Elegant entries, SF

It could be Italy, but it's actually at the top of Russian Hill, on Green Street.

1360 Montgomery, SF

The apartment where Lauren Bacall's character hid Humphrey Bogart in Dark Passage has always been one of my favorites. It's a 1938 design by architect Irvine Goldstine, with ornamentation that seems to epitomize the Age of Progress.
A bay view apartment came up for sale in this building about a year ago, priced at something like $250,000. Naturally, there was a catch: It was part of some sort of affordable housing program, and you couldn't buy it unless your income was below $50,000 or some such amount. As that wouldn't qualify you for the mortgage, I'm not sure how that was supposed to work.

Definitely not politically correct!

It's hard to imagine anyone using Native American figures as faux pillars today, but they're kind of interesting as architectural anachronisms, reminders of a lost part of our collective consciousness.

Pacific Felt Company, SF

Fantastic re-use of an historic industrial building.

Paul Smith store, SF

Great proportions, lovely use of color.

Mojave Desert

Why, yes, it is a pile of rocks...