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1919. "Paige touring car at San Francisco Golf Club." Our second look at the "driving" range. 5x7 glass negative by Christopher Helin. View full size.
A few examples of this type of roofing do in fact still exist in the San Francisco in the Westwood Highlands district of San Francisco. Many English Cottages were built in the 1920's to attract a burgeoning middle class with affordable houses built from scratch. These houses feature cottage roofs, stained glass and other signs of refined decoration. It is one of the most beautiful residential neighborhoods, however obscure the name is compared to better known neighborhoods. It is however in the deep fog prone area, bordered by St. Francis Woods, and during certain heavy fog seasons it is very reminiscent of movies like the Big Sleep.
Could those perhaps be slate shingles, rather than wood ?
I've seen slate roofs laid up like that. The ones I've seen were on late 19th or early 20th century buildings which were designed to look "Old World"
I have seen that pattern of wood roof shingle on cottages of the same era, in Hollywood California. Instead of being cut as rectangles, the wood shingles are cut with one ripple side. When the roofer lays them down, he creates the parallel waves in the way he overlaps the layers.
I have never seen anybody place the ripples as close together as they are on this roof. Maybe these are smaller tiles. The ones in Hollywood were two or three times the distance apart of these rows. But they had a wonderful aesthetic missing from commercial roofs laid today.
Alas, when these homes get re-roofed, nobody re-creates the original look. I saw them back in the 1970s. Doubt any of those roofs, which were 50 years or so old then, survive today.
the type of roofing on the building behind?
[Shingles imitating English-cottage thatch. - Dave]
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