Gallerist Francis Mill was instinctively drawn to two studios tucked in a quiet North Beach alley — once home to the totemic works of sculptor Adaline Kent.

During rare quiet moments at his office, Chinese-American gallerist Francis Mill, co-founder of Hackett Mill gallery in San Francisco, dreams about the pair of art studios in North Beach that he acquired two years ago and is gradually easing into. A devoted historian, he’s fascinated by the latest jewel in his trove — a building that once belonged to sculptor Adaline Kent and her husband, bas-relief artist Robert Boardman Howard.

They lived nearby, as did others connected to the California School of Fine Arts (now the defunct San Francisco Art Institute). After hours, their studios became social hubs for artists like David Park, Elmer Bischoff, and Mark Rothko, who all taught at the school. Serendipitously, Park’s work is now represented through Hackett Mill’s invitation-only salon at the studios. To Mill’s delight, the artist still lingers, in spirit, in the very space where his work now hangs.

“It transforms how people experience an authentic artistic moment,” Mill says. “I want people who come to view the work to truly understand what they are looking at.”

The building, designed in 1940 by Henry Temple Howard — son of John Galen Howard, Berkeley’s first dean of architecture, and also Kent’s brother-in-law — features a shingled facade in the Second Bay Tradition. Its two entries slice through what was once a narrow shared kitchen. That long galley space is now split in two, making room for a larger bathroom, thanks to architects Anne Fougeron and Mark English, who occupied the building for a decade before Mill bought it in 2023.

The narrow mezzanine above the kitchen stretches across both 25-foot-high studios, now bordered by new Fougeron-designed railings. She and English also cut a pass-through into the wall between their offices for a more convivial layout, replaced barn doors leading to a courtyard and alley, and sheetrocked the walls, painting them a soft gray-white. But they left intact Howard’s terra cotta panels — low-relief sculptures of skiers created for a ski lodge — mounted on the studio’s brick chimney.

Howard and Kent had a deep affinity for the outdoors. Kent’s family donated the land that became Muir Woods National Monument, founded Kentfield, and helped establish the Sugar Bowl ski resort. These panels quietly encapsulate that rich Northern California legacy.

Mill fell for the space immediately. A year later, it was his.

He removed the worn office carpeting to reveal weathered concrete, painted the rear of the building Benjamin Moore’s “Red Parrot” so it pops like a sculpture amid drab asbestos-shingled neighbors, and refreshed the interior in “Cream Froth” to reflect a warmer glow throughout the lofty, skylit space. “The right light is so important in the act of looking,” Mill says.

His preferred shade of “gallery white” encouraged him to fill the space with art. Deborah Butterfield’s Palomino horse sculpture now stands center stage — a nod to Kent and Howard’s love of riding — and rotating paintings and sculptures from his collection animate the walls, depending on Mill’s mood and his guests. Among the seating areas sits Kent’s original wheelbarrow, once used to move her sculptures.

Mill painted Howard’s aging terra cotta panels a rich black, emphasizing the sculpture’s form — now a totemic presence in the all-white, 2,500-square-foot studio. Tables from his parents’ home display his artist father’s tools and calligraphy materials in quiet vignettes. Donald Judd-esque plywood furniture Mill designed for his office now serves as plinths for sculpture and memorabilia. Towering works by Manuel Neri — whose wife, artist Joan Brown, once mentored Mill at Berkeley — occupy places of honor.

Mill trained as both architect and artist at Berkeley, later becoming a professor and then dean of graduate studies at the Academy of Art University before founding Hackett Mill with Michael Hackett. Since the pandemic, the gallery has downsized, and Mill now views the studios as hybrid spaces — part gallery, part sanctuary — for reflection, for art-making, for studying his father’s scrolls.

“I began drawing alongside my father at the age of four,” Mill says, pointing to a recent charcoal of his father’s hands. “As I focus on my own creative work here, the subject for the moment is my father. This studio is the catalyst.”