The Red Victorian

37°46′10″N 122°27′01″W / 37.769489°N 122.450218°W / 37.769489; -122.450218

The Red Victorian
The Red Victorian in 2008
Map
Former namesJefferson Hotel, Jeffrey Haight
General information
TypeHotel
Address1665 Haight St
Town or citySan Francisco, CA 94117
Technical details
Floor count3
Website
http://www.redvic.com/

The Red Victorian is a historic hotel on Haight Street in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, two blocks from Golden Gate Park.

History

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Jefferson Hotel and Jeffrey Haight

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The hotel was built in 1904 as the Jefferson Hotel.[1] In the Summer of Love in 1967, it became the Jeffrey Haight, a free "crash pad".[2]

Red Victorian Bed, Breakfast & Art and Peace Center

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In 1977, environmental artist and social activist Sami Sunchild acquired the building, painted the facade red, and named it the "Red Victorian Bed, Breakfast, & Art". She decorated the hotel with psychedelic art and gave the 17 guest rooms themes such as the "Flower Child" room, the "Rainbow" room, the "Cat's Cradle" room (with cat), the "Redwoods" room, and the "Peacock suite". Goldfish swam in the toilet tank in the Aquarium Bathroom.[1][3] The Peace cafe and Peace Arts gift shop were on the ground floor;[3] next door was the Global Village Center, a bazaar and coffeehouse.[4] In 1992, Sunchild told an interviewer that the hotel was "about upgrading our consciousness";[4] in 2007 she described it as a "global hotel" where guests could "meet, get involved with other travelers and have great conversations on world peace".[2] She established the Peaceful World Center at the Red Victorian and in the 1990s began hosting Sunday morning World Peace Conversations there, which became an international network.[5]

Red Victorian cooperative

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Sunchild died at the age of 87 in July 2013.[6] The following year, Jessy Kate Schingler, founder of Open Door Development LLC and The Embassy Network, established the Red Victorian, LLC[7] as a subsidiary of District Commons, a non-profit that provides housing for formerly incarcerated people and funds community arts events,[8][9] and on July 1, 2014, District Commons took over management of the Red Victorian under lease from the Peaceful World Foundation non-profit established by Sunchild. The hotel was affiliated with The Embassy Network as a 20-room co-living house with community spaces on the ground floor, which hosted art shows, lectures, and parties.[7][10] It later operated as an Airbnb.[11]

The closure of hotels and ban on public events instituted in spring 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic made it challenging for The Red Victorian to continue the hotel or other activities. District Commons announced on the Red Victorian Facebook page that the hotel's lease would be terminated early at the end of September.[12][13] In August, Fishbowl Drag performances began in the hotel's front window, and the Fishbowl SF collective launched a fundraiser in order to lease the building as housing for queer, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people and people of color.[11][8][14][15] During this time, a dispute between District Commons and other individuals, including those performing with Fishbowl, arose around residential tenancy in the building. District Commons said that the group did not have permission to live in the hotel and in October said that it had filed a forcible detainer to require them to leave.[16][17]

The parties reached settlement in June 2021[18] and all tenants and occupants left the building by the end of 2021.

Current Ownership

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The building was sold in September 2022. No business has yet re-opened at the hotel. The glass storefront is obscured and heavily graffitied.[citation needed] Permits show significant interior renovations are underway.[19][better source needed]

Red Vic Movie House

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The Red Vic independent movie theater, operated by a collective, opened in July 1980 in rented space in the Red Victorian and later moved to a separate building on Haight Street.[20][21] In the 1980s, it began annual screenings of "The Hippie Temptation", Harry Reasoner's shocked coverage of the Summer of Love on the first broadcast of the CBS series Who, What, Where, When, Why in August 1967.[22] It closed in 2011.[21]

Banksy mural

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The Red Victorian can be seen on the far-right of this image taken in 2010, with Banksy's work adjacent.

