240 Leland Avenue

1. December 12, 1906

   A permit was issued to build a small wood-frame chapel, 24 by 36 feet and 20 feet tall at a cost of $900, on this lot for a neighborhood church and Sunday School.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
2. 1908

   The Presbytery of San Francisco formally recognized St. James Presbyterian Church, then 69 members strong.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
3. March 5, 1908

   A permit was issued for a one-story 25-by-50-foot building behind the chapel, later mapped as a gymnasium.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
4. August 6, 1917

   A two-story 12-by-25-foot addition to the chapel was permitted, with a kitchen, two toilets and a hallway below and two rooms above, the work to be done by church members.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
5. 1922

   Before the present church went up, the original 1906 chapel was moved off the lot and around the corner onto Schwerin Street, where it became a house.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
6. 1922

   The new church cost about $9,500, paid by the congregation with a $2,800 grant from the Presbyterian Board of National Missions.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
7. June 19, 1922

   A permit was issued to add a dressing room and showers to the rear gymnasium building.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
8. July 10, 1922

   Julia Morgan completed plans for the church, a T-shaped two-story frame building with a Sunday School below and the sanctuary above.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
9. July 14, 1922

   A permit was issued for a 48-by-56-foot, two-story wood-frame church on a concrete foundation, clad in stucco and rustic siding.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
10. July 15, 1922

    A construction trade journal announced that Julia Morgan had won the design of a two-story-and-basement frame church for the congregation.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
11. 1923

    In place of the rose and arched windows Morgan drew, the facade received a stained-glass window of the Parable of the Sower, made by Campbell Glass and Paint Co. of Kansas City and, by congregation lore, salvaged from a church in a Nevada ghost town.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
12. March 13, 1923

    The new church building was dedicated.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
13. 1938

    By 1938 the 1908 rear gymnasium building had been cleared, leaving the back of the lot empty.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
14. 1951

    With the Sunday School crowded, the congregation began planning a rear addition.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
15. May 13, 1955

    A permit was issued for a rear addition of 1,292 square feet upstairs and 960 downstairs, holding a small chapel and four classrooms and shortening the sanctuary by about one bay.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
16. 1961

    The kitchen was remodelled.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
17. 1972

    The sanctuary received its present pews as a gift; several original pews went to the rear chapel.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
18. 1989

    In the late 1980s the Presbytery of San Francisco reorganized St. James as a mission church and its first Filipino ministry.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
19. 1990

    The congregation ordained its first Filipino pastor.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
20. Jan 1997

    Permit 9700612 $$$ $500

    Existing child care, increase in occupant load from 12 to 20.

21. 2000

    The building was re-roofed.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
22. Aug 2000

    Permit 200008077116 $$$ $13,700

    Reroofing.

23. Sep 2010

    Permit 201009140819 $$$ $4,600

    Insall new acorn stair lift, 300 bls chair capacity with hinged rails.

24. 2014

    A chair-lift was installed on the stair to the sanctuary.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
25. 2019

    With membership dwindling, the church chose not to replace its retiring pastor and closed for nearly two years.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
26. 2021

    The church partly reopened late in the year with a part-time pastor.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
27. December 13, 2022

    Designated San Francisco Landmark No. 308, St. James Presbyterian Church.

    SF Planning, landmark designation

1 nominal $1 street-space or sidewalk permit is omitted from the timeline. The rear building is shown gone by 1938, yet part of it still appears as a shed on the 1950 fire-insurance map.