San Francisco Neighborhoods · Sutro Heights
Sutro Heights
Fog zoneWhere Geary runs out of city — a fog-draped bluff of Adolph Sutro's old gardens, the Cliff House perched on the rocks below, and nothing to the west but the Pacific.
- Clifftop park at the door
- Ocean Beach starts here
- Lands End trails next door
- Quiet end-of-the-line blocks
On the map
Open Sutro Heights on the map →The story
Sutro Heights is named for Adolph Sutro (1830–1898), the Prussian-born engineer who made his fortune on the Sutro Tunnel, which drained the silver mines of Nevada's Comstock Lode, and who later served as mayor of San Francisco. In 1881 he bought a cottage on this windswept bluff above the Cliff House and made it his home and showpiece garden. He rebuilt the Cliff House below after the first one burned in 1894, and built the giant Sutro Baths in the cove just to the north. His family later deeded the Heights to the city; the house is long gone, but its foundations and the old parapet survive in Sutro Heights Park, now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Around the park, the western ends of Geary Boulevard and Point Lobos Avenue, Seal Rock Drive and the avenues from 42nd to 48th filled in as a quiet residential corner at the Richmond District's far western edge.
Things most people don’t know
A millionaire's garden, open to all
Sutro planted his clifftop estate with gardens and trees, lined its paths with dozens of statues, many of them copies of classical works, and opened it to the public. The grounds are now Sutro Heights Park, run by the National Park Service.
The parapet lookout
The parapet from Sutro's estate still stands at the bluff's edge, looking out over Seal Rocks and the long sweep of Ocean Beach.
Three Cliff Houses
The first Cliff House went up on the rocks below the Heights in 1863. Sutro's turreted château replaced it in 1896, rode out the 1906 earthquake, then burned in 1907; the neoclassical building of 1909 still stands.
Where Ocean Beach begins
Ocean Beach, about 3.5 miles of sand, starts at the foot of the Cliff House and runs south to Fort Funston, with the Great Highway setting off beside it from Point Lobos Avenue.
The mayor who owned a twelfth of SF
Sutro served as mayor from 1895 to 1897 and at one point owned roughly a twelfth of San Francisco's land, from these bluffs to the forested hill now called Mount Sutro.
Eating and drinking near Sutro Heights
Sutro Heights is primarily residential — these sit in the Outer Richmond.
Restaurants
- Pacific Cafe · 7000 Geary Blvd
- Violet's Tavern · 2301 Clement St
- Pearl 6101 · 6101 California St
Bars
- Simple Pleasures Cafe · 3434 Balboa St
- Trad'r Sam · 6150 Geary Blvd
- The Blarney Stone · 5625 Geary Blvd
Getting around and getting care
Transit. The 38-Geary runs out to 48th Ave & Point Lobos at the park gate and, with the 38R-Geary Rapid, runs the length of Geary Blvd to downtown; the 31-Balboa runs along Balboa St at the southern edge, and the 5-Fulton and 5R-Fulton Rapid run along Fulton, two blocks south.
Nearest hospital. UCSF Health Stanyan Hospital (formerly St. Mary's), 450 Stanyan St (about 3 mi)
Thinking about Sutro Heights?
Send me an address and I will come back with its sun, wind and fog, what is under it, and what has closed on the block.