JAMES R. MILLER
Architect
(1869-1946)

James Rupert Miller was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada on June 27, 1869.  His family moved to the United States when he was three and by 1880 they were living in San Francisco.  After graduating high school, Miller apprenticed as a draftsman with architects Thomas J. Welsh, Peter R. Schmidt and A. Page Brown; finally working for Frank S. Van Trees who completed many of Brown’s projects, such as the Ferry Building, after Brown’s untimely death early in 1896.  Miller obtained his California State Architectural license (A137) when they were first issued in 1901 and went into practice for himself, opening an office in the Hearst Building.  Some of his early residences can still be seen in:

• Presidio Heights - 332-34 Spruce (1902, 2 flats), 50 Arguello (1905),
                           -  3565 Clay, 3857 Clay and 3865 Clay (all in 1905);

• Pacific Heights   - 1920 Scott (1904), 2078-82 Green (1905, now 3 condominiums);

• Lake Street       -  50 5th Avenue (1905).

The Mitchells moved into 3857 upon its completion in November 1905.  At the time of the April 1906 earthquake they were 80 miles south at a ranch Mitchell owned in Ben Lomond.  Family folklore has it that their housekeeper loaded the family silver into a baby buggy and wheeled it into the Presidio, safely away from potential damage by aftershocks or the encroaching fire.

After the 1906 earthquake Miller linked up with architect George T. deColmesnil (1878-1943) to supervise the reconstruction of the damaged City of Paris building at the southeast corner of Geary and Stockton and to design one of the first replacement downtown retail and office buildings at the southwest corner of Montgomery and Sutter, for Rudolph Spreckels.  The new 61,000 sq.ft. Lick Building had 31 retail stores and 142 offices and attracted a number of real estate brokers who had been burned out in April 1906 to return from their temporary neighborhood locations.  Miller moved into the building and continued in practice there by himself while deColmesnil acted as City Architect for two years.  The following are some of his fine residential buildings from that period:

• Presidio Heights        -  3311 Pacific (1910);

• Pacific Heights          -  1836-40 Broadway (1909, 3 apts.), 2563 Divisadero (1910);

• Cow Hollow             -  2900 Scott (1909);

• Downtown                -  275 Turk (1909, 65 apts.), 801 Sutter (1911, 54 apts.).

An important connection made by Miller after the earthquake was with N. Le Brun and Sons for the building of a new western headquarters for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, at the northeast corner of Stockton and Pine.  The New York firm, founded by Napoleon Le Brun (1821-1901) and continued by his sons Pierre and Michel, had been MetLife’s architects since 1890 and were designing a new Tower at their New York Madison Avenue location, which at 700 ft., became the tallest skyscraper in the world until 1913, when it was exceeded by the Woolworth Building.

In 1911, Miller and deColmesnil re-established their partnership and the following are examples of their work from that time:

• Pacific Heights          -  2509 Broadway (1911), 2030 and 2040 Gough (adjoining, 1911);

• Presidio Heights        -  3466 Jackson (1913);

• Downtown                -  471-75 Pine (1911), 1000 Market and 111 Mason (1913 hotels).

Miller’s association with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company led to three major expansions of their 600 Stockton building.  While still attending evening high school, Timothy Pflueger had apprenticed in the Miller and deColmesnil office and he worked on the first extension in 1913 and later led the effort for the subsequent two extensions in 1919 and 1930.  The building was bought by Cogswell College in 1974, sold by them in 1987, and opened in 1992 as the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

The Miller and deColmesnil partnership ended in September 1913.  From the following period of Miller’s work we can appreciate an auto repair shop at 1745 Clay (1914), and these fine homes in:

• Pacific Heights          -  2165 Jackson (a 1915 rebuild), 2249 Broadway (1917).

During World War I, Timothy Pflueger worked in Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico as a civilian with the Army Corps of Engineers.  After the war he returned to San Francisco and became Miller's partner in the firm of Miller & Pflueger.  In the 1920's Bay Area theaters formed a large part of their work.  Fine examples include the Castro Theater (1921, S. F. Landmark #100), the Alhambra (1926, S. F. Landmark #217), and the Art Deco masterpiece and National Historic Landmark, the Oakland Paramount (1931).  Also in the 1920's the firm designed two of San Francisco's earliest skyscrapers - the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph building at 130 New Montgomery (1925) and the Medical-Dental building at 450 Sutter (1930), one of the last downtown high-rise buildings to be completed before the Great Depression.

• Ashbury Heights        -  914-16 Ashbury St. (1922, 3 apts.);

• St. Francis Wood      -  235 St. Francis Blvd. (1922), 55 Terrace Dr. (1924);

• Sea Cliff                    -  80 McLaren Ave. (1924).

Miller served on the State Board of Architectural Examiners (for the Northern California District) from 1920 through 1925 under the Presidency of his friend and fellow Family Club member, architect Clarence Ward.

Miller retired from active participation in the firm’s work in 1936 to take care of his ailing wife, Florence, although she ended up outliving him.  He died on August 2, 1946 and his talented protégé and partner, Timothy Pflueger, died just over three months later on November 18.  Together they left a magnificent legacy of San Francisco residential and commercial architecture.

Note 1: For more information on Timothy Pflueger, please see his brother Milton Pflueger’s 1985 book Time and Tim Remembered (written with Terry Pimsleur), and Therese Poletti’s 2008 publication Art Deco San Francisco: The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger.

Note 2: Mitchell family photo provided courtesy of Stafford Buckley, Edward Mitchell’s grandson.