Sutro Historic District: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, National Park Service

Fitzgerald, Kathleen; Silva, Steven

The Sutro historic district, approximately seventy‑eight acres, is managed by the park as a historic designed landscape. The district is located at Point Lobos, the westernmost tip of City and County of San Francisco, and is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The collection of the Cliff House, Sutro Baths ruins, ocean views, gardens, and sculptures form a unique recreational landscape. Determined ineligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000, the park manages the site as a historic resource. Historically, the area around Point Lobos was considered remote and inaccessible for most of the nineteenth century and was called the Outside Lands. The Sutro historic district is physically characterized by rugged cliffs and sandy beaches along the Pacific coast and rolling upland areas covered in Monterey cypress stands. A number of freshwater marshes and seeps, which once provided some of the water to the Sutro Baths, are found around the district. The Sutro historic district was historically accessed through horse and carriage trails over seven miles of sand dunes between downtown San Francisco and Point Lobos. The Sutro historic district is managed by the park as being locally significant for the years between 1863 and 1937, which includes the initial development of both Point Lobos Road and the first Cliff House by Charles Butler and the development of Sutro Baths and Sutro Heights Park by Adolph Sutro during a time when the site was extremely fashionable and prosperous. The district represents early recreational developments on the West Coast by Sutro. The Sutro historic district is significant for its association with the history of recreation in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Sutro historic district has additional for its close association with Adolph Sutro. Sutro achieved national recognition for the design and construction of the Sutro Tunnel, which drained and ventilated the deep silver mines of Nevada’s Comstock Lode. However, Sutro’s role in the development of the Point Lobos area of San Francisco as a recreational facility for public enjoyment was more significant locally. The Sutro historic district also has skillful site engineering and its design was a major West Coast oceanside recreational complex. The Sutro historic district possesses significance in the areas of site planning and garden design. The location of all of the major extent elements included in the Sutro historic district has not changed. Although significant alteration and deterioration have occurred in all areas of the district, the aspect of design is still apparent in the layout of buildings, structures, and other elements; the retention of grading and landforms; the placement of circulation networks; and the accentuation of vistas throughout the site. Despite the encroachment of residential development on the eastern and southern sides of the site, the overall views of the ocean, Seal Rocks, and surrounding coast remain relatively unchanged and retain the aspect of setting. The relatively development throughout the 1930s established the character of the district which still retains it aspect of feeling, as well as the ocean sounds and smells apparent from almost all points within the district. The Sutro historic district retains its aspect of association through its continued use as a public recreational facility. However, due to the extensive loss of buildings, structures, and planted material the aspects of materials and workmanship have been lost. Overall, the extent landscape features within the district are in fair condition.

Sutro Historic District: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, National Park Service

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