The Cliff House was once a colossal Victorian mansion — that met a dramatic end

For a decade at the turn of the century — before the current Cliff House rose on its bluff — a mighty Victorian mansion overlooking the Pacific was the premiere landmark of San Francisco, preceding the Golden Gate Bridge as the bold architectural marvel that welcomed newcomers to the city.
“It has no press agent and seems to need none,” The Chronicle wrote in 1907. “Romance has associated with its name, and in the East it had wider fame than the more substantial hotels of the city.”

The Cliff House’s origin story goes back further. When the first Cliff House was built in 1863, it was a one-story isolated outpost that might take half a day’s journey over sand dunes to reach.

The restaurant and roadhouse was a tourist destination from the beginning. Former Civil War general J.G.Foster was its permanent resident, and once complained about 170 visitors from Massachusetts who ordered 200 waters and three lemonades during their visit.

“Hell,” Foster told The Chronicle, “two miners and their girls spend more money for one dinner than the entire state of Massachusetts does in an entire day.”

大部分建筑在188年戛然而止7, when the schooner Parallel, filled with 10 tons of explosive powder, hit the rocks underneath the back porch. “The blast, which was felt 100 miles inland, took off the entire north wing of the roadhouse,” The Chronicle reported.

The Cliff House was rebuilt and expanded, then seven years later burned to the ground.

Few lessons were learned in the years that followed. The new owner, San Francisco Mayor Adolph Sutro, decided on an even bigger (and more flammable) wooden structure: a seven-story Victorian manse that seemed about two sizes too big for the rocky outcropping it clung to like a condor’s nest built on top of a volleyball.

The restaurant and hotel looked like a giant dollhouse hanging over the cliff, and polarized locals, who thought it was either the gaudiest or grandest thing they had seen. Every room, it seemed, had long vertical windows, filling the western end with sun. The higher the Cliff House rose, the more gratuitously ornate it became. The top floor seemed to have steeples stacked on top of steeples.

At the time of its 1896 opening, the 10-story Chronicle building at 690 Market Street was the tallest building in San Francisco at 218 feet. With the towering top floor included, the Cliff House was just 17 feet shorter.

More than 20,000 guests arrived for the official opening of the new Cliff House, which was also the debut of Sutro’s electric rail line to the western shores. Most of the coverage was about the trains, which cost a nickel, making the Outside Lands much more accessible to working-class San Franciscans.

At no point in Sutro’s history did the politician and businessman enjoy more popularity.

“Twenty thousand people went over the new electric line, and fully half of them shook hands with Mayor Sutro until his thumbs swelled,” The Chronicle reported.

Sutro hailed the beauty of the Cliff House, which had quietly been in business for months. But most of his speech was an us-versus-them rally cry against Southern Pacific and the country’s railroad barons.

“The American Republic is being transformed into an oligarchy of capitalists. Villainy and dishonesty are prevalent in high circles,” Sutro said. “Monstrous corporations are the bane of the people. Railroads are grinding the substance out of our farmers and workingmen.”

The Cliff House and Sutro Baths were a popular draw for a decade. Citizens were no doubt relieved on April 21, 1906, when The Chronicle reported that “the historic Cliff House, despite its apparently dangerous position, was virtually unharmed by the earthquake.”

There was less than $500 in damage, and the structure was briefly opened to homeless San Franciscans.

But that would be one of its final uses. On the afternoon of Sept. 7, 1907, a mysterious fire broke out in the basement while the building was in the middle of a $50,000 restoration, and the structure was quickly consumed in flames.

“The Cliff House is burned,” The Chronicle’s story began. “Its ending was as spectacular as its history is romantic.”

Luckily there was almost no one inside. Lifeboats aligned outside the back patio for any hotel guests who needed to jump in the ocean, but no one emerged.

The only major injury was proprietor J.M. Wilkins, who ran to safety with his beard and hair singed, and minor injuries to his hands and lungs. Hundreds of San Franciscans arrived to watch along the nearby shore, where burned remains of the impressive structure washed up on the sand — some collected as souvenirs.

“A seething pillar of fire reaching for hundreds of feet from the high cliff, like a giant beacon fire on the headland,” The Chronicle reported the next day. “On the rock in front of the cliff the seals raised their heads and barked at the flames, but their barking had as much effect … as the efforts of fire engines on the landward side of the blaze.”

Sutro had died in 1898. The sea lions left from their perch on the rocks, and reportedly didn’t return for two years.
By that time a new considerably more modest Cliff House was built in its current location. It was closed twice for long stretches during Prohibition, then reopened in 1937 by George Whitney.

Playland-at-the-Beach触及它的脚步,the Cliff House became more of an upscale dining destination. After Playland was demolished in the 1970s, the National Park Service took over the building — with the Hountalas family running it as a tourist favorite and the site of countless special brunches and dinners.

It closed in December 2020, andthe sign was removed. Now we wait for the next era for the Cliff House, as the most exciting chapter becomes a little more lost in time.

Reach Peter Hartlaub: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @PeterHartlaub