PROJECTS
Oceanside Survey
LOCATION: San Francisco, California
CLIENT: SPEAK/SAHRIC
DATE COMPLETED: June 2012
Beginning in 2008 as part of his original firm of Kelley & VerPlanck Historical Resources Consulting, Chris VerPlanck began a multi-phase survey of San Francisco's Outer Sunset and Parkside districts, an area historically known as "Oceanside." From the late 1890s until the early 1920s, Oceanside remained a rural beachfront community isolated from the rest of the city by miles of shifting sand dunes. Incorporating the even older community of "Carville," a cluster of houses and businesses made of salvaged horse-drawn streetcar bodies, Oceanside was known for its seaside dance halls and saloons, Bohemian lifestyles, and live-and-let-live culture. By the Second World War these new developments had absorbed the older enclave of Oceanside and the even older settlement of "Carville."
Chris VerPlanck and his partner Tim Kelley developed a GIS-based field survey methodology to inventory only properties with a recorded construction date of 1924 or earlier. Using this methodology, field surveyor Woody LaBounty, with assistance from Chris VerPlanck, was able to capture only buildings constructed within the period of significance identified within the historic context statement. Of the properties surveyed, nearly all were single-family cottages. Some were so-called "earthquake shacks" and others were made of repurposed street cars. By the mid-1920s, merchant builders began erecting entire blockfaces of rowhouses on the once-pristine sand dunes of the outer avenues.
With significant assistance from Karin Sidwell, Chris VerPlanck prepared California Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) 523 A (Primary) forms for all 511 individual properties developed before 1925. The second phase of the project consisted of documenting and evaluating in detail a subset of 60 properties on 523 B (Building, Structure, & Object). Mr. VerPlanck also prepared DPR 523 D (District) forms for five potential historic districts identified during the field survey. The survey is currently being reviewed by San Francisco Planning Department staff.
