Site of the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art

The gift on the bronze came from the widow's second husband. Mark Hopkins died in 1878 before he could live in the mansion, and Mary Hopkins brought in a Herter Brothers decorator, Edward Searles, twenty-two years her junior, to finish it. They married in 1887. Her will left him everything and her adopted son Timothy nothing, and in the contest that followed Searles testified that he had married her partly out of affection and partly for her money. He won, settled millions on Timothy, and gave the house away. It burned in 1906.

What the plaque says

Site of The Mark Hopkins Institute of Art In February 1893, Mr. Edward F. Searles donated the Hopkins Mansion to the University of California in trust for the San Francisco Art Institute for "instruction in and illustration of the fine arts, music and literature", and as San Francisco's first cultural center. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 754 Plaque placed by the California State Park Commission in cooperation with the San Francisco Art Institute, the Mark Hopkins Hotel, and California Historical Society, October 20, 1961.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muir Beach Overlook — 11 mi
  A cliff edge on Highway 1, and the concrete dugouts where two-man crews watched the sea after Pearl Harbor.
• Muir Woods National Monument — 11 mi
  A redwood canyon saved from a reservoir by a gift, and named for a man who had been there once.
• Earthquake Trail — 27 mi
  A short loop along the San Andreas, where a broken fence shows how far Point Reyes moved in under a minute in 1906.
• Kule Loklo — 28 mi
  A Coast Miwok village built in the 1970s to honour a people its builders were told had died out. They had not.

More markers nearby

• Site of Old St. Mary's — 0.3 mi
• Union Square — 0.3 mi
• Office of the California Star Newspaper — 0.3 mi
• California Theatre — 0.3 mi