed in 1933. The draft ordinance describes the same group as "a two-block residential tract" of 93 single-family residences built in 1932 and 1933. The two counts of blocks differ, and neither document explains why, but both give 93 houses.
The draft ordinance sets the boundary in words. It takes in the west side of 34th Avenue, both sides of 35th Avenue and the east side of 36th Avenue between Kirkham and Lawton Streets, which is all of Assessor's Blocks 1880 and 1881. Most of the houses are semi-attached on the avenues. Four detached houses face Kirkham and Lawton Streets.
By the ordinance's count, the tract has 51 Spanish Colonial Revival houses (15 with Churrigueresque features and 7 with Monterey features), 23 Tudor Revival houses and 19 French Provincial houses. SF Planning's statement of significance says the Rousseaus put Storybook versions of all three styles into one tract, while Storybook style elsewhere is "strictly" derived from Tudor Revival. The ordinance says the two brothers lived in the tract from 1933 to 1937.
The patio plan
SF Planning credits Oliver Rousseau with the "Patio Plan," first designed in 1932. It is an open-air courtyard set into the top story, which separated the living and sleeping areas, opened off several rooms and can't be seen from the street. The context statement says it was widely adopted by Sunset builders in the 1930s and was less common after the tunnel-entry plan arrived. The draft ordinance says the plan was first introduced in the Boulevard Tract.
The patio shapes vary by street. The ordinance says nearly all houses on 36th Avenue, all on the west side of 35th Avenue and some on the east side of 35th had rectangular patios. Many on the east side of 35th had horseshoe-shaped patios, and the houses on 34th Avenue had oval ones.
Patio-plan houses are not limited to this tract. SF Planning says aerial photos from 1937 and 1938 show how common the type became across the Sunset, so a courtyard alone doesn't prove a Rousseau. The context statement also says Rousseau houses brought features it calls new to San Francisco at the time: two- and three-car garages, sunken living rooms, water heaters and laundry machines.
Model homes and marketing
SF Planning names the Rousseaus and Henry Doelger as early promoters of fully furnished model homes in the Sunset. The brothers' first known models, advertised as the "Sunset House," were a pair on 36th Avenue in 1932 with identical patio-plan interiors and different façades. In 1933 the Rousseau developments around 35th Avenue and Kirkham Street had 18 model homes decorated and furnished by O'Connor Moffat & Co.
The "Surprise House" on 35th Avenue reportedly drew more than 6,000 visitors at its opening, the context statement says. Along with its three-car garage and interior patio, it showed a triangular kitchen sink and a large dressing-room closet.
Bankruptcy and Rousseau & Company
The houses sold well, but Marian Realty ran up debts spread across many banks, insurance companies and mortgage firms, and it declared bankruptcy at the close of 1933. In April 1934 Oliver formed a real estate and brokerage firm, Rousseau & Company, on Geary Boulevard in the Richmond District. SF Planning says it did scattered infill of single-family houses, duplexes and some larger projects across the city, "with no known new buildings developed in the Sunset District."
What a Rousseau house looks like
The draft ordinance lists the features that define the Boulevard Tract:
two stories over a ground-floor garage, with a raised front roof ridge over a cathedral-ceiling living room and flat roofs behind;
a prominent second-floor picture window or a group of large windows;
a second-floor front door reached by an open side stair, sometimes with an arch or alcove at its base;
round, octagonal or square turrets (17 Spanish Colonial houses have them) and a heavy chimney;
a recessed garage opening with a matching "tradesman" door, usually set at a right angle to the garage door.
The ordinance also records common changes. It says few historic garage doors remain, aluminum or vinyl replacement windows are common, and some patios have been enclosed, which it calls incompatible. Skylights over patios it calls compatible. Several houses have vertical additions, though only one is highly visible from the street.
Was the Boulevard Tract ever designated?
Not as far as the city's current records show. SF Planning's archived project page says the 2012-2013 Sunset survey identified the tract as a potential historic district and that the Historic Preservation Commission adopted the survey findings on September 18, 2013. In summer 2016 staff completed a follow-up survey and a designation report, held neighborhood meetings and drafted the ordinance. The page then says, "The next step is to designate the Tract as an Article 10 landmark district."
That step doesn't appear in the department's list of Article 10 and Article 11 districts (last updated August 25, 2023). The one landmark district that list shows as designated in 2018 is the Clyde and Crooks Warehouse District, which holds Appendix O, the appendix letter the Rousseau draft used. In the Board of Supervisors' legislative records, we found no matter with the Boulevard Tract in its title. So the draft's review rules are not in force.
The 2013 survey still matters. According to SF Planning's survey FAQ, state rules send some alterations to the city's buildings older than 50 years through environmental review, and finished survey results speed up the department's permit review. It also says a survey is not a landmark designation and doesn't stop owners from altering a house. For how California lists and reviews historic buildings in general, see Is My House Historic in California?
What to check before you buy or remodel
Trace the builder. Use the original permit and assessor records. Patio plans and Storybook façades were copied by other builders.
Ask SF Planning about the parcel's historic status before exterior work, and expect historic review for façade, window, door or stair changes.
Look at the patio. Find out whether it has been enclosed or skylit, and check the permits for that work.
Check the roof and drainage around the flat roofs and the patio edge.
Two more Sunset builders from the same context statement have their own histories here: Henry Doelger and the Stoneson brothers. Our San Francisco mid-century homes page covers the rest of the city.
FAQ
Is the Boulevard Tract a landmark district?
Not according to the records we read. SF Planning drafted an Article 10 ordinance in 2018, but the tract isn't on the city's list of Article 10 districts.
Are Rousseau houses mid-century modern?
No. SF Planning describes them as 1930s Storybook and Period Revival houses in Spanish Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival and French Provincial styles.
Related reading
Stoneson Brothers Builders: Lakeside, Stonestown and the Sunset
Is My House Historic in California? Lists, Criteria and Review
Fernando Nelson and Sons in the Sunset and West of Twin Peaks
Sunset District Builders Context Statement: A Guide for Owners
More guides on this topic: Mid-Century Modern Architects & Builders
Want email updates on Eichler homes? Sign up for Eichler Alerts.
Researching a Rousseau house in the Sunset? 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.
