Historical Marker · No. 841
The Conservatory
San Francisco, San Francisco County · California
Erected by State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission and California Historical Society, 1970
The public spirited citizens on the bronze bought a greenhouse that had been meant for a private garden. James Lick ordered it as a kit for his Santa Clara County estate and died in 1876 with it still in the crates. The Society of California Pioneers, left part of his estate, sold the crates to twenty-seven San Francisco men, Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker among them, who gave the building to the park, and the legislature paid to raise it. A boiler fire took the dome in 1883, and a 1995 windstorm smashed some forty percent of the glass.
What the plaque says
The Conservatory California's first municipal greenhouse was completed in 1879. It was patterned after the Conservatory, Kew Gardens, England. A distinguished example of late Victorian style using early techniques of mass production and assembly of simple glass units. It was a gift to the City of San Francisco by public spirited citizens. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 841 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission and California Historical Society, November 19, 1970.
Where it stands
37.77227, -122.46009 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Muir Beach Overlook — 9.3 miA cliff edge on Highway 1, and the concrete dugouts where two-man crews watched the sea after Pearl Harbor.
- Muir Woods National Monument — 10 miA redwood canyon saved from a reservoir by a gift, and named for a man who had been there once.
- Earthquake Trail — 26 miA short loop along the San Andreas, where a broken fence shows how far Point Reyes moved in under a minute in 1906.
- Kule Loklo — 27 miA Coast Miwok village built in the 1970s to honour a people its builders were told had died out. They had not.