Nob Hill

Nob Hill is one of San Francisco's most historically significant and affluent neighborhoods, rising to a peak of approximately 376 feet above the city at the intersection of Jones and Sacramento Streets. One of San Francisco's original Seven Hills, it was long known simply as California Hill before the rise of the railroad barons who transformed it into a byword for wealth and privilege. Today the neighborhood anchors some of the city's most recognized landmarks, including four grand hotels along California Street, Grace Cathedral, and the tree-lined retreat of Huntington Park, while its cable car lines continue to carry passengers up its famously steep grades, connecting Nob Hill to the Financial District, Chinatown, and Russian Hill beyond.

Name and Origins

The hill was originally known as California Hill because California Street went over it. Though not used as much today, nabob is a word used to denote people of great wealth and status. With the Big Four and other members of San Francisco's elite living in huge mansions on California Hill, locals took to calling it Nabob Hill, which was quickly shortened to Nob Hill. References to it as Nob Hill began showing up in newspapers in 1876.

Nob Hill rose to prominence in the late 19th century when it became the favored residential area for the city's affluent residents. The term "Nob" is derived from the ancient English word "nabob," denoting a person of great wealth or influence. As the city began its rapid urbanization in the late 19th century, the site was quickly recognized as a prominent place for the elite to build, because its altitude offered spectacular views and solitude above the hustle and bustle of the rapidly growing city.

The Big Four and the Railroad Era

Today Nob Hill is known as the home of some of San Francisco's grandest hotels and one of its finest cathedrals. Both the name and its reputation as home for the wealthy elite are a result of the decision of the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, collectively known as "The Associates" or "The Big Four," to build their homes there in the mid-to-late 19th century.

The hill's first prominent residents became known as the Big Four: Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Collis Huntington. They were tycoons who had made their fortunes as railroad barons, though many historians have labeled them as profiteers. The four themselves personally preferred to be known as "The Associates."

Stanford was the first to build on California Hill. After he moved his family to San Francisco in 1874, he picked a spot at California and Powell and began to build a mansion. The house at 905 California Street was completed in 1876 and offered a great view of the downtown area. Perhaps wanting cable car service to his front door, Stanford started the California Street Cable Railroad, which began operation on April 10, 1878, and is the oldest still-operating cable car line today.

The four had invested in the Central Pacific Railroad as wealthy Sacramento merchants in 1862, and when the Transcontinental Railroad reached San Francisco in 1869, their fortunes were secured. All four of them ended up moving to San Francisco and decided to build palaces for themselves atop what was to become Nob Hill, since it had the best views of the city, the Bay, and the Pacific.

Other wealthy citizens built large estates on the summit soon after, including James Flood and James G. Fair, who had made their fortunes mining silver out of the Comstock Lode. When immigrant German merchant Nicolas Yung refused to sell his Nob Hill property to Crocker, who was constructing his house next door, Crocker had a forty-foot wall built to surround Yung's residence in order to ruin his views. This episode became one of the more colorful footnotes in the neighborhood's Gilded Age history.

The 1906 Earthquake and Rebuilding

On April 18, 1906, the great earthquake struck San Francisco. The subsequent fire swept across Nob Hill leaving destruction in its wake. Just a week before the Fairmont Hotel had been scheduled to open, its owners sold their entire interest. Several days later the Great Fire swept through San Francisco, and nearly all the buildings on Nob Hill were destroyed, apart from the Flood Mansion and the Fairmont Hotel, although both were badly damaged.

While the neighborhood maintained its affluence following the quake, every mansion owner moved or rebuilt elsewhere. Some rebuilt their mansions further west in San Francisco, in Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow. In place of where the mansions had stood, swank hotels were erected. Hotels built over the ruins of the former mansions include the Mark Hopkins, Huntington, and Stanford Court.

The Fairmont's post-earthquake resurrection became a civic milestone. One year after the earthquake, under the direction of Julia Morgan — California's first female licensed architect, who would later design Hearst Castle — Fairmont San Francisco became the city's first major business to open following the quake. It threw open its doors with an extravagant fête featuring 13,000 oysters, rivers of champagne, and a night sky aglow with fireworks. It was an opportunity for attendees to toast not just the hotel, but the rebirth of San Francisco.

