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8.B. - Page 31 of 66 <br />William Kostura, Historic Resource Evaluation for 970 Edgewood Road <br />Vice-president: Henry L. Davis, president of the California Optical Company, 317 <br />Kearny Street <br />Secretary: Cullen K. Sturtevant, a cashier for Bovee, Toy and Company <br />Attorney: Emmett H. Rixford, whose law office was at 530 California Street <br />Land agents: Bovee, Toy, and Co., real estate agents, auctioneers, and house brokers, <br />19 Montgomery Street <br />Directors: Robert F. Bunker <br />Henry L. Davis <br />Frank F. Moulton <br />John S. Morgan, president the Morgan Oyster Company, 612-614 Third Street <br />Robert W. Gunn, real estate agent at 410 Montgomery Street <br />George T. Knox, notary public and commissioner of deeds, 444 California Street. <br />Most of the above were also shareholders. Other shareholders included some well- <br />known San Franciscans: Percy Beamish, one of the city's most fashionable purveyors of <br />men's clothing and furnishing goods; George C. Shreve, the jeweler; George W. Percy, <br />the architect; D. A. Macdonald, president of the Enterprise Mill and Building Company; <br />Maurice Dore, real estate agent and auctioneer; Robert H. Pease, Jr., the San Francisco <br />agent for Goodyear Rubber Company; Hubert Vischer, a civil engineer; and W. D. <br />Sanborn, a railroad agent. <br />The real estate agents and auctioneers Bovee, Toy, and Company handled the details in <br />creating Wellesley Park and probably invested in the tract as well. They were a long- <br />established and prominent firm. Their cashier was an officer of the subdivision, one of <br />their proprietors was a director, and their office doubled as the address for the Wellesley <br />Land and Improvement Company. <br />The subdivision comprised 163 acres and stretched from today's El Camino Real to <br />Alameda de las Pulgas. Regarding its layout, it was ahead of its time. Instead of a <br />rectangular grid of streets and blocks, as was typical of tracts in the 19th century, the <br />streets were curved and none of the blocks was rectangular. Amenities were created at <br />the start. One was a stone entrance wall and gate near El Camino Real, designed by San <br />Francisco architect John Gash, and topped by a statue of a stag (modeled on Sir Edwin <br />Landseer's painting The Monarch of the Glen, in Westminster Palace, London). The <br />other was a circular park called Wellesley Crescent. The latter of these is still in place, <br />with numerous mature trees, lawns, and rustic paths. Such features were meant to attract <br />buyers, but did not become common in California subdivisions until the 1910s, as a <br />response to the City Beautiful Movement. Thus, Wellesley Park prefigured several early <br />20th century subdivisions such as Sea Cliff, St. Francis Wood, and Forest Hill in San <br />Francisco. <br />In one way the subdivision was typical for the 19th century: it was optimistic; that is, it <br />was created before a substantial demand for suburban residences had arrived in Redwood <br />on <br />I <br />