Outfitted with a new foreword by Kevin Starr, this account of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century San Francisco vividly evokes the luxurious lifestyle and close bond shared by sisters Alice Haas Lilienthal and Florine Haas Bransten.
While author Frances Bransten Rothmann recreates her mother and aunt's world of leisure with lively descriptions of high tea at the Palace Hotel, excursions across oceans, and extravagant holiday celebrations that overfilled ballrooms with celebrants, her narrative is much more than a chronicle of empty opulence.
Rothmann clarifies that the true treasure of those Franklin Street houses was Florine and Alice's devotion to each other, their families, and their community. In inhabiting the sisters' daily lives of telephone calls, errands, inside jokes, and myriad philanthropic projects, we can delight in the profound sense of well-being—of home—that emanates from the pages.
By witnessing two lifetimes full of kindnesses extended from family to perfect strangers, we can, too, see the best in others and in the marvelous City by the Bay.
