A stove named Rhonda. Photo courtesy Flickr.
Recently, I visited an apartment on Nob Hill in San Francisco. My hostess had found a spot in a dignified old building that had been maintained with amazing insight.
The kitchen was fitted with the original gas stove, a narrow version of a collectible turn of the century gas cooker. This stove, O’Keefe and Merritt?, is heavy, the white enamel is thick, there are cast-iron heat-diffusing burner units and a heavily-enameled pull-out spill tray under the top of the stove. The chrome fittings, it goes without saying, are thick and more than adequate to their years.
That’s just the stove. The sink unit opposite it is enameled cast-iron with a built-in drainboard. It looks like Montgomery Ward’s finest from the Fifties, but it’s probably older. It has been set onto a fresh cabinet unit. In this design, there is nothing close to standing water that will deteriorate.
The most amazing part of this little kitchen is the back of the upper cupboard. The building dates from after the big earthquake in 1906. It’s probably pre-World War I. The timber that rebuilt San Francisco, I understand, came from Seattle trees, true old-growth from virgin rainforest, land that had never been logged. The grain of this wood, known as straight-grain Doug fir, is like none other. These were the trees that became imperial masts of sailing ships, and each speaks of centuries and its home forest.
The back of the kitchen cupboard is unpainted straight-grain Doug fir beadboard. It has darkened with the decades, but there is no sign of careless kitchen practice. Wood like this is like blotting paper and though nearly as tough as steel, the surface is tender. By some miracle, every housekeeper in the unit has spared the naked cupboard wall from knocks and smears of butter. It’s a piece of historic preservation that deserves honor.
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