The Cliff House is a neo-classical style building perched on the headland above the cliffs just north of Ocean Beach. Located on the West Side of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

in the city's Outer Richmond neighborhood, the building overlooks the site of the

Sutro Baths The Sutro Baths was a large, privately owned public saltwater swimming pool complex in the Lands End area of the Outer Richmond District on the West Side of San Francisco, California. Built in 1894, the Sutro Baths was located north of ...

ruins, Seal Rocks, and is part of the

Golden Gate National Recreation Area The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) is a U.S. National Recreation Area protecting of ecologically and historically significant landscapes surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of the park is land formerly used by the Unite ...

and operated by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

(NPS). The Cliff House is owned by the NPS; the building's terrace hosts a room-sized

camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a aperture, small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) ...

. For most of the Cliff House's history, since 1863, the building's main draw has been restaurants and bars where patrons could enjoy the Pacific Ocean views. Since 1977, these restaurants and bars have been run by a private operator under contract with the National Park Service. In December 2020, the 47-year operator of these amenities announced that it was closing, and it criticized the NPS for not having signed a new long-term lease with any operator since its own prior 20-year lease had expired in June 2018. Dozens of ships have run aground on the southern shore of the Golden Gate below the Cliff House.

First Cliff House (1863–1894)

Anecdotal stories claim that in 1858

Samuel Brannan Samuel S. Brannan (March 2, 1819 – May 5, 1889) was an American settler, businessman, journalist, and prominent Mormon who founded the '' California Star'', the first newspaper in San Francisco, California. He is also considered the first to ...

paid $1,500 for lumber salvaged from a ship that foundered on the rocky shore's basalt cliffs near Seal Rocks and built the first Cliff House. While Brannan may have constructed a building there, no historical evidence of this building exists and its role in the origin of the Cliff House remains

apocryphal Apocrypha () are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of scripture, some of which might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In Christianity, the word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to ...

. The Cliff House was built by Senator John Buckley and C. C. Butler, opened in 1863 and leased to Captain Junius G. Foster."Ashen Heaps", ''The Morning Call'', December 26, 1894, p. 1
(bottom of column 6: "The house was opened in October, 1863..."). It was a long trek on foot from the city and the restaurant hosted mostly horseback riders, small-game hunters or picnickers on day outings. With the opening of the privately built Point Lobos toll road a year later, the Cliff House became a Sunday destination among the carriage trade. Later the builders of the toll road constructed a two-mile speedway adjacent to it where well-to-do San Franciscans raced their horses along the way. On weekends, there was little room at the Cliff House hitching racks for tethering the horses for the thousands of rigs. Soon, omnibus, railways and

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

lines made it to near Lone Mountain where passengers transferred to stagecoach lines to the beach. The growth of

Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond District, San Francisco, Richmond and Sunset District, San Francisco, Sunset districts on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of San Francisco, California, United States. It is the Lis ...

attracted beach travelers, in search of meals and a look at the

sea lions Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear flaps, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. ...

sunning themselves on Seal Rocks just off the cliffs, to visit the area. In 1877, the toll road, now Geary Street, was purchased by the city for approximately $25,000. In 1883, after a few years of downturn, the Cliff House was bought by

Adolph Sutro Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro (April 29, 1830 – August 8, 1898) was a German-American engineer, politician and philanthropist who served as the 24th mayor of San Francisco from 1895 until 1897. Born a German Jew, he moved to Virginia City ...

, who had made a fortune in silver by solving the problems of ventilating and draining the mines of Nevada's

Comstock Lode The Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Virginia City, Nevada (then western Utah Territory), which was the first major discovery of silver ore in the U ...

. After a few years of quiet management by James M. Wilkins, the Cliff House was severely damaged when the schooner ''Parallel'', abandoned with burning oil lamps and a cargo including dynamite powder, exploded while aground at Lands End early in the morning of January 16, 1887. The blast was heard a hundred miles awayChristine Miller
"Cliff House Disasters"
''GGNRA ParkNews'', Fall 2002, via ''Outside Lands'', October 4, 2002. and demolished the entire north wing of the tavern. The building was repaired, but was later completely destroyed by fire on Christmas night 1894 due to a defective

flue A flue is a duct, pipe, or opening in a chimney for conveying exhaust gases from a fireplace, furnace, water heater, boiler, or generator to the outdoors. Historically the term flue meant the chimney itself. In the United States, they a ...

