San Francisco Designates Pioneering Lesbians Home a Landmark
The place where Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon founded the Daughters of Bilitis and launched
The Ladder will be preserved for generations to come.
The cottage in San Francisco where lesbian pioneers Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon made their home and a haven for LGBTQ+ people beginning in 1955 has now been assigned landmark status. A request for the minimum of a plaque on the sidewalk will be submitted within six months, according to the
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to designate the hilltop home at 651 Duncan St. landmark status. The one-bedroom house was the place where Lyon and Martin helped found the political group the Daughters of Bilitis in 1955.
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Want to start a lively and possibly tense conversation among Californians? Say something about how everyone’s leaving the state. You might hear about exhaustion from fleeing fire after fire, or frustration with high taxes and business regulations.
Inevitably, someone will talk about California’s astronomical housing costs: Do you know how much house you could get in Idaho for what you’re paying in Los Angeles? Can you imagine having a yard? And yet, for all the supposed downsides of living here, the price of a home seems only to ever be going up and up.
First San Francisco Lesbian Landmark; Home of First Same-Sex Married Couple Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin Classified City Landmark
The San Francisco home shared by the city’s first same-sex couple to marry, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, is set to become a protected landmark, preserving the LGBTQ history it housed for the past 65 years.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to make the late couple’s home since 1955 on 651 Duncan St. earlier this week, making it the first lesbian landmark in the western U.S. A bronze plaque is planned to be placed on the sidewalk in front of the house memorializing the roles Lyon, Martin and the house played in LGBTQ civil rights activism.
Noe Valley Home of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon Receives Landmark Designation
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on May 4 voted to pass an ordinance that will designate 651 Duncan Street the former longtime home of lesbian activists Del Martin (1921–2008) and Phyllis Lyon (1924–2020) a landmark. The decision itself is history-making, marking the first such designation for a property in the western U.S. due to significance primarily concerning the lesbian community.
Supervisors Rafael Mandelman, Dean Preston, Aaron Peskin, Ahsha Safai, and Gordon Mar sponsored the ordinance.
Members of our
San Francisco Bay Times team as well as “Betty’s List” fondly remember visits to the Noe Valley home perched atop a steep grade. Del and Phyllis would warmly greet visitors who could include everyone from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to
Home Of San Francisco s First Legally Married Same-Sex Couple Is Now A City Landmark
Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin were wed in 2004 and again in 2008, when marriage equality became the law of the land in California.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) The hilltop cottage belonging to a lesbian couple who were the first same-sex partners to legally marry in San Francisco has become a city landmark.
The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to give the 651 Duncan St. home of the late lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin landmark status. The home in the Noe Valley neighborhood is expected to become the first lesbian landmark in the U.S. West, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.