HILLS AND STAIRS

San Francisco is well-known for its hills. We marvel at the houses that are built on the steep hills and wonder how anyone gets out of a car parked at a ninety-degree angle in front. On one side the passenger would have to push against the momentum of gravity; on the other, the driver would have to keep from falling out the door and rolling down the hill. Honestly.

A friend and I went to the annual SF Decorator Showcase, which featured an elegant Victorian, like so many San Francisco homes, which was built on a slight hill. Before we arrived, we thought good thoughts about finding a parking space. One opened up for us right across the street just as we came to the house -- an unheard of happening. We zipped in and counted ourselves lucky that we didn't have to walk up the hill to the house.. No problem getting out of the car since we were facing downhill and our tires were curbed. We looked across the street at two older women, one with a walker, slowly progressing to the entrance of the event. We wondered if the two could make it up the hill to the house.

Before we entered the house itself, we had to walk up three flights of stairs that brought us above the garage to the front door. We thought of the two women still slowly progressing up the sidewalk and how they would do with the challenging stairs. The designers of each room had reimagined the house and brought out its beauty while retaining the feel of a Victorian. Still, it was four stories tall and each staircase was a feat in itself to climb.

Once we got inside the house, we could see some of the original stained glass windows and also the curved windows in the bay window in the front of the house that looked out to the Golden Gate Bridge. That view was worth the climb up the stairs. It looked out on rooftops to the edge of the Bay and across to the hills beyond the bridge.

I thought of the people who lived in the house when it was first built in 1987, which means it survived the 1906 earthquake. The people must have been in good shape to live in this house with all of its stairs and with no dumbwaiter that I could see to help carry supplies to the kitchen on the first floor. Or they had a lot of help. The thought of the dumbwaiter reminded me of the one we had in our Paris apartment which went all the way from the basement or cave where the inhabitants stored their wine. The apartment had two sets of stairs: one for the servants' entrance that led from the basement to the kitchen and to the garret at the top. The other staircase off the entry wrapped around the tiny, rickety elevator with its folding doors that didn't allow more than two people in at the same time. The stairs were lined with several stained glass windows and broad enough to carry small pieces of furniture. Otherwise, any large pieces came in through the French doors at the front of the apartments. The top floor of the building had rooms originally used by servants, which have become storage or bedrooms for older children when they come home. The windows on that floor looked out on the rooftops of Paris. What a sight.

Geraniums on rue de Lasteyrie