Presidio Terrace is a small, extremely affluent gated neighborhood in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

that was the first of the master-planned communities built in the western part of the city. It consists of 36 large lots laid out around a single privately owned street, also called Presidio Terrace, which takes the form of a two-way access street leading to a one-way elliptical

cul-de-sac A dead end, also known as a cul-de-sac (, from French for 'bag-bottom'), no through road or no exit road, is a street with only one inlet or outlet. The term "dead end" is understood in all varieties of English, but the official terminology ...

. Access is off Arguello Boulevard.

History

Construction started in 1905, just south of and adjacent to the Presidio, a former army base that is now a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Amenities unusual for residential developments of that time included electric street lights, underground utilities and roads designed for auto traffic. The neighborhood was developed by the firm of Baldwin & Howell, a leading San Francisco real estate development company. It thrived following the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...

as prosperous families rebuilt outside the destroyed neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city. Presidio Terrace was originally marketed to white residents only. "There is only one spot in San Francisco where only Caucasians are permitted to buy or lease real estate or where they may reside. That place is Presidio Terrace", according to a 1906 brochure distributed by the developer. A 1948 Supreme Court case, ''

Shelley v. Kraemer ''Shelley v. Kraemer'', 334 U.S. 1 (1948), is a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark United States Supreme Court case that held that racially restrictive housing Covenant (law), covenants cannot legally be enforced. The ...

'', which banned enforcement of racial covenants in housing, invalidated restrictions of this type nationwide. In 2015, as a result of delinquent non-payment of county property taxes by the homeowners association, a San Jose couple, Tina Lam and Michael Cheng, were able to purchase the street, sidewalks and all other “common ground", including garden islands and palm trees, for $90,000. The tax bill was being sent to 47 Kearny Street and the homeowners association blamed a defunct accountant but the owner of 47 Kearny street claimed that no such arrangement existed with the homeowner's association. "Handford Freund has never managed the Presidio Homeowners Association or whatever it may be named." Worried that the new property owners would charge them for parking in the 120 parking spaces on the street, the homeowners complained to San Francisco Board of Supervisors asking that the sale be voided. In addition the British Consulate, which has owned a house on the street as a consular residence since 2003, raised security concerns. On November 28, 2017, the Board of Supervisors voted 7–4 to reverse the sale, reverting ownership to the homeowners. After the vote, Supervisor Mark Farrell referred to the couple as "bottom-feeding pirates attempting to extort and hold San Francisco residents hostage". In April 2018, the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' reported that the municipal government had failed to bill the homeowner's association for water used for irrigation of landscaping for 113 years. In the preceding ten years, the cost of the water was $59,548, and the homeowner's association promptly paid that amount.

Surroundings

Temple Emanu-El was built on an adjacent parcel on the northwest corner of Arguello Boulevard and Lake Street in 1925, and the Little Sisters of the Poor is also close by.

Architecture

Architectural styles in the neighborhood include Beaux-Arts,

Mission Revival The Mission Revival style was part of an architectural movement, beginning in the late 19th century, for the revival and reinterpretation of American colonial styles. Mission Revival drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century ...

, and Tudor Revival. Julia Morgan designed an

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

villa in Presidio Terrace in 1909. A plan to modernize the architecture of one house in the 1990s aroused objections by neighbors.

Notable residents

Many notable San Franciscans have lived in Presidio Terrace over the years, including San Francisco Mayor

Joseph Alioto Joseph Lawrence Alioto (February 12, 1916 – January 29, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 36th mayor of San Francisco, California, from 1968 to 1976. Biography Alioto was born in San Francisco in 1916. His father, Giuseppe ...

, Ms. Claribel Rapp and her first and second husbands, Messrs Elmer G. Beckstrom and the former Peruvian Ambassador to the United States Fernando Berckemeyer Pazos, United States Congresswoman and first female Speaker of the House

Nancy Pelosi Nancy Patricia Pelosi (; ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who has served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives since 2019 and previously from 2007 to 2011. She has represented in the United States House of ...

, Senator

Dianne Feinstein Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she was ...

and her husband, financier

Richard C. Blum Richard Charles Blum (July 31, 1935 – February 27, 2022) was an American investor and the husband of United States Senator Dianne Feinstein. He was the chairman and president of Blum Capital, an equity investment management firm. Blum was ...

(30 Presidio Terrace), and novelist and newspaper columnist Merla Zellerbach (24 Presidio Terrace).

References

External links