1896 Cliff House

1907 newsclipping

1907 Cliff House: On September 7th, 1907 the Cliff House caught fire while being remodeled and burned completely to the foundation...

1907 Cliff House: the ruins after the fire

1909 Cliff House: Adolph Sutro's daughter, Dr. Emma Merritt, rebuilt the Cliff House to a more modest scale, a neo-classical design by the Reid Brothers, architects of the Fairmont Hotel.


1909 Cliff House at night

1937 newsclipping

1937 Cliff House: In an interview with John Martini, George Whitney Jr. said his dad used to go into the closed Cliff House during the early Depression and fantasize about reopening it. He used to borrow the key to the CH from "the Sutros", go into the main dining room and pull up a chair in the southwest corner where he could look over Ocean Beach and Playland, and dream about expanding the Whitney empire, which of course is exactly what he did.

1949 Cliff House remodeled

For more information on the legendary Cliff House visit the Cliff House Project (http://www.cliffhouseproject.com/)