Gertrude Bland "Gee Gee" Platt

1939 - 2023

Gertrude "Gee Gee" Bland Platt
June 14, 1939 - December 13, 2023
"Break, heart. I prithee, break."
On December 13th the world lost a superlative San Franciscan and a remarkable mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother.
Born in 1939, Gee Gee was the oldest child of Gertrude Mattheson Grove and Arthur Stanley Bland Jr. She grew up in St. Louis and graduated from Mary Institute in 1957 before attending Connecticut College for Women from 1957 to 1959, studying history and English.
In 1960, she married Peter Godfrey Platt. A wonderful writer, Gee Gee got her first taste of professional writing by crafting letters for the customer service department of Connecticut Blue Cross. Their first son, Peter Jr., was born while Peter Sr. was still in law school at Yale. They moved to San Francisco in 1962, and in 1963, their second son, Geoffrey, was born. Remarkably, in this same year, Gee Gee became Survey Chairman (and later, concurrently, San Francisco County Chairman) of the Junior League's architectural survey, eventually published as Here Today: San Francisco's Architectural Heritage (Chronicle Books, 1968).
Her work on this book led Mayor Jack Shelley to appoint her in 1967 to the inaugural San Francisco Landmarks Advisory Board, on which she served for 13 years, seven as its president. Over 110 buildings and monuments received landmark status in this era, including Mission Dolores, Ghirardelli Square, and the rotunda of the City of Paris department store (still there in its glory at Neiman Marcus on 150 Stockton St). She was infamously fired in 1980 by then-mayor Dianne Feinstein, in what the San Francisco newspapers called at the time the "Black Friday Massacre." Later that year, Gee Gee went on to found G. Bland Platt Associates, and this firm provided "a wide variety of consulting services to owners and lessees of architectural and historically significant properties and to their architects." Owners and developers of important buildings, once her adversaries, became her clients.
Gee Gee's national profile expanded in an interesting direction when she was featured in the December 1976 issue of Glamour as one of "six women who fought for their environment." As she noted in that article, accurately and philosophically, "I wasn't originally trained for this. Life tends to happen to you."
And happen it did.
Divorced in 1972, she built a career as a single woman while raising her two sons. She served on the board of the California Preservation Foundation (CPF) for many years and twice was its president; served on the board of San Francisco Heritage; and helped to set up the California Preservation Alliance, the first preservation political action committee. In 2004-5, she was a leading force in a lawsuit against the developers of the now-defunct Westfield Centre, after the demolition of part of the old Emporium store's magnificent original office tower, which was supposed to have been preserved. The $2.5 million settlement led to the creation of the Historic Preservation Fund Committee, on which Gee Gee served from its inception until her death and which continues to support preservation projects in San Francisco.
In 2005, she was awarded the Jack Morrison Lifetime Achievement Award by San Francisco Tomorrow, and in 2008, she received CPF's President's Award, as Preservationist of the Year for Lifetime Achievement. The late Bruce Bonacker's introductory remarks to the San Francisco Tomorrow award beautifully articulated Gee Gee's two professional sides: She was both the "Che Guevara" and the "Mother Superior" of architectural preservation in San Francisco. A revolutionary and a savior, she blazed trails for others-and especially other women-in the preservation field and saved buildings throughout the city. These remarks also noted how "architects and developers [would] stand, pale and dumbstruck" hearing Gee Gee say, "I'm feeling very cross right now." No one else could use that adjective to such devastating effect-as any member of her family can attest.
Gee Gee deeply loved San Francisco-its history, its buildings, its environment. But she also loved her many friends; phone calls from her sons; her house and garden; her books; the tree outside her living-room window; driving; just-right slippers; the perfect box; cashmere; festive holiday attire; Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis, and Frank Sinatra; mornings with black coffee and the Chronicle (including "the Sporting Green" so that she could know what her boys were obsessing over); orange scones; Carmel-by-the-Sea (in person and in the photographs of Ansel Adams and Morley Baer); "Romaine at the beach"; the smell of eucalyptus at the top of Clarendon Ave; local antique shows; fine food and restaurants (past and present), especially Eliza's, Gary Danko, the HOPR, Le Soleil, Perry's, the Slanted Door (and Out the Door), Sun Hung Heung, Toraya, Trader Vic's, and Yank Sing; dark chocolate; skinny mochas with whipped cream at 4 pm; Sweet Things at Cal-Mart; a "Light Bacardi over ice, no fruit"; a nightcap at Tosca; her "shows" (especially "NCIS" and evening news programs); and-late in her life-the steak sandwich and tiramisu at Bryan's market and the fruit cup at Mel's diner.
But what she loved most of all was her family: her sister, soulmate, and fellow "Cotton Top," Cimmy; her brother, Stan; her sons; her daughters-in-law; and, perhaps most of all, her grandchildren, Mackenzie and Jordy. These two will never forget trips to Gram's via Collins and "the Anza Highway"; sleepover breakfasts with Noah's Bagels and the cereal variety pack; blueberry pancakes, corn off the cob, and fried chicken at Pajaro Dunes; the extra "pocket for dessert"; Christmas and wrapping paper (and the ensuing costumes); and the sense that she was the anchor, that she was home.
Gee Gee was pre-deceased by her sisters, Marion Bland Langdon and Cynthia Bland Medart. She is survived by her brother, Arthur Stanley Bland III (Dix); her two sons, Peter Godfrey Platt Jr. (Nancy) and Geoffrey Bland Platt (JoJo); numerous nieces and nephews; and two grandchildren, Mackenzie Anderson Platt and Jordy Alexander Fee-Platt.
Gee Gee's family plans to celebrate her life sometime in 2024. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that anyone wishing to honor Gee Gee contribute to San Francisco Heritage.