PROJECTS
Hibernia Bank Historic Structure Report
LOCATION: San Francisco, California
CLIENT: Dolmen Group
DATE COMPLETED: Ongoing
In 2008-09, Chris VerPlanck, Shannon Ferguson, and Tim Kelley of Kelley & VerPlanck Historical Resources Consulting jointly prepared a Historic Structure Report (HSR) for the Hibernia Bank Building at One Jones Street, in San Francisco's Mid-Market corridor. Designed by architect Albert Pissis and built in 1892, remodeled and expanded in 1905 by Pissis, and repaired after the 1906 Earthquake, the Hibernia Bank Building is San Francisco's finest "banking temple" and one of the city's earliest and best examples of the Beaux-Arts-influenced "American Renaissance" style. The bank closed in 1985 and the building has remained vacant since 2000. Weather, lack of maintenance, and vandalism have all taken their toll but the building is still remarkably intact.
In 2008, the building's new owners, the Dolmen Group, requested Kelley & VerPlanck to prepare an HSR to document the building's construction chronology, construction methods and materials, and significant character-defining features. As part of the project Kelley & VerPlanck hired photographer William Porter to take several large-format color photographs of the building. The HSR includes significance diagrams that identify and rank in importance Hibernia Bank's interior spaces and exterior cladding, pointing out areas that can undergo some change and other areas that should not be altered. The property owner plans to use the HSR as starting point for rehabilitating the building in the near future.
