This year marks the 66th anniversary of the United Nations Conference of International Organization. San Francisco was told it would host the U.N. Charter draft proceedings on February 12, 1945. It’s said San Francisco received the nod because the official making the decision dreamed of The City before making his choice.
Representatives from fifty nations came to town for the big ta-do. Conventional history texts record U.N. proceedings and dealings taking place in the War Memorial Veterans Building and inside select Nob Hill and Union Square hotel suites. But famed San Francisco columnist Herb Caen knew better. According to Caen (he truly THE man with all seven senses set to the pulse of The City):
“the United Nations was founded at Sally Stanford’s whorehouse.”
Not to be outdone, Life Magazine had this to say: “Miss Stanford and her specially selected hostesses entertained princes and shahs, movie stars, state and national dignitaries; some of her customers even brought their wives.”
Sally Stanford was the most colorfully prosperous San Francisco madam of her era. She is known for her countless aliases, many bordellos, seven husbands and 17 arrests for running bawdy houses. But Sally is even far better know for her latter-day stints as mayor and “vice” mayor of Sausalito (that pricey less foggy hamlet directly across the Golden Gate from San Francisco), for her restaurant, her philanthropy, her parrot, Loretta – and for her steely resolve, (she even threw Bogie out of her place); and for her scalpel-sharp wit.
For years Stanford was dogged by one Sergeant Jack Dyer, who long made it his personal crusade to bust Sally and her girls in her most luxurious bagnio, aptly named “The Fortress,”at 1144 Pine Street on Nob Hill.
By all accounts Sally showed delegates to the United Nations the very best time in town. But unlike Pacific Heights matrons mounting lavish soirees to bolster their high society credentials, Sally provided services to the U.N. delegates with extraordinary remuneration in mind. In her paperback autobiography “The Lady Of The House,” first published in 1966, but now out of print, Sally had this to say about the global gathering of diplomatic titans:
“We were getting the real international lechers now, in the spring of ’45. The United Nations delegates were very large stuff in San Francisco. Prominent society hostess types were feverish in attempts to outdo each other with the foreign sauce and spice these imports inspired. It was a romp, let me tell you!
Had Sergeant Dyer managed a raid during their stay with me, I’d have claimed diplomatic immunity and grabbed him as a hostage or prisoner-of-war or something. Foreign diplomats availed themselves plenty of everything the house had to offer, including mattress sport. Some of them spent more time dipping the wick in the feathers than they did at the United Nations deal. Several never left my place!
Since these boys were very large and juicy items with the State Department, we worked overtime to keep the foreign relations department in sweet rapport.”
I used to visit my aging parents in Fairfax from the South Bay Area in the early seventies. On the way back I often stopped in Sausalito and had dinner and/or drinks at the Valhalla House. I owned a bar and restaurant and I kind of got a kick at the individual mixer bottles instead of mixer guns that were used at the Valhalla. At the end of the bar was a red upholstered barber chair. I tried to sit in it once but the bartender quickly informed me that it eas not to be…reserved for Sallty. Once I saw her there leaning back in her chair with gray top knot and admonishing her bartenders for ‘too much booze’.
I’ve always had a sense of history and delighted being there and experiencing one of the real characters that added color to Bay Area History.
Luciano J. Ercolini