Walking San Francisco

The Atherton House epitomizes Pacific Heights grandeur. It’s also rumored to be haunted.

San Francisco’s elite moved up to Pacific Heights’ lofty, rarefied environs back in the 1870s and have never left. (Well, the original people have died, but their latter-day ilk remain.) The advent of cable cars made these previously unattainable photogenic perches available, and soon the area was an affluent bedroom community. It seems Nob Hill wasn’t big enough for all of the incredibly wealthy citizens of the Victorian city, and the well-to-do staked their claim to hilltop lots here to complement their vast estates down in San Mateo County. The grandest mansions in the Heights were once (and in some cases are still) homes of magnates, tycoons, industrialists, and dignitaries who also have office towers, parks, and streets named for them; contemporary millionaires from the entertainment industry have joined the club relatively recently. Thus, this tour is largely an appreciation of jaw-dropping architectural phenomena. Interestingly, the neighborhood is densely packed, with front and side yards as rare as in any other part of the city, and many streets are dominated by luxury apartment buildings. On a weekday morning, sightseers will share the sidewalk with dog walkers and stroller-pushing nannies.

Walk Description

Start at the corner of Van Ness Avenue and California Street, historically a key intersection for the neighborhood. Here the California Street cable car line terminates, but in the 1870s this line and several others continued up from the downtown area to the top of Pacific Heights, making the area accessible to residents in pre-automobile days. The lines ran up and down most of the east–west streets of the neighborhood. Initially Van Ness Avenue was a residential street where some of the city’s very wealthiest built their mansions. At 125 feet wide, Van Ness is the city’s broadest thoroughfare. Ironically, during the 1906 conflagration the street’s lavish mansions were systematically dynamited to create the firebreak that stopped the flames from climbing farther west. Van Ness was rebuilt as a retail strip, and by the middle of the 20th century it was lined with steakhouses and flashy auto showrooms.

Head one block west on California Street, and you’ll begin to see what remains of the neighborhood’s Victorian grandeur. The

Coleman Mansion at 1701 Franklin St. was built by Edward Coleman, a forty-niner who, unlike most, actually struck it rich during the gold rush. It stands on a large corner lot, which is typical for Pacific Heights—the biggest houses stand on corners, the smaller ones midblock. Up near the eaves, the house is banded by a whimsical ornamental trim, with a recurring motif of laurels and torches; the Franklin Street side has a comely stained glass window. With 11 bedrooms and a parklike yard, the house sold for a cool $7 million in 2018.

Turn right (north) on Franklin. Another stately corner mansion stands at the intersection of Franklin and Clay. Now occupied by the

Golden Gate Spiritualist Church, this white wedding-cake house was built for the Crocker family in 1900. The church meetings that go on inside are much more interesting. Founded in 1924 by Rev. Florence S. Becker, the congregation practices the Spiritualist rite of communing with the dead. Among the church’s beliefs is that “the existence and personal identity of the individual continue after the change called death.” Services are conducted by mediums. A little farther on the same side of Franklin Street, the large Victorian at No. 1945 was owned for many years by actor Nicolas Cage.

The elite chose Pacific Heights as their nesting point for its grand vistas of the sea and the hills beyond.

On the next block of Franklin Street, at No. 2007, the

Haas-Lilienthal House cuts an impressive figure. Built in 1886 for William Haas, the austere house is one of the city’s finest Victorians and reflects the elegance that once typified the neighborhood. Haas’s daughter, Alice Haas Lilienthal, lived in the house until 1972, and it was turned over to the Foundation for San Francisco’s Architectural Heritage a year later. One of the only Pacific Heights homes open to the public, it offers guided tours on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays ($10).

Turn left at Jackson Street and left again at Octavia Street. This curved, cobbled block was designed to slow traffic as it passed the immense

Spreckels Mansion, at the top end of the block. Adolph Spreckels, son of sugar magnate Claus Spreckels, built the grand edifice in 1925 and gifted it to his wife, Alma de Bretteville (see Backstory). To acquire the view he desired, Spreckels purchased several occupied adjacent lots. Evidently Alma hated to see the homes destroyed, so she and Adolph paid to have eight of the period Victorians moved and reassembled elsewhere. Today, romance novelist Danielle Steele lives in it, and has incurred wrath from neighbors for planting privacy hedges that hide the limestone Beaux Arts exterior. The house’s exterior was used to portray the nightclub Chez Joey in the 1957 film Pal Joey, starring Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, and Rita Hayworth.

