This Victorian, Queen Anne-style home, on the northeast corner of Page and Ashbury in the Haight section of San Francisco, was built by the grandfather of the late California US Senator, Alan MacGregor Cranston (1914-2000). Robert Dickie Cranston (1849-1916) came to San Francisco from Ontario, Canada in 1870 and, with his partner Hugh Keenan, established (in the early 1890's) one of San Francisco's first commercial home building companies.
This residence represented the last phase of Victorian styles in house building. It features the flourishes of Queen Annes: decorative shingles, the round corner towers with semi-circular bay windows complemented by turrets ("witch's cap"), tall chimneys, and spacious porches. Various exterior surfaces using many different materials help highlight the ornate cornices, brackets, and columns. Queen Annes were often painted in a rainbow of colors. The fashion at the time was fairly dark colors, along the lines of what we today would call "Earth tones" — sienna red, hunter green, burnt yellow, muddy brown, etc. This house remains a beautiful example of that era.
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