. Wilkins was unable to save the guest register, which included the signatures of three U.S. Presidents and dozens of world-famous visitors. This incarnation of the Cliff House, with its various extensions, had lasted for 31 years.

Second Cliff House (1896–1907)

In 1896, Adolph Sutro rebuilt the Cliff House from the ground up as a seven-story Victorian chateau, called by some "the Gingerbread Palace", below his estate on the bluffs of Sutro Heights. This was the same year work began on the

in a small cove immediately north of the restaurant. The baths included six of the large indoor swimming pools, a museum, a skating rink and other pleasure grounds. Great throngs of San Franciscans arrived on steam trains, bicycles, carts and horse wagons on Sunday excursions. Sutro purchased some of the collection of stuffed animals, artwork, and historic items from Woodward's Gardens to display at both the Cliff House and Sutro Baths. The 1896 Cliff House survived the 1906 earthquake with little damage, but burned to the ground on the evening of September 7, 1907.

Third Cliff House (1909–present)

1909–1937

After the fire, Emma Merritt, Sutro's daughter, commissioned Reid & Reid to rebuild the restaurant in a neo-classical style. It was completed within two years and is the basis of the structure seen today. In 1914, the guidebook ''Bohemian San Francisco'' described it as "one of the great Bohemian restaurants of San Francisco. ... while you have thought you had good breakfasts before this, you know that now you are having the best of them all." Cliff House Comp

1937–2003

In 1937, George and Leo Whitney purchased the Cliff House, to complement their Playland-at-the-Beach attraction nearby, and extensively remodelled it into an American roadhouse. From 1955 to 1966, a " Sky Tram" operated across the Sutro Baths basin, taking up to 25 visitors at a time from Point Lobos, enhanced by an artificial waterfall, to the outer balcony of the Cliff House. In 1972, upon the closing of Playland, the Musée Mécanique, a museum of 20th-century

penny arcade ''Penny Arcade'' is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website ''loonygames.com''. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have establish ...

games, was moved into the basement of the Cliff House. In the early 1970s the land-side exterior of the building was decorated with an expansive mural painting depicting crashing waves, painted by artist-musicians (and future members of San Francisco rock band

The Tubes The Tubes are a San Francisco-based rock band. Their self-titled 1975 debut album included the single " White Punks on Dope", while their 1983 single " She's a Beauty" was a top-10 U.S. hit and its music video was frequently played in the ear ...

) Michael Cotten and

Prairie Prince Charles Lempriere "Prairie" Prince (born May 7, 1950) is an American drummer and visual artist. He came to prominence in the 1970s as a member of the San Francisco–based rock group The Tubes, was a member of Jefferson Starship from 1992 to ...

. The building was acquired by the

(NPS) in 1977 and became part of the

. In connection with this acquisition, the NPS contracted with Dan and Mary Hountalas as official concessionaires of the property. The NPS renewed its contract with the Hountalas family in 1998, through the family's company, Peanut Wagon, Inc.

2003–2020

In 2003, as part of an extensive renovation, many of Whitney's additions were removed and the building was restored to its 1909 appearance. A new two-story wing was constructed overlooking what were by then the ruins of the Sutro Baths. (The Baths burned to the ground on June 26, 1966.) During the site restoration, the Musée Mécanique was moved to Fisherman's Wharf. The Cliff House had two restaurants, the casual dining Bistro Restaurant and the more formal Sutro's. Additionally, the Terrace Room served a Sunday brunch buffet. There was a gift shop in the building, and the historic

is on a deck overlooking the ocean. Peanut Wagon continued to manage Cliff House operations and worked with the Park Service during the extensive site restoration that was completed in 2004. During the 2013 government shutdown, October 1–17, the US Park Service ordered the restaurant closed. The owners defied the order, but were forced to close. They reopened with permission on October 12, 2013.

2021 closure and future prospects

The concessionaires of the Cliff House reported on December 13, 2020, that they would be closing their doors on December 31, 2020. They blamed losses from the closure due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, and their landlord, the National Park Service (NPS), for delaying a long term-lease; the restaurant had been operating under a series of short-term leases since June 2018. According to the National Park Service's website, a 3.5-year lease had been offered to the vendor (the Hountalas family doing business as Peanut Wagon Inc.) on December 30, which was turned down. On December 31, 2020, the Cliff House's sign was removed. The NPS says that it "is committed to maintaining this iconic building", but that the "solicitation process or a new vendorfor this operation is currently paused as a result of the pandemic." On February 2, 2021, the

San Francisco Board of Supervisors The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the board of supervisors, legislative body within the government of San Francisco, government of the San Francisco, City and County of San Francisco in the U.S. state of California. Government and polit ...

passed a resolution urging the NPS to find an immediate vendor for the restaurant while it searched for a long-term tenant. The Park Service confirmed that they planned to do so.

