From hippie crash pad to multi-million-dollar windfall for the humanities

Even at a funeral, Imogene Gieling was the lifetime of the celebration. 

Dan Frey was 12 when he first met his Aunt Imogene within the early Nineteen Sixties, simply after the sudden loss of life of his father. Gieling, a famed steel artist, and her topographer husband, John, traveled from San Francisco to Texas to mourn her brother and ended up lifting everybody’s spirits. 

“It was very traumatic and very hard on everybody,” he recalled in an unique interview with the Standard. “But she and John came and just changed the whole atmosphere.”

Four years later, through the Summer of Love in 1967, a then-16-year-old Frey made the reverse journey, touring to San Francisco to go to his aunt’s new residence at 22 Beaver St. in Duboce Triangle. The Italianate Victorian had been constructed by a silver refiner within the 1870s, however the five-bedroom, four-bathroom, three-story residence was being primarily used as a hippie crash pad. The metropolis even threatened to sentence the 4,000-square-foot constructing earlier than the Gielings started their decades-long restoration. 

“They had made it livable,” Frey mentioned. “We all thought it was super cool.”

Over the following half-century, Frey visited many instances. It was the place he had his first hit of hashish as a teen and the place he stayed in 2018 when attending a retrospective of his aunt’s lengthy inventive life on the Museum of Craft and Design. Gieling was 95 and blind by then, however she nonetheless acknowledged folks by voice and stunned her household by inviting all her outdated buddies and colleagues again to the home for a raucous after-party.

Shortly after the museum occasion, Gieling suffered a stroke, and her well being deteriorated. She remained in her longtime residence with a caretaker till she died final winter, simply shy of her 102nd birthday. 

Frey is now the household consultant for the sale of the house, which got here to market final month asking $3.85 million. Those hundreds of thousands may very well be game-changing for the native arts teams that may profit, if the house can discover a purchaser. 

Gieling and her husband — who died within the early Eighties — didn’t have kids; as a substitute, she needed the sale of her residence to help the native craft and design group she helped foster. When the house sells, the proceeds will do exactly that, together with a considerable sum for the Oakland Museum of California. 

“All the proceeds are going toward her art form, which is craft and decorative arts,” Frey mentioned. “Every bit of it.” 

Oakland Museum of California Director and CEO Lori Fogarty heard in regards to the Gieling home present early in her practically 20-year tenure on the museum, which celebrates the state’s artwork, historical past, and pure atmosphere. 

Back within the early Nineteen Nineties, Gieling had dedicated to utilizing proceeds from the eventual sale of her residence to help a curatorial place in craft and design.

Fogarty attended a number of events on the “magical” property and recalled Gieling, who buddies and colleagues knew as “Tex,” as a “fiesty” and trendy spitfire who was deeply dedicated to craft as an artwork type. 

“I count myself lucky to have had a chance to know her, and we are grateful that her impact will continue through her support of OMCA and a position named in her honor,” Fogarty mentioned. 

To the director’s information, it’s the first time the museum has had a donor commit funds from the sale of their residence, although it does occur now and again within the nonprofit world. Last yr, pioneering enterprise capitalist George Sarlo gifted the proceeds from the sale of his $26 million Sea Cliff residence to his household’s basis.

Though a San Franciscan for over 60 years. Gieling was carefully related to the Oakland museum. Several of her jewellery items from the Nineteen Sixties and ’70s are on show in its assortment and a longtime good friend was a veteran curator. 

Exactly how a lot the museum will obtain continues to be unknown. Gieling left her heirs in control of figuring out easy methods to divvy up the proceeds of the eventual sale among the many museum and different craft and ornamental arts-related nonprofits. Her nephew mentioned the organizations would most definitely be within the Bay Area. 

But first, the historic home has to discover a purchaser. 

It can be laborious to know precisely what’s authentic within the residence and what was salvaged and put in by the Gielings over time — besides that Imogene stored meticulous information of their enhancements. 

Those paperwork are how Wendy Storch and Maria Marchetti, the Sotheby’s brokers who listed the house in late September, know the oil lamp over the eating room desk is comprised of forged iron however bought at CostPlus, whereas the glass cupboard within the kitchen is a mixture of an outdated Dr. Scholl’s Foot Plaster show case and a $5 chest from Goodwill. It’s additionally how they know the primary flooring toilet was as soon as a terrarium for a gradual loris, a cutely bug-eyed however venomous primate. 

“There’s lots of amazing, colorful detail,” mentioned Storch.

Those tales at the moment are held on the William Morris wallpaper all through the three-story residence — a sly bid to win over historical past buffs. The home was landmarked by the town in 2019, which places some restrictions on what the following proprietor can do, notably on exterior particulars. So far, in line with Storch, patrons who appear most say they need to deliver the house as much as fashionable requirements whereas protecting its Victorian banisters, moldings, and structure intact. 

The funding required to deliver the house updated is one issue that would deter patrons; an even bigger one will be the zen-like persistence wanted to attend by way of the arduous allowing and building course of that may include rehabilitating such a big and historic residence. Storch believes the house’s beneficiant footprint and grand options, like its millwork, excessive ceilings, and the big lemon tree and carriage home in its backyard, will persuade a purchaser to make the leap.

“I have absolute faith, and I’m excited to find out who they are,” she mentioned. 

Frey has his fingers crossed that Storch is true and somebody with a preservationist bent would be the purchaser. 

“I’m hoping that the person [who] buys it would be the right person to love and appreciate it the way [my aunt] did and to carry on the way she lived in it,” he mentioned. “That would be my hope.”