Name/Title
Print, PhotographicEntry/Object ID
2007.046.0332Scope and Content
Color Photograph
156-178 West F Street Benicia CA
Parcel Number: 89-173-14
Common Name: Anderson Hotel Historic Name: Ripson House
California Craftsman Bungaloid style
This rectangular wood frame complex of apartments was once the site of a rooming house and later a resort hotel on the waterfront at the foot of West F Street. It consists of two, two-story gable roof rectangular buildings with a single story center building. A wide covered (partially enclosed) veranda runs the full length of the front. The entrance stairs are off center beginning as a straight stairway and culminating at the sidewalk in straight, double stairs. A sandstone retaining wall runs along the front. The veranda posts and enclosed lower half, and the solid railing of the stairs are stucco. The buildings are clad in asbestos siding over what appears to be redwood shingles. At the rear is a single story bungalow with low gable roof and wide eaves supported by brackets. In 1919 the complex consisted of three buildings: a 2-1/2 and 2-story buidings united by a front veranda. The buildings were built in circa 1917, 1904 and 1879, and each had a sandstone walled basement. The Anderson Hotel was destroyed by fire June 1,1920. It was rebuit in 1921 along a similar configuration of three buildings united by a veranda. The architectural style appears to be Craftsman Bungalow with sheathing of natural redwood shingles and handsome mahogany French doors at regular intervals along the veranda. The original French doors are unaltered, and their design is an equal row of three small panes at top and bottom with central long panes. A brick cistern is under the cottage in the rear, as is a portion of the sandstone walled basement of one of the original circa 1904 or 1917 wood frame buioldings. The westernmost two story building has an intact sandstone basement believed to haev been that under the 1879 building which was originally a two-story single famiily residence.
Mr. & Mrs. William Ripson are believed to have operated the "Ripson House" as a rooming house from circa 1900 to approximately 1910 or 1912 and it was they who built the 1904 two and one-half story building. According to the Benicia Directory of 1904-05 some twelve individuals plus the Ripson family lived there. By 1912 Mr. Peter Anderson was the proprietor of "The Anderson" with his daughter Albina as manager. In the same directory, Dr.H.C. White is listed as a local dentist. Dr. White married another of Mr. Anderson's daughters, and by 1919 H.C.White ,E.R. and A.C. Anderson owned the property known as "The Anderson Hotel". This hotel was a showplace and a resort through the 1940's at Benicia. Long-time residents recall with pleasure the outstanding meals and teas and dinner parties and wedding receptions held in the dining room of The Anderson. It may have been converted to apartments by the present owners. An aviary and remnants of an old garden remain on the east side, and on the Carquinez Strait to the west is Dr. White's laboratory and an old ark of board and batten convered to an on-land structure. The carriage house/barn still exists at the alley protected now by compositon siding. There does not appear to be a remnant of the resort bath house but a portion of the resort dock is still maintained.The beach at West Second and West F was once a popular local gathering place during the summer months.Collection
Benicia Architectural Study - 1989