Across from the Spreckels place,

Lafayette Park is an expanse of rolling green lawns, tennis courts, a children’s playground, and picnic tables with great views. The park’s leveled peak was the sight of Samuel Holladay’s mansion during the latter half of the 19th century. Holladay was a prominent citizen—he was a judge who also served on the city council—but there was no record of his ever having purchased the land here. The city regarded him as a well-to-do squatter and tried to evict him, but Holladay knew the ins and outs of the law well enough to evade the city’s efforts. He lived here until his death in 1915, and the city demolished the house in 1930. Turn right at Washington, and you’ll quickly reach the gates of the

Phelan Mansion, at No. 2150. It was the home of James Phelan, who served as the city’s mayor from 1897 to 1902 and in the US Senate from 1915 to 1921. The Renaissance Revival structure is awkward, with an unusual glassed-in mezzanine over the front entry. The former mayor’s greatest architectural legacy is the Phelan Building, on Market Street (see Walk 1, Lower Market Street).

Turn right at Laguna Street. A block up, the corner house at 2090 Jackson is the

Whittier Mansion. Just before the United States entered World War II, this honey-toned sandstone house was purchased by the Nazi government, which intended to use it as a consulate. Those plans were obviously waylaid by the war. Featured on many “Haunted San Francisco” tours, the mansion is rumored to be full of paranormal activity, and visitors have claimed to see shadowy figures or feel icy drafts of air.

Continue on Laguna and turn left at Broadway. A block and a half up, the huge house at No. 2120 is one of two Flood mansions on the street. This one, built in 1901, was the home of Jennie Flood. It was built by her brother, James Leary Flood, who was the son of silver king James Clair Flood. Jennie was living in her father’s Nob Hill mansion, which was damaged in the 1906 quake, so she moved here. Since 1927 it has housed

The Hamlin School for girls. James Leary Flood left a few years later, after building a new home up the street, at No. 2222, for himself and his wife. The second Flood estate, consisting of a nearly identical pair of massive villas, was completed in 1915. It is now the outrageously posh home of the

Schools of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic academy.

Having just passed Webster Street, double back and turn right (south). The house at 2550 Webster is the

Bourn Mansion, a dark brick fortress with fantastic chimneys. It was built in 1896 for William Bowers Bourn, inheritor of the Empire Gold Mine, the richest in the state. The house was not Bourn’s home—just a luxurious pit stop for entertaining guests while he was in town. Willis Polk was the architect. In the 1970s, the home was purchased by eccentric Arden Van Upp and a partner, who threw rock-and-roll parties, filmed porn movies, and wreaked all manner of havoc that caused the neighbors to whisper—not the least of which was Van Upp’s teenage belly-dancing daughter, Tammy, who made coast-to-coast headlines for undulating with a 6-foot-long python they kept at the house. Neither Van Upp nor the house aged well, and both fell into a state of disrepair. It sold for less than $3 million in 2010—a mere pittance for the size and location. Outward appearances indicate that it now enjoys a more mundane life.

Turn right at Pacific Avenue and turn left onto Fillmore Street, the principal commercial street of Pacific Heights. It’s lined with clothing boutiques, beauty salons, restaurants, and cafés. Recommended places to stop for dinner are

Jackson Fillmore, an intimate little Italian spot, and the

Elite Cafe, a classy New Orleans–inspired gathering spot with an oyster bar and a decent Cajun-Creole menu. Both eateries have been around for more than three decades and are deservedly renowned.

Turn left at California Street. The corner of California and Webster is dominated by the magnificent

Temple Sherith Israel, one of the pillars of the city’s well-established Jewish community. The congregation dates back to the 1850s, and this awesome temple went up in 1904. It is more spectacular inside than out, with a frescoed inner dome and beautiful stained glass windows conducting a brilliant spectrum on sunny days. Albert Pissis was the architect.

Three blocks down, at 1990 California, the

Atherton House looks humble, considering the size of the Atherton family’s fortune. Faxton Atherton owned a huge estate that spanned the peninsula south of San Francisco. (The tony suburb of Atherton is named for him.) After his death, his widow, Dominga, built this house in 1881 and lived there with her son, George, and his wife, Gertrude. George boarded a sailing ship for Chile to try and accrue his own wealth but died of kidney failure at sea. According to numerous accounts, including the San Francisco Landmarks book, the captain stuffed George’s body into a rum barrel for preservation and then mailed it to the family back home. While George was eventually given a proper burial, many think his spirit never left the premises, and the Atherton House is another site frequented by paranormal students eager to learn more about mysterious noises and apparitions. Across the street at 1969 California, the Tudor Gothic Revival

Tobin House appears to have been chopped in half, with an arch ending at its midpoint against the neighboring building. Michael de Young (founder of the San Francisco Chronicle) commissioned Willis Polk in 1915 to create two mirroring adjacent homes for his daughters Constance and Helen. The latter, however, decided she didn’t want to live quite so close to the family, and the second home was never built, leaving this architectural oddity.