Heights History

Ornately arranged plants border the path in Sutro Heights Park.

San Fran big-timer Adolph Sutro was committed to sharing the wealth, specifically his wealth, with the citizens of San Francisco. In 1885, he commissioned 20 acres of hilltop land for a lavish garden, Sutro Heights Park, designed to showcase views of the Pacific Ocean and the Golden Gate strait. Sutro spared no expense. The garden included observation decks, flower beds, forests, walkways, hedge mazes, parterres (a trendy European tradition of shaping bushes into figures) and 200 imported replicas of Greek and Roman statues.

Sutro was a dreamer, and he always dreamed big. Sutro Heights was his imagined vision of European style superimposed onto an American landscape, a balance of refinement and natural ruggedness.