Geezers’ Gallery

San Fran­cisco Art Studios (Liter­ally) Under Water
When I was composing my story for Part One of this recent series about renting art studios in San Fran­cisco, I found that my first loca­tion was being offered as apartments!

So I reached the others who also rented from the famous Melvin Belli — known as the ​“King of Torts”

Melvin Belli was a promi­nent Amer­ican lawyer known as ​“The King of Torts”. He had many celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammad Ali, the Rolling Stones, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, Martha Mitchell, Lana Turner, Tony Curtis, and Mae West. He won over USD $600,000,000 in judg­ments during his legal career. (source: inkwellmanagement)
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I wrote to Thom LaPerle, to see if he knew of the update of our old offices:

5/30/22, 2:02 PM Email to Thom LaPerle
Hi Thom,
Who else could I send this to?
https://​www​.apart​ments​.com/​7​2​2​-​m​o​n​t​g​o​m​e​r​y​-​s​t​-​s​a​n​-​f​r​a​n​c​i​s​c​o​-​c​a​/​v​m​q​9​q​jd/
Who would be shocked to see our studios as apartments?
This website shows inside court­yard windows only.
Wonder what the rents are. (?)
How is every­thing up north?
Ann
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On 6/6/22 10:56 AM, Thom La Perle wrote:
Hi Ann… sorry I’m sooooooooo late with this reply.
Yikes, yes that’s my old office space.

Thom then and now 

Thom LePerles rented space 

In February of 1970, I leased a small space in the Belli Building over­looking the south side of the court­yard, and then added/leased an addi­tional larger space on the east end of the court­yard over Mel’s recep­tion office. Janet Jones occu­pied the small space at the west end over­looking the court­yard and was across the hall from your previous location.
In late 1979, Belli wanted my entire space for expan­sion and offered to buyout my lease. I was reluc­tant to relo­cate, but every week someone from his office would come upstairs and offer me an addi­tional $10k to move. Finally, I was forced to hire a real estate advisor to deter­mine my costs for relo­cating and setting up a new office. Regret­fully, I finally accepted $50k and moved to space above Swiss Ski Sports on Clay Street, across from the other side of the Pyramid… ugh!

Up until 2017, I was coming down to the SFBA 2 – 3 times a year for family, friends and industry get-togethers and would usually be in The City for one of those occa­sions. I always made an effort to tour the old Jackson Square area, and I would always be disap­pointed in the on-going demise of the familiar busi­nesses and the boarded-up Belli Building…everything seemed dead or dying.

Belli Building before repairs 

Belli Building under repair 

Belli Building 2015 Rental 

On a Friday morning in 2015, during one of these neigh­bor­hood stopovers, I rounded the corner of Jackson and Mont­gomery streets and was shocked to see that the barri­cading around the Belli building had been removed and construc­tion was in progress. I was lucky enough to meetup with the project super­visor who told be the reno­va­tion was nearly complete with apart­ments upstairs and retail down­stairs… and, an open house party was planned for ​“tomorrow night”, Saturday (lack of time prevented me from attending). I wasn’t allowed to go into the building during the construc­tion, but I could see into the court­yard and it was void and painted engi­neering green. Geez, what a depressing feeling.

Regarding your query of the unit’s price, in the Apart​ments​.com link that you sent to me, there is a ​“Frequently Asked Ques­tions” section that states the ​“starting” (?) price is $4,350 for the space. Also, I phoned the number listed thinking that I might be able to talk with a listing agent… nope, I got a phone message asking me to leave a message. I think the voice on that message was Nancy Ho, Mel’s last wife, who was a devel­oper of several SF prop­er­ties prior to her marriage to Belli.

Ann, thanks for the ​“heads-up” on the status of the Belli Building… it brings back great memo­ries and some fun times.
Cheers, Thom
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On Jun 6, 2022, at 3:45 PM, I wrote:
Hi Thom,?I’m thinking (if it is OK) to send both of our letters on to Janet Jones. I forgot to reach her when writing to you and Dick Burns.?I have just written a ​“Part One” for Geezers’ Gallery that tells a little about the Belli Build­ings, just a little because I plan to tell about each loca­tion where I have freelanced.?
Ann
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On 6/7/22 1:44 PM, Thom La Perle wrote:
And, ​“yes”, it is fine with me if you want to post/forward our corre­spon­dence… there is no clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion there.
Regarding the windows shown in the ad photos, it looks like they may have recon­fig­ured them from the orig­i­nals in the remod­eling process. When I was there, there were eight smaller windows side by side across the south court­yard wall. I’ve included some photos below of my space showing some of the north facing windows over­looking the court­yard from the south side wall. I wouldn’t doubt if they replaced the entire south wall over the court­yard because the brick mortar in the walls was bad and sifting out… every morning we would have to dust and wipe-down our drawing tables and other table top surfaces that faced that wall.
Some­times it was more than just mortar dust that we cleaned up, there would be small bits of brick. When I was remod­eling the larger space, we were opening up the ceiling and found two large beams span­ning the width of the building that had slipped out of their brick wall slots on the north wall over the Belli recep­tion office. That happened just before Belli bought-out my lease. After we moved in late 1979, they brought in a large crane to Hotaling alley and refitted and rein­forced the beams.
A high school buddy of mine was a foreman in the steel fabri­ca­tion and instal­la­tion busi­ness and was heavily involved in the rein­force­ment of many down­town pre-earthquake buildings…yeah, he was the one putting up all those ugly steel criss­crossing I‑beams. He told me that the steel work made the build­ings safer, but not safe.
Ann, look forward to your ​“Part One” GG coverage of your SF free­lance ​“nesting” spots.
Best to you guys, Thom
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6/9/22 5:14 PM I wrote to Janet Jones
Hi Janet,
Thom LaPerle and I have been writing about the days at the Belli Building.
We both felt that you might like to read our memo­ries of 722 – 728 Mont­gomery Street.
I hope all is going well for you.
Ann Thompson
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On 6/9/22 5:25 PM, Janet Jones wrote:

