Paul Elder and Company

Elder's Bookstores Store 1 (1897) - Mills Building Store 2 (1898-1906) - 238 Post Santa Barbara (1904-1909) New York City (1906-1909) Store 3 (1906-1909) - Bush & Van Ness Store 4 (1909-1921) - 239 Grant Store 5 (1921-1948) - 239 Post Store 6 (1948-1968) - Sutter & Stockton During his lifetime, Paul Elder was known as much for his bookstores as for his books. His specialty, particularly in the early years, was ambience: a mixture of books and varied art objects that would tempt the eye at every turn. Clearly, Paul Elder believed that a book was worthy of the term "art object", just as much as a painting or fine pottery vase. Although Paul Elder had just the single bookstore, it occupied six different San Francisco locations over the firms 70-year history, plus two short-lived locations in Santa Barbara and New York. None of these buildings have survived to the present day. You may read more about each store by clicking the links above.	239 Post Street store, circa 1921

Store 1 (1897) Mills Building, Bush & Montgomery, San Francisco Throughout the 1890s, William Doxey’s employee Paul Elder watched and learned. By 1897 Elder decided that he had learned enough to strike out on his own. In December he became an independent publisher’s agent, and opened a one-room bookshop on the second floor of the Mills Building. An advertising card from this period offers an ‘installment library,’ where the reader could collect, one book per month, the entire works of Shakespeare or Dickens. More importantly, this room was almost certainly used to cement Elder’s new partnership with Morgan Shepard, and to plan a new store on Post St.	239 Post Street store, circa 1921
Store 2 (1898-1906) 238 Post, San Francisco In May 1898 Paul Elder and Morgan Shepard opened their new bookstore at 238 Post St. and named it "The Book and Art Shop." In looking for ways to distinguish their shop from the many other bookstores in San Francisco, they settled upon ambience. In a memoir Elder wrote: "Books were the dominant interest in the Post Street Shop, pictures and pieces of pottery and metal being displayed as adornment, and to give an uncommercial atmosphere." However, Elder's own 1904 catalog emphasizes the art objects and minimizes the books. He surrounded the books with pottery from Dedham, Redlands, Newcomb and Pewabic; copper from Jarvie and Toothaker; paintings by Keith, Cadennaso, Noyes and other plein air artists; photographs by Genthe and Dassonville; leatherwork; jewelry; Japanese prints -- and all of it was for sale. This carefully crafted ambience remained Elder's defining characteristic throughout his career. Elder's approach was successful, and his shop became the literary place-to-be in the first years of the 20th century, much as Doxey's shop had been in the 1890s. Elder's influence was not confined to California. About 1905, a visitor from Missouri named Fred Rust was inspired by a visit to Elder's shop. He returned to Kansas City and in the fall of 1906 he opened the 'Book and Craft Shop,' decorating it much as Elder did the Post St. store. Rust later founded Rust Craft, one of the largest greeting card companies in America. Elder and Shepard began to publish books as soon as they opened their new shop: just a few at first, but more as their experience and confidence grew. By 1903 they had published about 40 titles, many of which were designed and decorated by Shepard. Elder and Shepard used three different printers during this period: Charles Murdock (who had printed The Lark for William Doxey), Stanley-Taylor Company, and the Twentieth Century Press. At these last two firms they worked with John Henry Nash, who in 1903 would become Elder's printer and designer.	239 Post Street store, circa 1921
Santa Barbara (1904-1909) State Street at Anapamu In 1904 Elder opened a satellite store on Chapala St. in Santa Barbara, across from the Potter Hotel. Elder probably had designs on Santa Barbara for some time; local playwright Marshall Ilsley’s book of poetry By The Western Sea had been Elder’s first book. Two of Elder’s most memorable publications were illustrated by Santa Barbara resident Robert Wilson Hyde. The House that Jack Built and Guest Book demonstrate Hyde’s distinctive medieval style, which also graced several of Elder’s broadsides and greeting cards. Hyde also decorated Mosaic Essays. In late 1906, Elder’s shop moved to the corner of State St. & Anapamu. Between 1906 and 1909 Elder owned three stores in three cities: San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and New York. However, with financial pressures mounting, in July 1909 Elder sold the Santa Barbara store to his manager, Sarah Redfield. She ran the shop until her retirement in 1927.	239 Post Street store, circa 1921
New York City (1906-1909) 43-45 East 19th Street Elder’s bookshop and the Tomoye Press were completely destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire. Undaunted, he and printer John Henry Nash moved to New York City and by August they were publishing books again. He also opened a small shop on E 19th St. in Manhattan, probably similar in style to the Post St. store, but much smaller. Elder had hoped to capitalize on the proximity to New York’s huge printing industry, but his books, designed to appeal to Californian audiences, never sold well in New York. Production delays caused several of Elder’s gift books to miss the Christmas buying season, tying up needed cash in book inventories. His debts increased quickly, and in February 1909 Elder closed the shop and returned to San Francisco. Elder’s finances never completely recovered, eventually forcing him to retire from publishing in 1917.	239 Post Street store, circa 1921
