PHOTOS: Old Money And Tech Money Go Head-To-Head On San Francisco's Billionaire's Row
In the 1870s, the highest hills overlooking San Francisco Bay were filled with laborers enjoying a building boom in America's tenth largest city — thousands of miles beyond the frontier.
The building boom of the 1870s, however, was just a shadow of the rebuilding that took place after the the 1906 'quake.
In the years after 1906, many of Nob Hill's wealthy residents moved to Pacific Heights and changed it from a place of plain homes built for about $1,000 on small lots, to a place like this:
Source: StreetAdvisor
Until recently.
Pacific Heights today is also home to the new-money titans of the tech boom.
Pacific Heights not only possesses a better zip code than the rest of San Francisco ...
The hilltop is also blessed with a mild micro-climate that is said to be clearer than other areas of the city.
The neighborhood seems so affluent and homogeneous that some call Pacific Heights, "Specific Whites."
Source: Urban Dictionary
And its residents are very wealthy. Pacific Heights is the most expensive neighborhood in the United States.
Source: San Francisco Business Times
There's a reason this area is more commonly called "Billionaire's Row."
Fifty-six billionaires live in the Bay Area. Twenty live in San Francisco and many of those people live in Pacific Heights.
The San Francisco Chronicle says Pacific Heights is "populated by impossibly groomed and outfitted locals who seem capable of strolling through a windstorm without having a hair get out of place."
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
This house at 2724 Pacific belongs to the former chairman of the Pacific Stock Exchange.
Source: Curbed
Pacific Exchange was founded in 1882 and was one of the more august San Francisco institutions for generations.
The house is for sale at $30 million. We rang the buzzer, and hoped for a brief tour.
Unfortunately the owners were in Europe and the household manager regretfully declined our request.
With the rear of the house overlooking San Francisco Bay, there wasn't a bad view to be had from the property.
A stone's throw away from the former stock exchange chairman's home, Oracle founder Larry Ellison lives in this $40 million home.
Source: Business Insider
San Francisco society's grande dame Denise Hill told Vanity Fair that her new tech neighbors are: "[O]ne-dimensional and can only talk about one thing. I’m used to brilliant men in my life who leave their work, and they have many other interests. New people eventually will learn how to live. When they learn how to live, I would love to meet them."
Source: Vanity Fair
Hale makes an exception for Marissa Mayer, who was once rumored to be buying this house. (The rumor turned out to be false.) “Marissa is something which I like. Marissa has a handsome husband, in love, beautifully dressed, a lady. I don’t go for this slob culture ...”
Source: Vanity Fair & Daily Mail
Tech money is reshaping the face of this exclusive community.
And the new folks on the block are settling in nicely.
That was life in Pacific Heights.
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