Forest Hill is an affluent
neighborhood
A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neigh ...
located on the
West Side of
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
. Forest Hill is one of eight master-planned
residence parks in San Francisco. Forest Hill is located near the middle of the City of San Francisco, southeast of the
Inner Sunset and northeast of
West Portal. Boundaries are roughly Seventh Avenue/Laguna Honda Boulevard to the north and east, Taraval Street to the south, and 14th Avenue to the west.
The area south of Dewey Boulevard is known as Laguna Honda or the Forest Hill Extension. The name Laguna Honda means "deep lagoon" in
Spanish and presumably refers to the
Laguna Honda Reservoir at the intersection of Laguna Honda Boulevard and Clarendon Avenue.
History
The property for Forest Hill was purchased by a private firm, the Newell-Murdoch Company, from the heirs of
Adolph Sutro. Development of the neighborhood began in 1912.
Like other "residence parks" in San Francisco, Forest Hill was intended as a racially exclusive, white-only enclave for economic elites.
Advertisements emphasized the deed restrictions that disallowed apartment buildings and other multi-family homes and ownership by racial minorities.
Deed restrictions were in place in Forest Hills until at least the 1930s, and the residence parks remained racially homogenous for much of the 20th century.
The streets in Forest Hill in Forest Hill did not conform to San Francisco's standards regarding width and grade, and therefore were not initially approved nor maintained by the City until 1978. Landscape architect
Mark Daniels developed the master plan for Forest Hill.
["Mark Daniels: Landscape Architect of Forest Hill, Sea Cliff and More"]
Western Neighborhoods Project, Outsidelands.org, April 2, 2003. Several homes and the neighborhood clubhouse were designed by California
Arts and Crafts Movement
The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America.
Initiat ...
architect
Bernard Maybeck.
also contributed to the architecture of the area, designing several houses as part of projects for Lang Realty.
See also
*
List of San Francisco, California Hills
References
External links
Forest Hill Association
{{Authority control
Neighborhoods in San Francisco
Streetcar suburbs
Hills of San Francisco