The small hilltop cottage that provided refuge for young lesbians in the mid-1950s and was the home of the first lesbian couple to legally marry in San Francisco has officially become a city landmark.
The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to grant the one-bedroom home of late lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin landmark status. It is now believed to be the first lesbian landmark in the American west, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The 756-square-foot in the Noe Valley section of the city where late lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin lived for more than 50 years has been granted landmark status
Since founding the Daughters of Bilias in 1955, lesbians would walk up a set of rickety stairs to meet in the living room, seen here, with northern views of San Francisco
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon’s initials could still be seen carved into the sidewalk in front of their former home, put there by a former caregiver
Lyon, left, and Del Martin, right, lived in the cottage until their passing
Lyon and Martin bought the house at 651 Duncan Street in 1955, the same year they co-founded the Daughters of Bilitis, a political and social organization for lesbians.
For the first several years, the San Francisco Chronicle reports, the group operated out of the small cottage, and members would climb a rickety set of stairs to meet in the living room with northern views of the city.
‘They provided a place for lesbians who were really, really, really in the closet to hang out and dance, have holiday potlucks so they wouldn´t have to go home and hang out with their homophobic relatives,’ said Shayne Watson, an architectural historian who specializes in LGBTQ heritage conservation and was active in the movement to get the home landmarked.
‘It was a place where people could be safe and reveal their sexuality,’ added Terry Beswick, the executive director of the GLBT Historical Society, which supported the landmarking effort financially.
Lyon and Del Martin attended the Human Rights Campaign Annual Gala in 2004, after they became the first lesbian couple to get married in San Francisco
Lyon, left, and Del Martin, right, first met while working at a magazine in Seattle. They were together for more than 50 years
Phyllis Lyon, in the center of the back row, coauthored ‘Lesbian/Woman’ with Del Martin, second from right. They are pictured at a Members of the American Library Association Task Force on Gay Liberation at the June 1972
Lyon and Martin first met while working at a magazine in Seattle together. They moved into their first apartment on Castro Street in Sn Francisco in 1953, which was then a working-class and Catholic neighborhood, according to a Making Gay History podcast about Lyon and Martin’s relationship.
Two years later, they moved into the 756-square-foot in the Noe Valley section of the city, looking for something with a view, Watson told the Bay Area Reporter.
There, the couple published a national monthly magazine for lesbians known as ‘The Ladder’ ad a book entitled ‘Lesbian/Woman’ in 1972.
They organized the first Daughters of Bilitis national convention in New York City in 1964, which the FBI tried to shut down, the Making Gay History podcast reports, but could not ascertain its location.
Reporters for the New York Times did, however, and wrote about the growing lesbian rights movement on June 21, 1964.
‘For over 50 years, the Lyon-Martin House served as headquarters for groundbreaking social and civil rights movements,’ the Friends of the Martin-Lyon House wrote in a petition to save the house after it had been sold in September 2020 for $2.25 million. The petition garnered more than 220 signatures.
‘Within this house, Lyon and Martin wrote, strategized, organized, and fought against the barriers of oppression,’ it continued, ‘and in doing so forced the world to change and turn toward the side of justice.’
Del Martin, left, placed a ring on Phyllis Lyon’s hand during their wedding ceremony officiated by then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, center, at City Hall in San Francisco in 2004.
Lyon and Martin held up their marriage certificate after the ceremony
Phyllis Lyon addressed journalists and well-wishers after getting married at city hall in San Francisco. She and Martin, sitting, wore the same pastel-colored pantsuits they donned four years prior when they wed the first time.
A vintage photo of same-sex couple Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon is seen next to a wedding cake before the couple was married by San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom in a private ceremony at San Francisco City Hall in 2008
Lyons and Martin were married in 2004, when then-mayor Gavin Newsom wanted to challenge California’s marriage laws by issuing licenses to same-sex couples. His advisers and gay rights advocates suggested Lyons and Martin be the first.
They had been together more than 50 years by then, and were secretly swept into the clerk´s office. They exchanged vows before a tiny group of city staffers and friends.
A wedding portrait of the couple cradling each other in pastel-colored pantsuits with their foreheads touching drew worldwide attention.
But later that year, the Supreme Court voided the unions, effectively nullifying Lyons and Martin’s marriage.
Fortunately, four years later, the Supreme Court reversed its stance and overturned the state’s ban on gay marriage in 2008.
The couple wed again, and were among the first to do so in the state, but unfortunately Martin died just a few weeks later at the age of 87.
‘I am devastated to lose Del,’ Lyons said at the time, ‘but I take some solace in knowing we were able to enjoy the ultimate rite of love and commitment before she passed.’
Lyons, herself, died of natural causes in April of last year, and the house was left to Martin’s daughter, Kendra, who sold the property in September 2020.
When the news of the sale broke, the Friends of the Lyon-Martin House was formed to guard against demolition.
Their efforts were supported by Noe Valley City Councilman Rafael Mandelman, who introduced the resolution to landmark the property after meeting with the group.
The new owner, Meredith Jones McKeown, supports landmarking and protecting the cottage, but opposes landmarking an adjacent vacant lot included in the sale, where she plans to build a home, the Chronicle reported.
Within the next six months, the group will put forth a proposal for the house’s landmarking with a sidewalk plaque as ‘a bare minimum,’ Beswick said. Beswick and Watson both want to preserve the interior as a student residency, public research facility and center for LGBTQ activism and history.
“No one wants to see a tour bus in front of the house,” said Watson, “but Phyllis and Del affected so many lives, including my own, and I feel strongly that the house where they did it should stay in the community.”
