Tony Bravo April 28, 2021Updated: April 28, 2021, 5:30 pm
Carlie Wilmans at the David Ireland House on Capp Street Monday, Dec. 14, 2015 in San Francisco. Photo: Nathaniel Y. Downes, The Chronicle
When longtime arts philanthropist Carlie Wilmans first stepped into artist David Ireland’s house at 500 Capp Street in the Mission District in 2008, she had no idea she would spend 13 years of her life and more than $6 million in service of its preservation.
Beginning in the 1970s, Ireland, a well-known sculptor and conceptual artist, had turned the San Francisco space into a canvas for his site-specific installations, work that could have been lost without intervention.