A plaster cast ceiling medallion in a Victorian home with a modern pendant light.

San Francisco’s Victorian homes are known for their ornate features. From decorative moldings to carved fireplaces to the crests looming above you as you enter the front door, these characteristics showcase an architecture that’s anything but boring. 

But while their opulence is easy to take for granted as a distinguishing trait of the time, oftentimes those decisions were largely functional. 

If you’ve stared up at enough San Francisco ceilings, you’ve likely noticed the intricate carvings of the circles around the light fixtures. Today, those ceiling medallions, sometimes also called centers, are there for purely decorative purposes, but that wasn’t always the case.

“Ceiling medallions were used to hide soot since all these houses were lit by gas light and they gave off soot, especially if they were put on too high or they were dirty,” said Bonnie Spindler, a real estate agent and “the Victorian Specialist” of San Francisco. “If you have the medallion there, the soot gathers into the crevices of the ceiling medallion and it gives it more dimension than it would otherwise have. It basically hid the dirt.” 

Gas lighting became widely used in homes in the 1880s and was installed in houses through the 1910s, both to light the house and also to help warm it. It was quickly falling out of fashion in the early 20th century in favor of electric lighting, but not before a building boom happened in San Francisco. It all coincided with the rise of the middle class, which now had greater accessibility to furnishings like plaster ornamentation.

Ceiling medallions on display at Lorna Kollmeyer Ornamental Plaster in Hunters Point Shipyard.

Plaster shops were numerous at the time, specializing in features like the ceiling medallions. Today, only one ornamental plaster shop remains in San Francisco — Lorna Kollmeyer Ornamental Plaster. Kollmeyer said her shop in Hunters Point sells more ceiling medallions than anything else, but before she opened 37 years ago, the closing of many of the city’s plaster shops likely fell in line with plaster work being in less demand.

“[Ceiling medallions] fell out of fashion probably because a lot of them fell off the ceiling. After the Victorian era, after 30 to 40 years, houses degrade and plaster degrades and needs maintenance. But in the ’40s and ’50s, all the plaster shops were gone,” she said. “There was no production, and people took them down.”

As more people became interested in restoring Victorian homes in the past 30 years, artisans specializing in these features opened businesses like Kollmeyer’s. Now customers flock to her shop to replace or restore crumbling medallions, or even add them if they weren’t there to begin with. 

She said most of the time she already has a mold in her shop of the medallion someone wants to repair, since the designs of these medallions were so regional. “Every single one of our pieces, except for one or two custom ones, all come from houses in San Francisco and the Bay Area,” Kollmeyer said. “In those days it was a very regional production. There wasn’t reason to pack them up and ship them. The designs and the patterns here are so distinctive and so different looking than ones from say, the East Coast, which can be more federal or colonial.”

Ceiling medallions on display at Lorna Kollmeyer Ornamental Plaster in Hunters Point Shipyard. 

The different medallions in her shop are named after the streets of the houses they originally came from in San Francisco. She said the Pine, Jackson and Del Mar are the most popular styles, she thinks because they’re more neoclassical. She said they’re not overly Victorian in looks — they’re more modest and can fit a modern style — but are still of that era.

When customers come into her shop looking for guidance, Kollmeyer starts by getting to know a little bit more about their house. She wants to see photos, know what year it was built and what types of rooms they’ll be in. She also has a strong opinion about which room in the house should feature your favorite medallion. “In my humble opinion the most important medallion is the one in the bedroom. You lay there and stare at it every day!” she said with a laugh.

Kollmeyer even provides customers with detailed instructions on how best to mount the medallions, which typically weigh around 7 or 8 pounds.

Ceiling medallions on display at Lorna Kollmeyer Ornamental Plaster in Hunters Point Shipyard.

Cliff’s Variety, the home goods and hardware store in the Castro that’s been in business since 1936, sells ceiling medallions crafted by Kollmeyer. Store general manager Terry Asten Bennett said they have about 40 medallions on display at the store, and they’ll also special order anything from Kollmeyer that a customer wants.

“Customers are always so excited when they look up in the toy department (the only place in the main store with a ceiling low enough to display them) and see them. ... We started selling ceiling medallions in the ’70s when gay couples started buying the old Victorians in the Castro and restoring them.”

Asten Bennet said they’ve only sold 58 medallions so far this year, which is a lot less than usual. Normally they would have sold double that by this time of year, she said, but she blames the COVID-19 pandemic for the slowdown. 

One common mistake both Spindler and Kollmeyer see people make is buying a medallion that’s too small for the room. “I tell people Victorians can absorb decor. It's OK to overdo it a little bit. Something will stand out as a sore thumb if it's too skimpy,” Kollmeyer said. “If the room calls for grand, go grand. It's better to go over the limit than be too small.”

— The weird story behind why there are so many split bathrooms in San Francisco homes

— Is the ‘California cooler’ the most underrated part of your SF kitchen?

— The origins of the mysterious old telephone in my San Francisco apartment

— The story behind that strange lever at the top of the stairs in old SF homes

— The story behind picture rails and why so many San Francisco homes have them

— The story behind the mysterious crests on old San Francisco homes

Tessa is a Local Editor for SFGATE. Before joining the team in 2019, she specialized in food, drink and lifestyle content for numerous publications including Liquor.com, The Bold Italic, 7x7 and more. Contact her at tessa.mclean@sfgate.com.