PreservationSan Francisco’s Victorians Are Going Gray—to the Dismay of ManyAlthough some see more muted tones as keeping with the times, not everyone in the Bay Area is on board with the move toward monochromes

By Tim Nelson

November 23, 2021

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A house painted as gray as San Francisco fog.Photo: Getty Images

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Since long before the dawn of the internet, San Francisco’s homes have been awash in color. From the Painted Ladies of Alamo Square to the psychedelic houses of Haight-Ashbury, the city’s Edwardian and Victorian homes have only increased its visual prominence.

But San Francisco’s cacophony of color could be fading in favor of the trendy muted neutrals some see as depressingly stale. “I walk the neighborhood every day, and I see all these gray houses,” Richard Segovia, a longtime Mission resident whose mural-coated home has attracted cash offers of up to $2.5 million, recently told The Guardian. “It’s like being in a cemetery.”

Admittedly, the bright trims and whimsically-painted doors that have helped define the city’s residential architecture often clash with true history of how Victorian homes were painted. “When these Victorians started out, they didn’t have as many options in colors—typically white or gray, in lead paint,” architect and gray-house resident David Baker told The Guardian. 

“I don’t think we should take it seriously,” Baker said. “It’s just paint.” But don’t try to tell some locals that this point of civic pride is just paint. To longtime residents and color proponents, eye-popping hues are a window into the city’s varied personalities.

“[The] beauty of San Francisco is in the Victorians and Edwardians, and the contrast of the houses and the curves and the detail,” said Mission resident Fred Messbarger, whose 1870s Italianate home mixes multiple shades of blue with a neon green door, among other flourishes. “One house could be totally different colors from the others.”

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The move toward muted monochromatism is admittedly popular in other parts of the country. “I think the main reason is that it’s a trend toward simplicity and being modern,” Bob Buckter, a longtime color consultant who has worked on an estimated 18,500 vibrant buildings in the Bay Area, said. “They’re tired of the polychrome look, some of these people. This trend has been noticed by other people, and some people are just going on the wave of that trend.”

Whatever the reason for the creeping advance of neutrals in San Francisco, one could certainly argue that the great paint debate is a flashpoint in a broader argument over the city’s gentrification. But given how much real estate costs in San Francisco these days, one could also make the case that anyone lucky enough to live there should be able to paint their home whatever color (or rainbow of colors) they please.