the pure pleasure of details

I am fascinated by details.
I had the opportunity to spend a few days in San Francisco last week. My goal: walk around and take photos. I am not sure why I am so fascinated by architectural details, but whenever I see old buildings, my imagination runs wild. For instance, on the first evening in SF, I just started walking north....up and down...up and down. I found myself on the top of one of the many hills. I had no guidebook yet, but I noticed a big dark mansion with a fascinating fence around it. After a little research, I learned that this building was the only house to "survive" the 1906 earthquake/fire on Nob Hill: the Flood Mansion now the Pacific-Union Club. The mansion was gutted by the fire but the shell survived and the building was restored. The fence is original, bronze and sandstone. The Pacific-Union Club is some kind of ultra exclusive men's club.

I had to laugh after reading this since one of the things I noticed while circling the building was the dumpsters full of discarded pizza boxes. Oh, I am sure it was "gourmet" pizza!

to be continued....