Store 3 (1906-1909) Bush & Van Ness, San Francisco In her book My San Francisco, Gertrude Atherton described a day shortly after the 1906 calamity: “One day Senator Phelan and I were strolling along Van Ness eating candy from a bag he had bought at one of the booths, and like everyone else, discussing the future of San Francisco. ‘Now who do you suppose that is?’ I exclaimed, indicating two young men some distance ahead. They were sitting on a box on the edge of the sidewalk holding a large white placard in front of them. They proved to be Paul Elder and John Howell with the name of their new firm, site and all, painted in large black letters on the white background. They grinned as we paused before them and looked as cheerful as a May morning without a fog. We shared our candy with them and talked of the new city that was to rise on the site of those ashes now being shoveled into carts.” Elder and Howell clearly had the “Spirit of ‘06”: the positive, untroubled determination to rebuild the ruined San Francisco. The Van Ness sidewalk along which Atherton and Phelan were strolling was the temporary shopping district. Elder was among the first to build there, hiring well-known architect Bernard Maybeck to design the new store. The result was an Arts & Crafts gem reminiscent of his finer Berkeley bungalows. The familiar Maybeck motifs are all here: simple and rustic lines, heavy exposed beams, medieval-style light fixtures and matching furniture. The new shop was much smaller than the Post St. shop had been: one large room primarily for books, and one small room primarily for pottery and other art objects. The store was open for business by August 1906, with John Howell--later a rare book dealer himself--as manager while Elder and Nash were in New York.	239 Post Street store, circa 1921
Store 4 (1909-1921) 239 Grant, San Francisco Downtown San Francisco was rebuilt with remarkable speed. By 1909 both merchants and customers were returning in large numbers. Elder leased an entire building on Grant St. at Tillman Place--it was known as the “Paul Elder Building”--and rehired Bernard Maybeck to design the interior. The main book room was very different from the Van Ness store: long, narrow and tall, with windows on just one side. Maybeck chose old-world motifs: Gothic arched ceiling and distinctive hand-carved screens. Against the grey stone walls, the ceiling was painted blue, with red accents. Maybeck ingeniously incorporated many furnishings from the rustic Van Ness store, such as the medieval chandeliers and heavy wooden bookcases. The shop opened on 8 April 1909 to news coverage which praised the Old World architecture. The Publishers’ Weekly gushed “in such places clerics illuminated missals for the glory of God.” The San Francisco Chronicle was more reserved, saying “while it is a store, it has about the same degree of commercial appearance as a Gothic cathedral.” Elder occupied four of the eight floors, and he sublet the others. The sumptuous art room was on the 2nd floor, the ‘standard authors room’ in the basement. The Tomoye Press was on the 3rd floor, but there were no longer any presses: only John Henry Nash’s composing room. Nash contracted out all the printing to Stanley-Taylor Company, choosing instead, to his great success, to concentrate his time on design and typography.	239 Post Street store, circa 1921
Store 5 (1921-1948) 239 Post, San Francisco On 22 October 1921, after twelve years on Grant St, Elder moved his bookstore to 239 Post, across the street from where the 1898 store had been. The new store offered several advantages, including a larger sales areas and a gallery & lecture hall. Several concessions to modernity are noticeable in these pictures. Books now dominate every room, and the art objects so carefully mixed into the previous store have been relegated to a special art room on the mezzanine. And for the first time, cash registers are in plain sight: they had been carefully hidden in all of Elder's previous stores, lest they detract from the atmosphere. As before, many furnishings were brought to the new store to maintain a sense of continuity: chandeliers and bookcases from the 1906 Van Ness store, and the gothic window screens from Maybeck's 1909 store. Elder made good use of his new gallery & lecture hall; numerous artists held exhibitions at Elder's store, and there were frequent readings by featured authors. Presumably Elder was affected by the Great Depression as much as his customers, but he weathered it without many ill effects. Indeed, he published several books during the early 1930s.	239 Post Street store, circa 1921
Store 6 (1948-1968) Sutter & Stockton, San Francisco In 1931, Paul Elder Jr. (1906-1995) quit a promising career as a cellist and began working in Paul Sr's bookstore. He gradually assumed management roles as his father's health declined, becoming president and manager in 1943. Paul Jr. was joined in the business by his wife Eloise (1909-1973). She was a former artist and coordinated the continuing series of book readings and art exhibits. On 1 June 1948, four months after the death of its founder, Paul Elder & Company made its final move to the southwest corner of Sutter & Stockton. Paul Jr and Eloise were clearly putting their stamp on the 50-year-old business. The new bookstore was a marked departure from the previous shops, where atmosphere had been the overriding concern. Here architect Bolton White created a modern, open design, using extensive street-front windows and a bright--one might even say gaudy--color scheme. As happened in 1909 and 1920, some furnishings were brought along from the old stores. Bernard Maybeck's carved screens from the 1909 store were installed at the base of the stairway, and gothic windows from the 1920 store were installed on the wall above. On 6 July 1949 Elder opened a satellite store in the Mills Building at 228 Montgomery--the same location where his father had started out fifty-one years before. The store stocked mostly specialized books for the financial district clientele. In October 1968, Paul and Eloise sold the two stores to the New York firm Brentano's and retired to their home in Marin County. "My wife Eloise and I have been working too hard, too long", he told the San Francisco Chronicle. He was also dissatisfied with the increasingly automated and computerized world of bookselling. He didn't say what he would do next, but he added "It won't be another bookstore. But I'll be enjoying myself -- I always do."	239 Post Street store, circa 1921