I wander alone through the shuttered San Francisco landmark, camera in hand, capturing a quiet, melancholy elegance that teeters on the edge of time and circumstance.
The Cliff House—quite literally perched on a cliff on San Francisco's west side, as its name implies—sat empty and dormant for two years before I was invited to take a look inside and photograph it in the summer of 2022. The iconic landmark closed its doors at the end of 2020, a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic and lease complications, leaving its future uncertain.
With over 160 years of history marked by fires, reconstructions, and continual remodeling, the site bears the layered legacy of multiple generations of buildings, each rising where the last once stood. Even as I wandered alone through its halls, that long, shifting past could still be felt.
Corridors stretch, empty and barren, with little to no accoutrement: an oddly placed bucket, a lone power tool. A closet—or was it an office?—held a tangle of cables in the corner, their purpose long lost to tribal knowledge, now an obstacle only the brave dare to navigate.
Stains on the floor appeared to be grease or the expelled residue left by some large machine, perhaps.
The kitchen—undoubtedly the eeriest part of the building for me—is unsettling, its bleak color scheme and emptiness made all the more disturbing by the cold gleam of dormant industrial equipment. It's hard not to fend off unwelcome thoughts of horror films.
Nearby, a grand banquet room sits awash in shades of brown that linger in memory, its former charm seemingly erased. The curtains and carpet—all of it—were certainly a choice. Did people actually eat here? My goodness, the fluorescent lights are off-putting. To my dismay, I later find an entire storage room full of them. This building is taunting me.
All of this gaudy blandness is contrasted by the inexplicable “modern” northern wing. It's a stark departure from the rest of the building—a remodel from 2001 or so, I'm told. Could've fooled me; with all the glass block, pastel accents, and faux-chrome fixtures, it looks like it was lifted straight out of a 1989 mall food court. Don't get me wrong: it is pretty cool. It's just wildly out of step with the bistro upstairs.
The bistro is (or was) the highlight of the building. It's huge, filled with natural light (more on that in a moment), and features welcoming, bouncy cushioned booths. Mirrors adorned with etched seagulls line the walls beside the booths, ornately arranged to open up the space—where I imagine more tables once stood, now empty.
But the showpiece of the restaurant is its many large windows, wrapping around to offer panoramic views of Ocean Beach and the Pacific Ocean. It truly is quite a sight, one I'm sure has dazzled guests for nearly two centuries. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
They're eerie and sad, in a way—but here they are: a quiet photographic tribute to a place suspended between grandeur and decay, waiting for whatever comes next.
Special thanks to Nicole Meldahl and the Western Neighborhoods Project for granting me the privilege of endlessly roaming the Cliff House and taking pictures.