<P> In American architecture, painted ladies are Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings repainted, starting in the 1960s, in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details . The term was first used for San Francisco Victorian houses by writers Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen in their 1978 book Painted Ladies: San Francisco's Resplendent Victorians . Although polychrome decoration was common in the Victorian era, the colors used on these houses are not based on historical precedent: </P> <P>... the California literary agents Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen published Painted Ladies, a photo essay on the modern painting practices of San Francisco . Fantastically colorful and published in an inexpensive paperback, this often tongue - in - cheek record of a Bay Area phenomenon has subsequently been embraced by large numbers of well - meaning Americans thinking too often that they were following a historical precedent . Painted Ladies and its sequels say more about the taste of the 1970s and 1980s than they do about the 1870s and 1880s . </P>

What are the houses in san francisco called