June 3, 2026

San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission · Regular Meeting

The commission meets in Room 400 at City Hall in a small auditorium with tall ceilings and beautiful light. Twelve items on the agenda Wednesday, most of them moving quickly through staff presentations and votes. But two of them kept pulling me back into the city as it was, in the years before much of it existed.

Mow Lee Shing Kee & Company · Legacy Business Registry

San Francisco’s Chinatown, the first and now most vital of its kind, was already dense and under pressure in the 1850’s, its earliest days. Chinese people had been arriving to the Port of San Francisco since the 1849 Gold Rush, many remaining in San Francisco as merchants and artisans or returning from the goldfield, settling into the blocks around Sacramento and Dupont (now Grant) Streets.

At the start of the Gold Rush, this area was steps from the actual waterfront, but by 1856 it was already several blocks away. The bay had been filled in incrementally with ships and wharfs that were abandoned where they sat, then built over, pushing the water east block by block. That’s the year Mow Lee Shing Kee & Company opened at 745 Sacramento Street, bringing ingredients from the homeland to California.

Mow Lee first imported and distributed Cantonese preserved meats from Hong Kong then started making them in-house, decade after decade. Sausages, bacon, dried fowl, all delicacies for adding rich flavor to dishes like fried rice and clay pot. To this day, 170 years later, sausages hang in the open as they always have; the scent of dried meats and rice wine permeate the air. My mouth waters just thinking about it so I’m inspired to share this recipe for sticky rice with Chinese sausage, and even more inspired to make it myself.

Before you head out the door to pick up some Mow Lee house sausage, you’ll need their new address. While the original location survived the 1868 earthquake, the 1877 anti-Chinese riots, and the 1882 Exclusion Act, it would not survive the devastation of the 1906 earthquake and Great Fire. So they relocated and, for nearly another half century, did business at 730 Grant Avenue. Then somewhere around 1950 they moved to their current location, a narrow, nondescript storefront at 774 Commercial Street, where they’ve operated 364 days a year for over 75 years.

In total, that’s 170 years and 7 generations of nearly continuous operation. Naturally, the commission voted in favor of adding Mow Lee to the Legacy Business Registry.

What is the Legacy Business Registry?

San Francisco's Legacy Business Program, administered by the Office of Small Business, recognizes businesses that have operated in the city for 30 or more years, contributed to the character of their neighborhood or community, and committed to maintaining the physical features or traditions that define them.

To qualify, a business must be nominated by the Mayor or a member of the Board of Supervisors, submit a written application, receive an advisory recommendation from the Historic Preservation Commission, and win final approval from the Small Business Commission. Inclusion on the registry comes with recognition and promotional support. This is the city's formal acknowledgment that certain businesses are cultural assets worth keeping.

San Francisco launched the program in 2015, the first of its kind in the country. More than two dozen cities have since started their own.

Fernando Nelson Residence · Landmark Designation

When Fernando Nelson arrived in San Francisco from New York in 1876, sixteen years old, the slopes below Twin Peaks were mostly empty. A few dairy farms. Unpaved hillsides. The Mexican rancho land that had been subdivided and sold off after the Mexican American War. Irish, German, and Scandinavian families starting to move in, but slowly. There was no easy way downtown.

The Market Street Railway brought cable cars to Castro Street in 1887, and then the whole hillside started filling in.Nelson was already building houses in San Francisco. He and his sons would build nearly 4,000 houses from 1876 through WWII. Starting near the waterfront on 3rd Street, he followed the transit lines westward, bought lots, subdivided them, and carried his menu on an index card in his pocket: two floor plans, one on each side. Customers picked one and he built it.

For each development, he’d build himself a house where he could showcase his skills and craftsmanship, run his workshop, and store building materials. His 701 Castro house was the first example of this method. After purchasing some lots around Castro Street in the village of Eureka Valley, he built his own house on the corner of Castro and 20th Streets. In the Queen Anne style, the house has a rounded corner tower with witch’s hat finial, fish scale shingles in the gables, and a stained glass entry window.

The house was originally built slightly uphill at what is now 709 Castro. By 1950 the owners had moved it downhill to the corner where it stands today. Nelson originally kept a workhorse in the basement. The horse helped him saw. Neighborhood children pulled the nails out of old barrels for him. Nelson also collected cars, hence the row of 6 garages along the ground floor.

Nelson was one of the original car nuts and eventually became the first president of the San Francisco Motor Club. Months after the 1906 earthquake and Great Fire, Nelson drove from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a road challenge, breaking the record at 18 hours and 13 minutes. I wonder if the cataclysm propelled him to be daring again. The U.S. military had confiscated his lumber for temporary housing. He had nothing to build with. He was a financial risk taker, but this was also a guy who trekked to San Francisco when he was just 16 year old. A couple years later he and his crew broke the record again at 17 hours and 13 minutes.

Nelson and his sons would go on to build up much of San Francisco’s villages with houses and flats until his passing in 1953. The commission voted in favor of designating 701 Castro Street as a historic landmark building.

The next hearing is June 17th.

This is a reprint of my post on Substack.