page_title: Sutro Heights Park
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Sutro Heights Park / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: reviewofreviewsw33newy (find matches) Title: Review of reviews and world's work Year: 1890 (1890s) Authors: Subjects: Publisher: New York Review of Reviews Corp Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: A VIEW OF THE GREAT CITY HALL OF SAN FRANilSCO, WHICH COLLAPSED IN THE EARTHgUAKE. IT IS SAID TO HAVE COST S7,(K)n,(IOO. CALIFORNIA S CATASTROPHE. 543 Text Appearing After Image: THE FAMOUS CLIFF HOUSE, ON SUTRO HEIGHTS, SAN FRANCISCO, WHICH WAS REPORTED TO HAVE ENTIRELY DISAPPEARED IN THE CONVULSION CAUSED BY THE EARTHQUAKE. prosperous period of all its history. Of its fourhundred thousand people, it was estimated onthe day following the earthquake tliat fully one-fourth were driven from their homes. Manythousands escaped across the bay to (J)akland,Berkeley, and the adjoining districts. Otherthousands were sheltered in tents in the greatGolden Gate Park, by virtue of prompt actionon the part of the military forces of the UnitedStates stationed at the Presidio, under the com-mand of General Funston. San Francisco will not have lost courage, andthe city will rise from its ashes better appointedand finer than ever. Chicago, Boston, andBaltimore have shown how speedily and withwhat vmdaunted energy American cities restorethemselves after great fires. But although SanFrancisco will not remain in ruins, there mustbe great mourning and widespread sympathyfor an app Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: Sutro Heights Park is an historic public park in the Outer Richmond District of western San Francisco, California. It is within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the Sutro Historic District.
  It is located above the Cliff House in the Lands End area, with views of the Seal Rocks, Ocean Beach, and the Pacific Ocean.
context_section_description: The 18 acres (7.3 ha) park is on the site of the former "Sutro Heights" estate of Adolph Sutro, a Comstock Lode silver baron, and a major land owner/developer in and mayor of San Francisco.
  In 1881, Adolf Sutro purchased 22 acres (89,000 m²) of undeveloped land south of Point Lobos (San Francisco) and north of Ocean Beach at the western edge of the city. It included a promontory overlooking the Pacific, with scenic views of the Marin Headlands, Mount Tamalpais, and the Golden Gate. Sutro built his mansion on a rocky ledge there, above the first Cliff House.
  The grounds consisted of a spacious turreted mansion, a carriage house, and outbuildings set in expansive gardens. The estate dominated the Lands End area, with an elaborate entrance gate. He spent in excess of a million dollars to recreate an Italian style garden. It was filled with fountains, planted urns, and statues, Victorian flower beds, hedge mazes, parterres, forests of trees, a glass plant conservatory, and other garden structures. Vista points included the "observation plaza" overlooking the Cliff House, and the "Dolce far Niente Balcony," a long terrace-like structure along the cliff overlooking Ocean Beach. To provide garden decorations, he imported over 200 concrete replicas of Greek and Roman statuary from Belgium, to provide examples of European culture to visitors.
  By 1883 Sutro opened his estate's gardens, named Sutro Heights, to the public and allowed strolling the grounds for the donation of a dime. That small fee helped to pay the 17 gardeners, machinists, and drivers he employed to maintain the grounds.
  Other features he developed on his land holdings in the Lands End area include: the Sutro Baths (1894-1964), the second and elaborate Victorian style Cliff House (1896-1907)  and an amusement park named Sutro Pleasure Grounds at Merrie Way (1896-1898). To provide inexpensive transportation for visitors to these he built a passenger steam train from downtown San Francisco to Lands End.
  Adolph Sutro died in 1898, land rich but cash poor following his frustrating tenure as Mayor of San Francisco. His daughter Emma Sutro Merritt moved to the Sutro Heights estate then. As she aged she could not maintain the grounds, and the house became seriously deteriorated, though she lived there until her death in 1938. Throughout the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s, people took away many of the rose garden plantings and vandalized the statues.
caption: "Observation plaza" of Sutro Heights gardens, with the second  Cliff House.
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