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Developed in the late nineteenth century, many years before the neighborhoods that surround it, GOLDEN GATE PARK manages to be both a pastoral retreat for San Franciscans and a bastion of local culture, with more than a thousand acres of gardens and forest, complemented by some of the city’s best museums. Spreading three miles or so west from the Haight, it was designed in 1871 by park commissioner William Hall, mimicking the style of Frederick Law Olmsted (who also created Central Park in New York). Hall used a dyke to protect the park’s western side from the sea, and John McLaren, the Scottish park superintendent for 56 years, sculpted numerous miniature environments from what was then an area of wild sand dunes by planting several thousand trees here. The resulting living masterpiece is a rugged landscape which undergoes a natural transition as it approaches the ocean, subject on the park’s western half to strong winds and chilly temperatures. It’s perhaps fitting then that most of the cultural institutions are situated on the eastern half of the park, with the more open western side better for outdoor activities. Click to view available properties in
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