The Smallest House on The Block

How a tiny house on Frederick street has attracted the avarice of big political juice

The swath of Frederick street near Shrader epitomizes the idyllic nature of Cole Valley: open, tree-dotted streets, houses with charming facades, interspersed with mom-and-pop coffeehouses and grocers. The neighborhood has developed a reputation for being eminently livable but at the same time unpretentious and tolerant: a combination that has attracted residents as notable and diverse as Craig Newmark and Rickie Lee Jones.

Left: 450 Frederick Street. The little house, next to the big one. Note the deck on top of the neighbor's garage.

But there is a war going on here. One which has bought out the worst motives in people who are thought of as community leaders, and has bought to bear the power of major political players. What is the war over? Is a nearby school closing? Is a major chain store moving in? Is it over the future of one of the many nearby green spaces?

Nope. It’s over the little forlorn looking house at 450 Frederick Street, it’s over the perceived status some people think they have in the neighborhood, and over supposedly genteel people who are waging war against legal construction to divert attention away from their own, illegal construction.

Left: looking down the 400 block of Frederick

450 Frederick is quite literally the smallest house on the block. Built in the 1890’s it was once a fairly decent example of a small 19th century row house. Over time and successive owners, it’s been remodeled to death and then neglected to death for years. The original façade is completely gone; the house itself is functionally obsolete and is over shadowed by virtually all the neighbors’ structures around it. Alex Gutkin, the owner of the house, wants to tear down the house and replace it with a 40 – foot, three-unit Edwardian-style building – which is more in line with the other structures on the block - and will provide housing for both him and his extended family, plus another unit to be sold at a comparatively affordable price. Gutkin followed all the necessary legal procedures to get the project approved, and received a categorical exemption from the Planning Department.

Enter Marjorie Beggs. Beggs, along with her husband Richard, a Hollywood sound editor, owns the largest house on the block. She is also the executive editor at the San Francisco Study Center, a Tenderloin nonprofit with significant ties to the city’s political establishment, and which publishes its own community newspaper, the Central City Extra. Her house, or more importantly the deck she has on top of her separate garage, is adjacent to 450 Frederick. And it is Marjorie Beggs who has instigated the war going on in the 400 block of Frederick Street, one that has marshaled citywide political juice to weigh in on a dispute over a small, insignificant, run-down house.


Beggs, along some of the adjacent neighbors, has led an appeal against the categorical exemption granted to Gutkin based upon claims that 450 Frederick still has significant preservation value, and that the new project would be a blight on the neighborhood, being completely out of character with the adjacent structures. But even a cursory analysis of the preservation value of 450 Frederick comes up nil. The façade was completely redone with stucco in the 1940s and later with aluminum siding in the 1960s. In that time any architecturally distinct features were obliterated. The house is roughly half the size of all the other structures on the block. Gutkin applied with all existing City rules that were in place at the time of the application. The parcel is rightfully exempt from any environmental review. If the house standing now at 450 Frederick were a new construction project it would never be approved, because the house as it now stands is not in line with the other structures on the block. And while Gutkin’s opponents have touted the house as potentially part of a neighborhood historic preservation district, no district is seriously planned, and the house itself has no recognized criteria under established state or national standards for being included in such a district.

Based upon all of this the Planning Commission rightly rejected the appeal. But then, Beggs and her merry band of NIMBYs took the case to the Board of Supervisors – where she knew her political connections would give her the upper hand. A move to review the appeal was introduced by Aaron Peskin and Chris Daly – despite the fact that the house is in neither of their districts.

Left: Cole Street resident Jim Krueger calls the treatment by the Board of Supervisors of the Gutkin project at 450 Frederick "Absolutely Criminal."

Last April, the Board voted to support the appeal, based upon the preponderance of appellant testimony about preservation criteria – none of which has ever been substantiated – and over concerns voiced by Peskin that the neighborhood notification process was insufficient. “It was Peskin that got Planning to suddenly change their policy…that somehow, in this one instance here, we need to figure out if the notification process is adequate,” says Jim Kreuger, a neighbor of Gutkin who testified in support of his project. “It wasn’t an issue until Marjorie Beggs came along. You can’t change the rules in the middle of the game. Gutkin already got his cat ex, now you want to talk about it?”

Left: while construction at 450 Frederick is now stalled, another project still goes on right across the street - with no scrutiny whatsoever.

So while the Board of Supervisors was able to take a stand in favor of historical preservation in this case, one has only to go back to Cole Valley to suddenly question what this case was really about. Lots of construction is still going on in the neighborhood, including a major project right across the street from 450 Frederick. So what exactly is being preserved? “Basically what I think is that it’s a tight knit block, they kind of can do as they please because they each kind of look after each other,” say Kreuger. “We’ve got a new person coming in and they feel like, ‘this is our block therefore we rule’…somebody new is moving in and they don’t like it.”

And indeed, a lot of the construction seems to being undertaken by people who were busy at the Board arguing for preservation. Take for instance Marjorie Beggs, and that deck she has on top of her garage; the one right next to 450 Frederick. It would seem that Beggs’ real concern over the project is what shadows might be cast onto that deck. So why didn’t she complain on that basis, or try to work something out?

Well for one thing, it appears that her deck is illegal. No permit was ever applied for, and there are complaints on file at the Building Department against it. There are also complaints on file against Beggs for some illegal in-law apartments, which may or may not exist on her property.

So in the end we are left with more questions than answers. Is the City’s historic preservation policy doing what it’s meant to do, or is it being misused by people who already have theirs and want to screw the rest? The Board may very well have the opportunity to answer those questions again: Gutkin is appealing his denial.