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Tucked away in an industrial nook of San Francisco is a Norman-style fort, full with a turret constructed greater than 150 years in the past and a bathroom within the form of a throne. A documentary by filmmaker Kirsten Dirksen takes viewers contained in the partitions of Albion Citadel, and even she says after residing within the metropolis for a decade, she by no means knew in regards to the stately abode.
The place is at the moment owned by Invoice Gilbert, a retired San Francisco police officer and real-estate investor, and within the fascinating video tour, his daughter Jennifer leads the way in which. Invoice bought the 2 bedroom-property for $900,000 in 2012 after it had laid dormant for someday, and the renovation course of concerned sprucing up the residing areas together with attending to one of many residence’s extra uncommon options: a community of underground caves which nonetheless produce between 8,000 and 10,000 gallons of pure spring water a day.
The fort was inbuilt 1870 by John Hamlin Burnell, a younger English immigrant, who noticed potential within the pure water provide and had visions of turning the plot right into a state-of-the-art brewery. A black and white classic photograph of the fort across the time it was constructed, present the way it was surrounded by farmland with no different properties within the neighborhood.
Right this moment, nevertheless, the fort sits again from a busy highway and it’s sandwiched amid a patchwork of residential buildings with an industrial dockyard past. However stepping via the fort’s iron gate into the leafy grounds, Jennifer says it’s like venturing into ‘a special universe.’
The principle a part of the fort was constructed from rock that was excavated whereas digging the cave community, whereas wooden from the native shipyard was used for assist beams and different inside options. Burnell’s visions got here to life and Albion Ale & Porter Brewery functioned for a while till Prohibition compelled the operation to shut down in 1919. The fort was then was a brand new enterprise enterprise because the Albion Water Firm and it served as a bottling plant for consuming water from 1928 till 1947.
Whereas it was in operation as a water bottling manufacturing facility, the fort was occupied by an American sculptor named Adrien Voisin and lots of of his wooden carvings, which run from the bannisters to ceiling covings, stay at the moment.
Considered one of Voisin’s kookier additions was a bathroom that appears like a throne. Within the video tour, Jennifer demonstrates how the bizarre toilet includes a wooden encompass, with a again panel and arm rests with a ceramic ashtray inserted on one facet. The bathroom additionally ‘performs music’ while you flush it so ‘the entire home can hear.’
Transferring alongside on their tour, different rooms to function within the brief movie embrace the formal eating room, the kitchen with darkish wooden cabinetry, the massive front room with a gothic-style chandelier, and one of many cozy bedrooms with a canopy-style mattress. The digicam crew additionally climb to the highest flooring of the fort tower, with this residence to a small sitting space with the unique apex wooden ceiling uncovered above.
Jennifer explains that the highest flooring of the tower would have initially been used as a storage space for the hardly used within the beer making course of. Transferring to the decrease ranges of the fort, the staff tour the cave community with the hand carved stone interiors on present. It’s believed that hand picks have been used to create the caverns with all the rock eliminated in wheelbarrows; an arduous venture that might have taken a number of years.
Footage exhibits how the water held within the cisterns is crystal clear and Jennifer says some folks have swam within the stone vats with prior permission. In 1961 the fort was below risk of demolition due to being adjoining to a highway development plan, however its underground spring waters saved it from peril. It was determined that if San Francisco was ever threatened by a nuclear assault, the fort might present emergency water to residents. It is likely one of the solely pure water sources within the metropolis that can not be contaminated and was established as a historic landmark in 1974.
Earlier than the Gilbert household bought the fort, it was owned by one other artist following Voisin’s occupation and there have been plans by native brewers to then relaunch the brewery however these by no means got here to fruition. When it hit the market, Invoice Gilbert snapped it up, as he had been fascinated by the property his complete life and as a baby, his dad and mom would take him to a restaurant over the way in which the place he would spend extra time daydreaming in regards to the fortress than on ending his dinner.
Right this moment the fort is out there to hire for small occasions however the long-term plan is to deliver again the water bottling enterprise to ‘make the most of the pure, contemporary spring water from the cisterns initiated by the founder.’ Concluding her tour, Jennifer notes that the fort is the ‘sole remaining piece of historical past’ courting to the time when San Francisco was a swathe of rural land peppered with ranches.
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