Cliff House

The place is still really pretty in it's third incarnation. 

Another landmark location in San Francisco that has some interesting history is the Cliff House.  Officially a part of Golden Gate National Park, it is administered by the National Park Service and has technically be the site of three separate buildings with the same name. 

The first original Cliff House was built by Senator John Buckley and a man named C. C. Butler in 1863 and operated as a restaurant serving nearby horseback riders, as it was quite a ways a away from the city proper at the time. After the Point Lobos toll road was built a year later, the place continued to rapidly grow in popularity due to the increased traffic and was even visited by three US Presidents in it's time.

A picture of the original Cliff House circa 1868. All pics from the Wiki article. 

On January 16, 1887, there was a schooner named Parallel that ran aground nearby and was abandoned by her crew with her oil lamps still lit and now unattended while the ship was carrying dynamite. The blast was heard a hundred miles away and destroyed the entire north wing of the house. Amazingly, the house was repaired and returned to normal operations after the explosion and continued to operate for another 7 years.

Obviously, the same house is no longer standing today, because on Christmas night 1894, the house was burned down completely due to faulty venting. 

Isn't that thing just awesome looking?

The second Cliff House, in my opinion, is the most visually impressive of the bunch and was built by Adolph Sutro of the Sutro bathhouses (built later) and Sutro District fame in 1896. The second house was also called "the Gingerbread Palace" due to it's impressive size and distinctly Victorian Chateau style. Other than that, there's not too much to it's history as it did not exist for long.

The second house has a very tragic story, with it surviving the great 1906 earthquake with relatively little damage, but was subsequently burned to the ground just a year later. The place only stood for a total of 11 years, but at least it was immortalized on the cover of Blue Oyster Cult's Imaginos album. 

The look of the third cliff house after it's 1949 renovations (top), and it's current look, meant to recreate it's original style it had in 1909.

The third house is the one that exists on the same spot today, and was built in 1909 by Sutro's daughter, Dr. Emma Merritt with a distinct neo-classical style. It continued to be run as a restaurant until 1937, when it was bought by another owner. In 1949 is was significantly remodeled to reflect a more modern style and was a stop for a sky tram until 1966.

The house officially became a part of the national Park system in 1977, and for most it's time was host to the Musée Mécanique, which is what I remember it most for, having gone there a few times as a child. It also still housed a restaurant for most of that time as well, until 2020, with the NPS refusing to renew the lease due to some virus that was running around at that time.  The NPS has said they still plan on finding a new vendor to continue to operate a restaurant in it for the future.