Hi Ann and Thom
Here’s a little more from my old office there. Belli was noto­rious for not paying bills, and insisted on patching instead of replacing the entire roof. Then when it still leaked he refused to pay for the patching and even­tu­ally no roofer would work for him. There was a huge down­pour lasting several days toward the end of my tenancy, and the inside of my office, the inside of the wall adja­cent to the court­yard bulged several inches as it filled with water. There were several other leaks in the ceiling, and then the wall burst. All my books were destroyed, the drawers of my flat file filled with water, and the rug a swamp. Luckily I had Valu­able Papers insur­ance, thanks to my insur­ance broker husband, so I closed the door one last time, took the money, bought an etching press and never looked back.
Greet­ings to all,
Janet
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6/10/2022 2:10 PM I wrote to Janet.
Hi Janet,
Your Belli story tops Thom’s or mine!
Ann
GREAT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
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6/10/22, 5:26 PM I wrote to Thom.
Hi Thom,
Janet’s story tops ours in Belli Building woes!
Ann
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6/12/22, 11:26 AM Thom wrote.
Wow, that’s awful. That must have happened just after we moved because our back space was adja­cent to Janet’s office and we would have expe­ri­enced some of the same issues. Some­times we could hear water drops on our false ceiling because of the extreme distance between the roof and the ceiling. A couple of times we’d get a small wet ​“balloon” shape in the ceiling, but nothing leaked through.
The more I reflect on my stay in the BB, the more I realize how unsafe the building was, espe­cially when I saw the two beams that had slipped out of their cradles in the north wall during our reno­va­tion of the addi­tional office space that I leased.
Thom
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Note:
You can see Janet Jone’s website at the column at the right, listed under Artist’s Sites.

In May of 1965, I had sub-rented from lettering artist, Bill Hyde, on the third floor of Belli’s second building which was accessed through the great iron gate and attrac­tive court­yard / garden area.

BTW: Bill let me use one of the drawing tables that he acquired when the BH & H part­ner­ship broke up. I show these, that I found on-line, the older must be the Nestler brand. i show the Nestler, newer model, to show how the board could be easily lifted up to a flat surface, so that the artist could stand at the board, working from all sides. It was the best board for my needs. When I left the Belli Building, I then had a pedestal type board. To raise it, I had to rotate the board (clear of any objects around it) and then lift it, then to lock it at that height, I needed to turn it back to its orig­inal direc­tion. (Not easy).

Also, who took photos in those days? (Thom La Perle) I show a sketch of Bill’s studio. The addi­tional view of the north wall shows what must be a home-made Camera Obscura / Lucida. Bill had it moved up to the third floor from the Butte, Herrero & Hyde loca­tion on the 2^nd floor of 722 Mont­gomery. It was draped to keep out the light of the studio. I used it constantly, but I never analyzed its working parts. There was a wheel to turn to bring the tacked image closer and farther from the lens that would revert the image which would then be reflected downward.
(On-line, I cannot find an example where one sits and where the image falls directly onto the artist’s drawing / painting surface.

Belli Building 

Gated entry Belli Building 

722 – 728 Mont­gomery Street 

Similar to Bill’s board 

Nestler board raised 

Pedestal Drawing Board 

Melvin Belli provided no heating in the building. We were in a cold, wet studio in the winter. We dressed warmly, plugged in heaters at our feet and when Bill Hyde bought an old Franklin Stove, we fired it up, but that gave little heat because the roof / ceiling was twice the height of that in a normal room. Coffee cans to catch the leaks was part of my early art studio training.
Every renter knew Belli to be a ​“cheap-skate” when it came to fixing up his rentals, but at Christmas time there was a treat for his staff and renters.
As a sub-renter, I was included in the exclu­sive Xmas Party held in the base­ments area. Pisco Punch was served, and I was of drinking age.
Pisco_punch

Also remem­bered:
When I was working at the Building Building, my mother told me that Grandpa, John Tammi (natu­ral­ized: John Seaman), had the very young Melvin Belli repre­sent him in a case where Grandpa was hurt on a ship where he worked as a winch-driver loading lumber on and off of ships along the Cali­fornia coast. (I don’t know if he won the case.)
Ann Thompson