The Red Victorian was one of the sites decorated with street art by Banksy during a visit to San Francisco in April 2010: from an adjacent roof, he spray-painted a rat clutching a marker pen on the side of the building, and the slogan "THIS IS WHERE I DRAW THE LINE" nearby.[23] After a fundraising campaign, the pieces of siding were removed in December and stabilized so that the Haight Street Rat could be displayed,[6] and it toured art galleries as part of an exhibition of Banksy's work.[23] The same image reappeared in 2017.[24]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Haight-Ashbury's Living Museum: Red Victorian Bed, Breakfast & Art", Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood History, San Francisco Public Library, c. 1996, retrieved October 30, 2020.
  2. ^ a b Lindsey Morrow, "'Summer of love' in San Francisco 40 years later", Colorado Springs Business Journal , June 22, 2007.
  3. ^ a b Jeanne Cooper, "Still a Bohemian rhapsody", Travel, The Observer, May 26, 2007.
  4. ^ a b Jerome Richard, "Love and Haight", South Florida Sun Sentinel, June 21, 1992; republished as "Haight hangs on", Tampa Bay Times, [December 26, 1993], October 10, 2005.
  5. ^ "Peaceful World Conversations", The Red Victorian, archived on April 19, 2012.
  6. ^ a b Evan Sernoffsky, "Quest to display an S.F. Banksy tests value of street art", San Francisco Chronicle, [June 20, 2014], June 21, 2014.
  7. ^ a b Camden Avery, "Red Victorian Bed & Breakfast Has Estate Sale, New Version Coming", Hoodline, June 25, 2014, retrieved October 30, 2020.
  8. ^ a b Joshua Rotter, "With glamour and grit, Red Vic aims for permanent queer housing transformation", 48hills, September 9, 2020, retrieved October 30, 2020.
  9. ^ District Commons 2014 tax filing Propublica non-profit explorer, p. 2, retrieved November 6, 2020.
  10. ^ The Red Victorian, archived on August 3, 2014.
  11. ^ a b Amanda Bartlett, "'All I have to give to the world is this show': SF Fishbowl performers fight for their home", San Francisco Chronicle, September 30, 2020.
  12. ^ "With glamour and grit, Red Vic aims for permanent queer housing transformation". 48 hills. 2020-09-09. Retrieved 2021-07-16.
  13. ^ Facebook announcement, The Red Victorian (registration required).
  14. ^ Camden Avery, "Drag in the age of social distancing: Red Vic debuts 'fish bowl' window shows", Hoodline, August 17, 2020, retrieved October 30, 2020.
  15. ^ Tony Bravo, "In-person drag performances resume in San Francisco, but at a safe distance", Datebook, San Francisco Chronicle, [September 3, 2020], September 10, 2020.
  16. ^ Susan Steinle, "BIPOC Trans Artists At Odds With Non-Profit Over Future Of SF's Red Victorian Hotel" (with video), Project Home, KPIX TV, October 27, 2020, retrieved October 30, 2020.
  17. ^ John Ferrannini, "Landlords dispute Red Vic collective's claims", Bay Area Reporter, October 29, 2020, retrieved November 5, 2020.
  18. ^ "SF Superior Court Records Lookup Case CUD-20-667426".
  19. ^ "SF PIM Lookup for 1665 Haight St". Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  20. ^ Carla Meyer, "Haven in the Haight: Red Vic offers alternative films without the attitude", San Francisco Chronicle, [July 1, 2001], February 1, 2012.
  21. ^ a b G. Allen Johnson, "Red Vic Movie House in San Francisco to close", San Francisco Chronicle, [July 7, 2011], December 6, 2011.
  22. ^ "#onthisday 50 years ago, 'Hippie Temptation' aired on CBS News", SF Weekly, via Summer of Love, California Historical Society, 2017, retrieved October 30, 2020.
  23. ^ a b Camden Avery, "Banksy's 'Haight Street Rat' Returns", Hoodline, January 22, 2015, retrieved October 30, 2020.
  24. ^ "Banksy Rat Reappears Above Upper Haight's The Red Victorian", Hoodline, July 5, 2017, retrieved October 30, 2020.
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