Trademark issues

In the wake of the departure of the Hountalas family and its company as the private concessionaire for the Cliff House, it emerged that the company had secured certain "Cliff House"-related trademarks. This led news organizations to speculate as to whether a future concessionaire would be able to use the "Cliff House" name to protect and promote the identity of the institution.

In popular culture

* The area immediately around the Cliff House is part of the setting of

Jack London John Griffith London (; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors t ...

's novel '' The Scarlet Plague'' (1912). * Jack London also sets the meeting of Maud Sangster and Pat Glendon Jr. here in ''

The Abysmal Brute ''The Abysmal Brute'' is a novel by American writer Jack London, published in book form in 1913. It is a short novel, and could be regarded as a novelette. It first appeared in September 1911 in ''Popular Magazine''. In the story, a man who w ...

'' (1913). * Wallace Stegner refers to the Cliff House in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel ''

Angle of Repose The angle of repose, or critical angle of repose, of a granular material is the steepest angle of descent or Strike and dip, dip relative to the horizontal plane on which the material can be piled without slumping. At this angle, the material ...

'' in a letter from Susan Ward to her friend Augusta, in which she describes a visit to San Francisco in 1867 (1971). * An image of the second Cliff House was used on the cover of the album '' Imaginos'' by

Blue Öyster Cult Blue Öyster Cult ( ; sometimes abbreviated BÖC or BOC) is an American rock band formed on Long Island, New York, in the hamlet of Stony Brook, in 1967. They have sold 25 million records worldwide, including 7 million in the United States. ...

. * The Cliff House appears in a scene in the 1948 film '' Race Street'', starring

George Raft George Raft (né Ranft; September 26, 1901 – November 24, 1980) was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. A stylish leading man in dozens of movies, Raft is remembe ...

. * The Cliff House is featured in the

Ubisoft Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Anno'', '' Assassin's Creed'', ' ...

video game ''

Watch Dogs 2 ''Watch Dogs 2'' is a 2016 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the sequel to 2014's '' Watch Dogs'' and the second installment in the '' Watch Dogs'' series. It was released for the PlayStation 4 ...

''. * The Cliff House appears briefly in the climax of the 1958 film '' The Lineup'', at

, starring

Eli Wallach Eli Herschel Wallach ( ; December 7, 1915 – June 24, 2014) was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. Known for his character actor roles, his entertainment career spanned over six decades. He received a British Aca ...

and directed by

Don Siegel Donald Siegel ( ; October 26, 1912 – April 20, 1991) was an American film director and producer. Siegel was described by ''The New York Times'' as "a director of tough, cynical and forthright action-adventure films whose taut plots centered o ...

. * Robert Frost references the Cliff House in his poem "A Record Stride" (''A Further Range'', 1936). * Scenes were shot at the third Cliff house for the 1924 film

Greed Greed (or avarice, ) is an insatiable desire for material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions) or social value, such as status or power. Nature of greed The initial motivation for (or purpose of) greed and a ...

References

Notes

External links

Official National Park Service page

Cliff House Project

CliffHouse.com (website of Peanut Wagon, Inc., concessionaire 1973–2020)

California Legacy Project — ''from

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

's "Early Rising as Regards Excursions to the Cliff House," published in

The Golden Era ''The Golden Era'' was a 19th-century San Francisco newspaper. The publication featured the writing of Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard (writing at first as "Pip Pepperpod"), Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Adah Isaacs Menken, Ada Clare, Prent ...

magazine, 1864''.
Cliff House renovation, 1998-2006. Collection guide, California State Library, California History Room.

c.1902 photograph of the Cliff House
by Robert Augustus Henry L'Estrange (1858-04-08 Rathmines, Dublin, Ireland...1941-20-03 Brisbane, Australia) {{authority control National Park Service areas in California Golden Gate National Recreation Area Landmarks in San Francisco Restaurants in San Francisco Richmond District, San Francisco 1863 establishments in California Restaurants established in the 19th century Buildings and structures completed in 1863 Buildings and structures completed in 1896 Buildings and structures completed in 1909 Reid & Reid buildings Neoclassical architecture in California Gilded Age mansions