Suspended above the Pacific on the western edge of San Francisco, the historic Cliff House restaurant has fascinated visitors since 1909. Today, the structure, complete with gift shop, antique arcade games, and sweeping views, has undergone a complete restoration that returns the building to its neoclassical origins.
The restoration is just the latest incarnation of an establishment that has undergone many changes in its long history. The original Cliff House, built in 1863, burned down in 1894. At the turn of the century, San Francisco philanthropist and mayor Adolph Sutro rebuilt the structure in the high Victorian style, but this too burned in 1907. The current structure, built in 1909, has itself been revamped over the years, obfuscating some of its original historic details.
The massive restoration effort is the result of a unique agreement between the National Park Service and restaurateurs Dan and Mary Hountalas. The couple, who have been proprietors of the Cliff House for the last 30 years, put up $12 million of the total $17 million restoration bill, in lieu of paying rent to the Park Service for the next two decades. As park budgets remain tight, the Cliff House restoration may signal a growing trend toward the creation of such partnerships with park concessioners.
"There have always been significant opportunities for meaningful partnerships with concessioners, but the contracting process has gotten in the way of that, because it automatically puts people on opposite sides of the table," says Phil Voorhees, NPCA's vice president of the Center for Park Management. "This is an example where the parties have gotten well past that and worked extremely well together."
The restoration removed facades that have been built over the years and restored the existing wood-framed windows to an accurate period style. A new two-story section, called the Sutro Wing, has been added to the main building, which will retain historic touches such as a marble-veneered staircase and a tin ceiling. Other renovations included retrofitting the structure with current seismic technology and bringing it into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
"As money gets tighter across the park system, it becomes more difficult for the Park Service to preserve complicated structures such as Cliff House," Voorhees says. "This project is turning a dilapidated facility into something that is much more visitor friendly and that is much more appropriate to the local environment. Cliff House is a landmark."
