I was in San Francisco the other week doing some research for an article, visiting a long-time editor friend, some family, and looking around the city for some stories and ideas. I found plenty – including a big surprise: this microbrewery/restaurant/hotel called Bartlett Hall.
Bartlett Hall is located just off Union Square at 242 O’Farrell Street, and at least by 1939 this was the home of the Paris Restaurant, the first of several French eateries here. From around 1956 it was Le Trianon, who advertised that they were holding their first snail race here on September 26, 1958.
Fifteen years later in 1973, Rene Verdon began giving cooking lessons here: he had been the chef at the White House, hired by Jackie Kennedy in 1961 and serving through the administration of Lyndon Johsnon. By the time the restaurant closed in 1986, it was known as “Rene Verdon’s Le Trianon”.
By 1988 it was Jil’s and still a French restaurant, though it offered American cuisine as well, courtesy of chef Lucas Schuemaker. That mix of Europe and America didn’t seem to go well though, and Jil’s was declared bankrupt in August 1989.
When it became the award-wining seven-barrel microbrewery called Bartlett Hall is unknown, thought they won their first award for their beer in 2016. The “Hall” part of the name is due to the fact it can be hired as venue that will host around 225 people, while alongside the Hall is the Bartlett Hotel and Guesthouse at 240 O’Farrell Street, which seems to be a small 3-star budget-level hotel of close to 100 rooms on the upper levels.
As for the name, that comes from Washington Montgomery Bartlett (1824-1887), who was the sixteenth Governor of California, as well as the 20th Mayor of San Francisco.
Known for his honesty and the only Jewish man elected to the office so far, his time as Governor was cut tragically short, as he died after only nine months in office. His portrait – and that of several other historical notables in San Francisco history – is on the Hall’s beermats.
Of course, I had to look in the archives at the Main Library in San Francisco to see if there had been any crimes and misdemeanors here, and I found a few stories.
On March 27, 1904 a fire was reported at what was then called the Columbus Lodging House (242 O’Farrell Street was the address given in the San Francisco Chronicle report, noting that the proprietor was WW Dunlap).
Smoke was seen on an upper floor, but it was quickly extinguished, with damage estimated at $500. A faulty electric wire was said to be to blame, and the report noted that “many women live in the house, and though there was much confusion, none was hurt.”
It was over half a century later before this address made the news again: on September 16, 1956, Marine Sergeant Louis Osborn was critically injured when he fell from a fifth-floor window here. Osborn, 21, and his two roommates – Privates Ruben Mariscal and John Underwood – told police they had just come back from a “night on the town” when the accident occurred.
Oklahoma-born Osborn crashed into the steel marquee over the hotel’s entrance, and suffered a fractured skull and other injuries; he had just arrived from Japan, and was awaiting reassignment.
Not much to get excited about you may think, though several other Chronicle articles mention a Dunlap House at addresses on both sides of what’s now Bartlett Hall, and there’s also a possible clue in the name WW Dunlap, the man mentioned as proprietor of Columbus lodging house when that small fire happened in 1904.
There’s a Dunlap House listed at 220 O’Farrell Street on May 6, 1898, the day that Arthur H. Klein was arrested. He had been charged with stealing a sealskin sacque (a very fancy fur coat) from Beatrice Hopkins, and from “borrowing” a large amount of money from her. It was also alleged he had been forging his wealthy father’s signature around town, and police back in his home town of Pittsburgh wanted a word with him.
Klein denied all this, and told police he came to San Francisco in January and soon met Beatrice, who was living with another woman in room at Dunlap House. He said he spent most of his $600 romancing Beatrice, who had apparently recently left her railway road husband in Oakland, and “since the separation has been well known about town.” So, who conned who?
Less than a year later on March 11, 1899, it was reported that detectives Thomas B. Gibson and Ed Egan had arrested a prize-fighter named William “Dutchy” Baker and his accomplice Lorenzo Peterson at the Dunlap House.
The pair had been charged with conspiring alongside Oscar Anderson to embezzle some $800 from a local lumber dealer named Charles Nelson three weeks earlier. Nelson had sent Anderson to the bank to get the $800, but en route Baker and Peterson managed to convince him to do otherwise.
“Dutchy” and Anderson fled the city for Sacramento, and then Santa Rosa, where they used the money to buy a saloon. They were auditioning women to perform as “variety actresses” when the detectives caught up with them just as they were about to take a train to rejoin Anderson in Sacramento.
On March 14, 1903 there was a “General Melee” at the Dunlap House, with “blows, oaths, screams and a finale punctuated by the clubs of three policemen” at Dunlap House, which was now listed as 246 O’Farrell Street – the other side of Bartlett Hall today).
It was around 2.30am when A. Dunlap (a relation to WW?), DT Clancy, CE Harding and A. Campbell were all arrested for various offences including disturbing the peace, carrying a concealed weapon, and assault with deadly weapon. Also in the fight was Fred Hodges, who suffered a broken leg and nose, and Neil Williams, a deputy sheriff of Santa Barbara County no less, who had cuts on his head.
What had happened? Apparently, Hodge, a tourist, had wandered into Dunlap House in the early hours of the morning on a “sight-seeing expedition,” reported the Chronicle and bumped into a group of fellow sight-seers.
Hodge “did not fit nicely into the party,” and an “altercation” arose in the hallway. Fists flew, police were summoned, and all the men were fined from $500 to $1,150, though to a man they “refused to discuss their troubles” as they waited for new about Hodge: if his injuries were fatal, they could be in very big trouble indeed.
They said nothing either about why they argued, though the Chronicle said it was “understood it arose over some of the women in the house,” which seemed to imply the Dunlap House may have offered more than food and lodging…
I’m not certain how many of these neighborly stories might have taken place at the Bartlett Hall of today, or whether the Dunlaps perhaps had several hotels along O’Farrell Road (nor whether, newspaper reports got the wrong address or didn’t include one in their articles).
Then of course there was rebuilding after the infamous 1906 fire, and over a century of other possible rebuilding, renaming, and even renumbering. Either way, it was a great surprise to find Bartlett Hall on my own sight-seeing around Union Square – and they serve good beer too!
