The original Cliff House was constructed in 1863 as a fashionable resort to attract San Francisco’s recently-turned-wealthy residents.
It was a modest one-story wood-frame structure that provided breathtaking panoramic views of the Pacific Coast line.
Sutro wanted to turn the restaurant into a wholesome, family-friendly venue.
It gutted the entire wood-framed building.
The Victorian Cliff House, as it appeared between 1896-1907.
Photo credit:www.cliffhouseproject.com
Within two years, Sutro had built and opened a new Cliff House.
The baths were 150 meters long, 77 meters wide and held 1.8 million US gallons of water.
During low tides, a powerful turbine water pump could fill the tanks in about five hours.
The Baths had more than 500 private dressing rooms with facilities for 20,000 bathers.
There were slides, trapezes, springboards, and a high dive.
Unfortunately, the restaurants existence was short-lived.
Eleven years later, in 1907, another fire razed the building to ground.
The current building is the third version of the restaurant built by Adolph Sutros daughter Emma Sutro Merritt.
Because of the restaurants past history with fires, the new building was built with fire-resistant steel-reinforced concrete.
The baths existed until the 1930s when they were converted into an ice skating rink.
But the rink failed to take off.
A mysterious fire in 1966 brought the project to an end.
The partially demolished Sutra Bath ruins are still there to explore.
Photo credit:The Retronaut
Photo credit:www.cliffhouseproject.com
The Cliff House as it appears today.
Photo credit:Wally Gobetz/Flickr
The Cliff House as it appears today.
Photo credit:Thomas Hawk/Flickr
Photo credit:photolibrarian/Flickr
Sutro Baths poster circa 1894.
Photo credit: Public domain
Photo credit:Daniel Hoherd/Flickr
The ruins of Sutro Baths.
The modern Cliff House is visible in the background, on the upper-right of the image.
Photo credit:Mr. Nixter/Flickr
Sutro Bath ruins.
Photo credit:Louis Raphael/Flickr
Sources:Wikipedia/NPS.gov/www.cliffhouse.com
