How we clean Presidio Heights
Scale is the first thing to plan for. Between a formal entry, drawing room, library, dining room, butler’s pantry, family kitchen, bedrooms across two floors and a finished lower level, one house here can hold more distinct rooms than a small apartment building. Crews work it in a fixed sequence, top down and back to front, using the service stair so nobody crosses a finished room twice.
Materials are the second. Limestone and marble in entries, quarter-sawn oak or walnut paneling, plaster cornices, brass and nickel hardware, and glazed doors between rooms. Each of those wants a different product and several are damaged by the wrong one. Households near Julius Kahn Playground and along Jackson Street usually settle into a weekly visit with a deeper monthly rotation for the rooms that see less use.
Presidio Heights homes, structurally
Almost everything went up between 1900 and 1930, much of it by named architects, so the level of detail is unusually high: paneled halls, carved stair balustrades, leaded and stained glass, stone entries, deep cornices. Houses commonly run 3,500 to 7,000 square feet across three or four floors, with a service stair, a basement level and often a former staff room at the top. Bathrooms are numerous rather than large. Radiator heat and original single-glazed windows are both still common.