The Stanford mansion's property was later purchased by Lucien H. Sly, who built a large apartment building that he called the Stanford Court Apartments, which opened in 1914. Later owners would gut and remodel the building into the Stanford Court Hotel seen today.

Landmark Hotels and Architecture

Four of San Francisco's best-known and most expensive hotels are located on Nob Hill, along California Street: the Mark Hopkins Hotel, the Stanford Court, the Huntington Hotel, and the Fairmont Hotel. The hotels were named for San Francisco tycoons Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, and Collis Potter Huntington — three of the Big Four entrepreneurs of the Central Pacific Railroad — and James Graham Fair, respectively.

The Fairmont Hotel (950 Mason Street) holds a particularly notable place not only in local but also in world history. As leaders and delegates from fifty nations descended upon San Francisco for the inaugural United Nations Conference on International Organization during the summer of 1945, Fairmont San Francisco played a role in the formation of the new global peacekeeping organization. President Truman's Secretary of State, Edward R. Stettinius Jr., suggested that delegates draft a charter in San Francisco. While some of the assemblies took place at San Francisco's Opera House and Veterans Building, smaller gatherings were held in Fairmont San Francisco's Garden Room, where today a plaque commemorates the launch of the UN Charter.

The Venetian Room at the Fairmont Hotel was where Tony Bennett first sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" in December 1961. A statue of Tony Bennett was unveiled outside the Fairmont on August 19, 2016, in honor of his 90th birthday and the song's history with San Francisco.

The Mark Hopkins Inter-Continental Hotel is built on the site where Mary Hopkins' grand chateau stood. On its top floor is the Top of the Mark, a panoramic bar that became an emblem of San Francisco nightlife and was especially beloved by military personnel during World War II.

Grace Cathedral

The family of railroad baron and banker William Henry Crocker donated the site of their ruined Nob Hill property — on the block bounded by California, Jones, Sacramento, and Taylor — for a diocesan cathedral, which took its name and founding congregation from the nearby Grace parish.

Painstakingly built over the course of 37 years after the 1906 earthquake and fire, the poured-concrete Neo-Gothic cathedral is not only a beautiful tourist landmark and cultural event site, but is also cherished as a working cathedral known for its inclusivity. The building of Grace Cathedral began in 1927, but it was only in 1964 that the intricate structure was fully completed. The landmark event was celebrated with a sermon by Martin Luther King Jr., attended by nearly 5,000 people.

Known as much for its "Gates of Paradise" as for its breathtaking stained glass windows, two labyrinths, Interfaith Memorial AIDS Chapel, and majestic Aeolian-Skinner organ, the cathedral is the third largest Episcopalian cathedral in the United States. The main entrance to the cathedral is guarded by the Ghiberti Doors, also called the "Gates of Paradise." They are a rare replica of the doors designed by famed Italian artist Lorenzo Ghiberti for the Florence Baptistery. Cast from bronze and covered with gold, the doors depict important biblical events.

Grace Cathedral regularly hosts community concerts, art installations, and labyrinth walks that draw spiritual seekers and artists alike. Its stained glass and contemporary art exhibits fuse tradition with the modern in an unexpectedly creative way.

Geography and Neighborhood Character

North of Nob Hill is Russian Hill. West of the district is Pacific Heights. To the south of Nob Hill is the Union Square shopping district, the Civic Center district, and the Tendernob neighborhood. East of Nob Hill is Chinatown and the Financial District.

Nob Hill is an affluent district, home to many of the city's upper-class families as well as a large young urban professional population, and a growing Chinese immigrant population from Chinatown to the east. 15,267 people live in Nob Hill, where the median age is 44 and the average individual income is $93,616.

Huntington Park, also known as Nob Hill Park, acts as a communal retreat amidst San Francisco's bustling environment, offering tranquility for residents and visitors alike. Located in the center of Nob Hill, the park is known for its centerpiece: a replica of the Fountain of the Tortoises, an iconic Roman fixture.

Today the district mixes Gothic Revival, Beaux-Arts, and living transit history, thanks to the California Street cable car line. The neighborhood is also home to a number of enduring nonprofits and cultural organizations, including the Masonic Auditorium, a striking mid-century venue that now welcomes global touring acts, speakers, and local performances.