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Jim Siegel has been fascinated with Victorian architecture since watching the Addams Family television show in his youth. As a teenager he witnessed the destruction of thousands of Victorian homes in San Francisco during the urban renewal of the 1970s. He began salvaging Victorian ornaments from the doomed buildings as a teenager and purchased an 1870s Italianate in 1977 to restore and reuse the wide array of mantles, doorknobs, and stained glass which he had salvaged. During the next three decades Jim has restored seven San Francisco Victorians, including the Landmark Westerfeld Mansion on famous Alamo Square Park. An avid preservationist, Jim is often found at local government meetings fighting the demolition of San Francisco's architectually significant buildings. Jim was instrumental in saving from destruction the landmark Fallon building located at 1800 Market Street for its rebirth as the headquarters of the LGBT Center. Last year, while searching on the Internet, Jim stumbled acrosst the Phillip's House, an 1870s home in Medina, Ohio which was in immediate danger of demolition. Jim decided to disassemble the building and rebuild it on a 30 acre site in Forestville, California. |
