c567462 Ch05.qxd 2/19/03 8:40 AM Page 68 • Walking Tour 5 • The Haughty Hotels of Nob Hill Start: Corner of Taylor and California streets. Public Transportation: Bus: Take the no. 1 bus to Taylor and Sacramento streets and walk 1 block over to California Street; cable car: Take the California Line to the corner of Taylor and California streets. Finish: Corner of Taylor and Clay streets. Time: 2 hours. Best Times: Between 10am and 5pm. Worst Times: Before 10am or after 5pm. Hills That Could Kill: Do not climb up Jones or Taylor street between Bush and California streets unless you’re fond of sweating. The block of Taylor between Pine and California streets has a 23.7% grade, so if you’re looking for a particularly good workout, go on up (if you need to rest, you can just lean against the hill). 68 c567462 Ch05.qxd2/19/038:40AMPage69 R A C Broadway 1 Grace Cathedral E L 0 0.1 mi 2 Huntington Park B A C 3 Masonic Temple CA CABLE 0 0.1 km Auditorium Pacific Av. and Museum 4 Huntington Hotel and Taylor St. Powell St. Stockton St. Big Four Restaurant Jackson St. Av. Grant 5 Pacific Union Club 6 831 Mason Street 12 Washington St. 7 Mark Hopkins Hotel Mason St. 8 Renaissance Stanford St. Leavenworth View of . t Court Hotel Transamerica S Jones St. Pyramid h t Clay St. 9 Fairmont Hotel r o Leroy Pl. Larkin St. Larkin finish here w 10 Sacramento Hyde St. n 10 e Street homes v a e Golden Sacramento St. 11 The San Loretto LeavenworthL St. 11 Ct. HuntingtonHuntington Apartments ParkPark 12 Cable Car Museum 1 2 5 9 Nob Hill and Powerhouse California St. start here 3 4 7 8 Taylor St. 6 69 Take a Break Pine St. c567462 Ch05.qxd 2/19/03 8:40 AM Page 70 70 • Memorable Walks in San Francisco Rising 338 feet above sea level and bounded roughly by Pine, Pacific, Stockton, and Polk streets, Nob Hill is one of the highest and best known of San Francisco’s many hills. In the beginning it was well known only because of its height, and was occupied by the poor because the rich didn’t want to climb the treacherously sandy hill to reach their homes. So, instead of the mansions you see today, a series of wooden shacks dotted the hill in the early 1800s. Beginning in the 1850s, a few more prosperous mer- chants and doctors sought refuge from the turmoil of life on Montgomery Street. The first person to build a permanent home on the hill was a doctor by the name of Arthur Hayne. He was followed by Senator George Hearst (father of William Randolph Hearst) and a merchant by the name of William Walton. Hallidie’s invention of the cable car in the 1870s (San Francisco’s golden era) made the hills much more accessible, and those first forward-looking residents soon were followed by a long line of millionaires who recognized the potential value of the real estate atop the hill. They included, among others, the Big Four (Crocker, Hopkins, Huntington, and Stanford) who built the Central (later Southern) Pacific Railroad, and the Bonanza Kings (O’Brien, Flood, Fair, and Mackay) who struck it rich with the Comstock Lode. They were the “nabobs” who gave Nob Hill its name. The original Big Four began making their money as shop- keepers who sold supplies to the miners during the gold rush. Leland Stanford had been a grocer in Sacramento, Charlie Crocker was a dry-goods clerk, and Collis P. Huntington and Mark Hopkins sold hardware. At heart, they were simple men who wanted to lead simple lives. Then, with the building of the railroad in 1869, they struck it rich—really rich. In 1876, after they decided to move to Nob Hill, the Stanfords set about building an elaborate Italian villa, which included the largest private dining room in the West. Mark Hopkins preferred less ostentatious digs, but his wife, 20 years his junior, worked her charms on him until he gave her carte blanche to design whatever she desired. The result was a c567462 Ch05.qxd 2/19/03 8:40 AM Page 71 The Haughty Hotels of Nob Hill • 71 palatial estate adorned with Gothic spires, wooden towers, and elaborate ornamentation. (In a twist of fate, Hopkins died before the house was completed, leaving his wife to finish the job; she then married the interior decorator.) Crocker also built an ornate mansion that stood on the site of present-day Grace Cathedral. Huntington and Flood also built mansions of their own. “Bonanza Jim” Fair, though, never completed his planned mansion on the hill—his marriage ended in divorce before he got the chance. Shortly after the mansions were completed, the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed