Albert L. Farr


Albert L. Farr was an American residential architect who designed homes in the Craftsman and Georgian styles.

Biography

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he grew up in Yokohama, Japan. The Farr family returned to the United States in 1891, and settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. Farr lived at various times in San Francisco, and also in Berkeley, Piedmont, and Oakland. From 1909 through the end of his career he maintained an office at 68 Post Street in San Francisco.
Farr earned his architecture license in 1901, one of the very first in California. He took on a partner in 1922, eventually naming his firm Farr & Ward. Farr and his firm designed buildings throughout the Bay Area, particularly in the San Francisco neighborhoods of Russian Hill, Pacific Heights, Sea Cliff, and St. Francis Wood. Many of his designs involve a facade of brown wooden shingles.

Projects

Farr also designed houses in Belvedere, Piedmont and Woodside. His most famous is the Wolf House for Jack London, in Glen Ellen. The home burned before construction was completed. Long thought to be the result of an arson, recent analysis of the ruins, located in Jack London State Historic Park, determined the cause to be spontaneous combustion.