Bylaws and Leaseholds

Look what I got today! My own little piece of San Francisco history. My building manager dug this out of his files; it's the lease agreement from the very first time my apartment unit was sold in 1927! He says it sold for $2,500, which was a very pretty penny back then. Let's just say J and I paid more than that. Actually, we ran it through an inflation calculator, and we paid more than the $30,000 that that should be equivalent to in today's money. I guess real estate has really changed, eh?

I love this little extra piece of information about my place, and I also wonder what type of person bought it. I know it was a woman who was addressed as missus, so I'm wondering if the apartment was a pied-à-terre purchased by a doting husband, a small city dwelling for a lonely widow, or just the purchase of a rich and independent lady of means?

The book is filled with beautiful signatures from an era when people cared about penmanship, along with meticulous notes and corrections from the purchase negotiations, and fancy embossed notary seals. For a nerd, this is all pretty exciting. Also exciting: my floors were sanded today, and they might be polished by week's end! Things are really moving along.