all except the Flood Mansion, parts of which still stand today. Some of the nabobs rebuilt; others left. Crocker’s family donated his lot to the Episcopal Church for the building of a cathedral (now Grace Cathedral). Later, in the 1920s, some of the new mansions were converted into hotels, and Grace Cathedral’s construction began. With the later construction of some high-rise apartment buildings, the hill lost some of its reputation as “Snob Hill,” and many middle-class people now live on the sloping sides of the hill (the top, replete with high-class hotels, is still reserved for the wealthy, however). This tour begins at the summit of Nob Hill and slowly descends the northwestern slope of the hill. You’ll see the famed Grace Cathedral and walk by the Flood Mansion. You’ll also visit the ostentatious Mark Hopkins and Fairmont hotels, ending the tour at the marvelous Cable Car Barn and Museum. If you’re feeling particularly energetic, you might want to tie this tour onto the Russian Hill tour, so we have included walking directions to the starting point of the Russian Hill tour at the end of this one. On the corner of Taylor and California streets, you’ll see the massive: 1. Grace Cathedral, which stands on the site of the old Charles Crocker mansion. Crocker was among the first group of millionaires to build on Nob Hill, and, like Mark Hopkins’s wife, Crocker stuffed his redwood chateau full of treasures from Europe, including such c567462 Ch05.qxd 2/19/03 8:40 AM Page 72 72 • Memorable Walks in San Francisco items as Millet’s The Sower. He had assembled the lot piecemeal, but there was still a corner owned and occu- pied by an undertaker named Mr. Yung. Yung saw how much Crocker wanted the land, and when Crocker asked him to sell, he demanded an exorbitant sum. Instead of giving in to Mr. Yung’s demands, an enraged Crocker built a 40-foot-high “spite fence,” depriving Yung of sun- light in an attempt to drive his price down. The dispute wasn’t settled until after the deaths of both men (the Yung family eventually sold the property), but it mattered little because both estates were destroyed by the fire that swept the hill in 1906. Not long after the fire, the Crocker fam- ily donated the land to the Episcopal diocese. The original Grace Church stood at the intersection of Powell and Jackson streets and was built in 1849 under the direction of Reverend Dr. John L. Ver Mehr, a Belgian who was the first Episcopal priest in San Francisco. Many of the first parishioners were miners, and when the col- lection plate was passed, they often filled it with gold dust. Later, a bigger church was built at the intersection of Stockton and California streets and was occupied by Bishop Kip, the first bishop of California. The 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed the third church as well, and because it was well known before the fire that the new Bishop, Bishop Nichols, wanted to build a cathedral on a hill, the Crocker family donated their land. Plans were drawn up for a new cathedral in 1907, and the cornerstone was laid and dedicated 3 years later. However, work on the present structure didn’t begin until 1928. Lewis P. Hobart worked 3 years designing this pri- marily French Gothic cathedral on a cross-shaped plan, but he died 10 years before its completion in 1964. Although the cathedral looks like it is made of stone, in fact, it is constructed of reinforced concrete, which was beaten to achieve a stonelike effect. Grace Cathedral is the third-largest Episcopal cathe- dral in the country, and when you survey it, you’ll want to look for several outstanding features. Its main doors are stunning replicas of Ghiberti’s bronze Doors of Paradise in the Baptistery in Florence. Inside, you will find several brilliant stained-glass windows and a series of religious c567462 Ch05.qxd 2/19/03 8:40 AM Page 73 The Haughty Hotels of Nob Hill • 73 frescoes. One group of stained-glass windows, designed by Loire Studios of Chartres, depicts such modern figures as Judge Thurgood Marshall, poet Robert Frost (a San Francisco native), Albert Einstein, and John Dewey, as well as many others. The frescoes, referred to as the World Church Murals, are by Polish-American artist John H. De Rosen and were painted in the late 1940s. The organ dates from 1860, and David Lemon created its Hosea wood sculpture. The Singing Tower (to the right of the main entrance) was given its name because of its incredi- ble 44-bell carillon.