West Portal Spanish/Mediterranean beauty asks $1.59 million

“Magical and rarely available” is the realtor’s first word on 15 Ardenwood Way, a three-bed, one-and-a-half bath house, circa 1933, at the tip of the West Portal neighborhood, only a few blocks from Stern Grove.

Whether that’s a fair assessment depends on the potential buyer’s point of view—this place last sold in 2006 (for just over a cool $1 million even) and then before that in 2001.

Perhaps it’s more rare in the sense of the Depression-era homes decidedly non-depressing style, as this house has retained touches like old tile work (including on the stairs leading up to the entry), painted ceiling beams, mahogany doors, and old built-ins.

Found SF notes that this kind of Spanish/Mediterranean style home is common throughout West Portal and other neighborhoods just east of the Sunset on account of being fashionable in the years following the 1906 earthquake.

West Portal builders were trying to imitate the big Spanish-style homes in nearby St. Francis Wood.

Although as it turns out in the previous centuries the land here was mostly ranchos, and the neighborhood ended up with architecture that resonates with its history via a happy accident.

Ardenwood Way is a tiny cul-de-sac (roughly 330 square feet from end to end) coming off Sloat Boulevard two blocks from 19th Avenue.

It’s a small residential pocket squeezed between different neighborhoods, but similar early 1930s homes dot it on both sides, making for a pleasant tableau of stucco facades and tile roofs.

• 15 Ardenwood Way [Zephyr]
• West Portal History [Found SF]
• West Portal [Curbed SF]