Tobin House

Built by flamboyant and controversial architect Willis Polk, the Tobin House is one of San Francisco's more curious structures. The style--Tudor Gothic Revival--in a sea of Victorians is unusual, but it's the scope of the home that is truly unique. Technically, the Tobin house is only one-half of what was intended to be adjoining, mirror image homes. The three-story, wood-frame house covered in stucco featured half of a Gothic pointed arch at one front corner. The house was the home of Constance De Young and her husband, bank executive Joseph Tobin, and was a gift from Constance's father, newspaper publisher Michael H. De Young. Her sister Helen decided against her father's offer of a home to be built on the adjacent lot. The Tobin House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2009 for its architecture and continues to be a private residence.

Strolling along California Street, passersby may notice a building that is reminiscent of medieval architecture, a bit of an oddity in San Francisco. But the more striking aspect of the building is its arch, or rather, its half-arch; it ends abruptly at its midpoint, where it abuts another building. This architectural curiosity is the Tobin House, built in 1915 by flamboyant architect Willis Jefferson Polk (1867-1924). Polk was dismayed by the trend of building ornate Victorians and Queen Annes, and favored a more restrained style, albeit one with a somewhat medieval flavor. Polk built the house at the request of Michael Henry De Young, the co-founder with his brother of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, for his daughter, Constance.

Constance Marie De Young was born in San Francisco in 1885. She was educated in San Francisco and then in Europe, as were her siblings. Constance was the middle child of four girls and one boy. Her sisters were named Helen, Kathleen, and Phyllis. An older brother, Charles, died in his early thirties of typhoid in 1913, just two months after he had been named the publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle. Constance was a talented singer and painter; she married Joseph Oliver Tobin in 1908, a banker in Hibernia Bank of California, a bank co-founded by his grandfather.

De Young purchased two lots in 1911 adjacent to his own estate. His original plan was to have Polk build two houses--one for Constance and the other for another daughter, Helen--which would connect and be mirror images of each other. But the Tobin daughters apparently had other ideas. While Constance De Young Tobin was willing to live in the home next door to her parents, her sister and her husband (George E. Cameron) chose to live in an affluent community south of the city. As a result, the other half of the Tobin house was never built, leaving the existing structure with an odd, chopped-in-half appearance. The Gothic arch was intended to mark a shared driveway between the two sister's homes. One reason Constance agreed to the move was that her mother, Katherine was stricken with cancer in 1913; she passed away in 1917. A bridge connected the Tobin House to her parents' home.

The Tobin's resided here until 1927, two years after her father's death. They still owned the home in 1940, when the De Young sisters sold their parents' Victorian home next door to developers; the Tobin's purchased part of the parents' lot where a driveway and a single-story addition were added later. Helen also sold her lot where the matching house was never built. The Tobin House was sold to Gualtiero Bartalini in 1943, who operated the house for decades as a hotel catering to those in the performing arts. Constance Tobin lived to the age of 82; she passed away in San Mateo in 1968. Joseph Tobin almost made it to 100; he died one month before his birthday in 1978 in Hillsborough, where the couple had established an estate home in San Mateo County (south of San Francisco).

Bennett, Karen Mickel. Memorial for Constance De Youn Tobin (1885-1968), Find a Grave. June 15th, 2012. Accessed April 4th, 2025. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/91967287/constance_marie-tobin.

ColmaKitty. Memorial for Joseph Oliver Tobin (1878-1978), Find a Grave. March 11th, 2013. Accessed April 4th, 2025. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/106525403/joseph_oliver-tobin.

Little Orange in the Big Apple. Memorial for Charles De Young (1881-1913), Find a Grave. January 10th, 2014. Accessed April 4th, 2025. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/123115000/charles-de_young.

McNeill, Karen. NRHP nomination, Tobin House, San Francisco, CA. National Register of Historic Places. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 2008.

Noe Hill. http://noehill.com/sf/landmarks/sf260.asp Retrieved 8 May 2017.