Welcome to the Ohlandt Newlyweds House in San Francisco's historic Mission district. To tour the house in "virtual reality", please click over the floor plan you wish to see. If the QTVR multicolor color logo does not appear shortly after you start downloading, click on the STOP button of your browser as you need a QTVR player installed. Return to the front page for a link into Apple's website where you can download for free the proper "QuickTime" update for your computer. For Win95, update to "QuickTime 3.0." Approximate download times for each floor are, for T-1 line, 30-40 seconds and 10-12 minutes for 56K modem. Below is a condensed history of the Newlyweds cottage and its lost historic neighboring buildings: Nicholas Ohlandt and his wife Matilda had the Newlyweds cottage built next door to their own house in 1888 as a present to their newlywed daughter, Emma, on her wedding to William T Jungbluth. The Jungbluth's lived in the cottage until 1895 when, as a widow, Emma returned to her parents' home. In 1898 the Ohlandts' youngest son, John C. and his new wife Theresa A. Lahaney, moved into the cottage also as newlyweds, and lived there until 1901. Both the son and the son-in-law worked in Nicholas Ohlandt's business. In 1902 the Ohlandts brother and sister deeded the cottage to Charles William Ohlsen, a close relative. In 1916, Ohlsen's heirs sold it to John and Bessie Lydon. John Lydon died in 1930 while Bessie Lydon lived in the cottage until 1940. The cottage was built by F. Mitchell & Company on a "San Francisco Stick/Eastlake" design by Wolfe & Son, Architects. James E. Wolfe and his son George H. arrived in San Francisco from Baltimore in 1861 and by 1865, had one of the most sought after architectural firms in The City. The Wolfes were major proponents of the Stick style and were instrumental in making it prevalent in The City throughout the 1880's. In 1880 they founded the California Architect and Building News (CABN) and until 1900, they were respectively, their Editor and Publisher. With a circulation of over 50,000, CABN was the second largest publication of its kind in the United States, the first one being the New York Scientific American Architects and Builders Edition, which published from 1885 to 1905. Most of Wolf and Son's designs were lost during the 1906 earthquake and fire that devastated San Francisco. A prominent survivor, Alfred Sutro's 1884 Stick mansion overlooking the ocean at the south entrance to the Golden Gate, was later lost to a fire in 1910. In 1882, Charles Eastlake (widely acknowledged as England's greatest architect of the time) and the Wolfes exchanged published correspondence initiated by a CABN editorial refuting arguments by several local and east coast architects that the Stick style was derivative of Eastlake's. Eastlake wrote back an open letter siding with the Wolfes. Curiously, Eastlake's name stuck to the Stick style throughout the United States, hence the current local practice to add "San Francisco" to the name of its Stick/Eastlake architecture, clearly identifies this only-in- San Francisco style. Nicholas Ohlandt and and his brother Hy (Henry) arrived in San Francisco from their native Germany in 1851. After a series of increasingly profitable business ventures, Nicholas successfully "cornered" the potato markets in California and Hawaii, and in the process, earned the nickname of "Potato King" in the local press. In 1872 he founded the German Savings and Loand which he sold to Wells Fargo Bank in 1885 on a stock exchange that propelled him to a seat on their board. In 1875, on speculation that the new City Hall was going to be built on the present site of General Hospital, Nicholas and Mathilda bought half of a city block near-by in partnership with Hy and his wife Catherine. By 1879 the partnership had developed 6 lots with 4 income duplexes and a general store, sold 8 lots to the Episcopal Diocese of California and kept the remaining 5 for Nicholas and his wife. In 1880 the Ohlandts built a house for the family (also designed by Wolf & Son) on a 3-lot parcel. This house was demolished in 1939 along with the 4 income duplexes and the general store, to give way to a Safeway store. In 1975, the Safeway store was replaced with the 50-unit Bethel apartment house. On May 21, 1994, citing the "high integrity of its architectural style" as well as its "historic significance", the California Office of Historic Preservation listed the Ohlandt Newlyweds House in the State Register of Historical Resources. On August 23, 1994, the Keeper of the Register at the U.S. Department of Interior, listed it in the National Register of Historic Places. Designed by Bliss and Faville, Architects, and built in 1911 as a community center on 5 of the 8 lots owned by the Episcopal Diocese, the Mission Cathedral of the Good Samaritan was the largest "Arts & Crafts" structure ever built in San Francisco. Bliss and Faville also designed many existing city landmarks, among others, the original Bank of California (at California and Montgomery Streets), the St. Francis Hotel (on Union Square), the Geary Theater, the original Masonic Temple (at Market and Van Ness) and the State Office Building (on Civic Center). The Good Samaritan Church was built in 1924 on the adjacent 3 lots to the Mission Cathedral on a design in the "Mission Revival" style by Lewis Hobart. Hobart was then architect-in-residence with the Diocese and his greatest design is Grace Cathedral, a "Gothic Revival" church built in 1927 atop of Nob Hill, on the previous site of the 1885 Charles Crocker mansion, the largest private residence ever built in the west and which burned to the ground in 1906 disaster. In 1991 the Diocese, after claiming their buildings had been irreparably damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, secured FEMA funding and vacated the Good Samaritan buildings. In 1992, the Diocese formed the Good Samaritan Partners with Mission Housing Development Corporation (MHDC) and sought to replace their buildings with a new community center and 20 units of subsidized housing. Their plans were accepted by The City but rejected by the State Office of Historic Preservation which informed The City and the joint developers that both structures had been deemed eligible to the National Register on two counts each. A year later, in concert with mayor Frank Jordan's administration headed by Patrick McGrew, then president of the local Landmarks Board, the developers went ahead and started to demolish the Good Samaritan complex despite its historic status. The local Inner Mission Neighbors Association (IMNA) which had been appealing the demolition through landmarking process, filed suit and obtained a temporary restraining order against the developers from Superior Court judge Steward R. Pollack. During the ensuing hearing, Judge Pollack appeared to be ruling from the bench against the developers, but "mysteriously" reversed himself on his final written opinion. IMNA obtained the transcript of the trial and filed an appeal with the State Court of Appeals citing the judge's contradictions. The Court of Appeals accepted the case and extended the stay on the demolition for two weeks, at which time they lifted it without comment and declined to hear the case. As the developers resumed demolition immediately, IMNA decided to forgo a further appeal with the California Supreme Court. The cost of replacement for the new buildings eventually exceeded $7,500,000, most of if provided by Federal Tax Credits involving some of the largest corporations in the Bay Area, a gross violation of the National Preservation Act which mandates that no "federal" monies shall be used to destroy (potentially eligible) federal landmarks. The estimated cost to restore them: $1,500,000.