Nonprofit buys rare Cliff House artifacts for preservation.
Nicole Meldahl had trouble sleeping. For a little over two weeks, her nonprofit Western Neighborhoods Project had raised $180,000 to buy as many historic items as it could from the Cliff House, and now it was the day of the auction.
She woke up at 5 a.m. Friday, chugged her first of many cups of coffee and assembled the Dream Team — herself, fine art conservator Alexandra Mitchell and John Lindsey, owner of the Great Highway Gallery — on a Zoom call as they sat in their respective Sunset District homes.
“We really just threw all this organization’s chips in for this, so that kept us up at night,” laughed Meldahl, the nonprofit’s executive director. “It got incredibly stressful. I have never seen prices jump so quickly.”
About three hours later, the group had purchased roughly 70 items — including a cowboy statue from the city’s old Playland amusement park and a totem pole — all with rich provenance to San Francisco’s early history along its foggy, jagged Lands End. Their ultimate goal is to preserve and display the items in the city.
“We’re super excited. I can’t even explain it,” Meldahl said. “It was a feeling of — Oh my
God, I can’t believe we pulled this off.”
It was the culmination of a wild past few months for the 157yearold landmark restaurant that announced its closure in December. The Hountalas family, which ran the property since 1977, could not reach a new lease agreement with the site’s owner, the National Park Service. The business had already been ravaged by the pandemic. Federal officials hope to find a new tenant soon.
As an auction house prepared the items for sale, a burglar broke in and stole some items, but then he was caught and nearly every artifact returned. Meanwhile, the nonprofit raised money, blasting past its $150,000 goal after receiving matching donations from an individual who wanted to honor San Francisco author and historian Gary Kamiya, who writes Portals of the Past for The Chronicle.
When outgoing proprietor Marianne Hountalas found out the nonprofit would be bidding, she allowed the team in for a sneak peek to prioritize.
“That allowed us to cut through the fat,” Meldahl said.
The auction began Thursday, but it was Friday when the historic artifacts went up for sale. This was the chance to keep the items local.
As the seconds ticked down on items, Meldahl would type in bids. At times, a dozen targeted lots would inch toward the final gavel and she’d frantically up their bid or choose to abort.
“We quickly realized we would not be able to buy all the historic artifacts,” she laughed.
The group’s treasurer kept a running tally of what they won and how much more they could spend. A set of three posters of the Sutro Baths — a huge indoor pool adjacent to the Cliff House that burned down in 1966 — went way over budget. “Abort!” they all yelled.
Each new bid added another five minutes. By the middle of the auction, the group was juggling about a dozen lots, all nearing completion.
A big purchase was Sheriff C.U. Soon, a spindlylegged cowboy statue that was part of the Fun Piertown kid section of Playland, the old amusement park that fronted Ocean Beach. They also bought two porcelain muses that once hung in the baths and a totem pole representing the Whitney family, early proprietors of the restaurant.
They bought a wooden stool from the baths with Adolf Sutro’s initials stamped on the bottom, bathing suits and lockers from the baths, the wooden bear statue that greeted Cliff House patrons for years, a waiter’s cap, a maître d’s bib, menus from surrounding restaurants and a rare luncheon program when President Theodore Roosevelt visited the establishment.
Her favorite?
“They all feel like my children now,” Meldahl laughed.
The group was ecstatic to rescue the items, but lamented how it was left to them.
“The bigger problem is there is no city agency or approach to save history like this,” Meldahl said. “It’s up to private citizens.”
Now they must figure out what to do with the items. In the short term, the Minnesota Street Project, an art space in the Dogpatch neighborhood, has volunteered to transport and store them. Mitchell will restore them in her studio.
For instance, in an oil portrait of Sutro, which hung in the bar, the San Francisco philanthropist and politician looks a little seasick because of a poor past restoration. While the Cliff House was the perfect historical spot to house the items, Meldahl said, it was not ideal to store delicate artifacts in a working restaurant surrounded by salty sea air.
“We are thrilled and relieved to have rescued so many pieces of history and ensured their safety,” Mitchell said. “We are looking forward to Phase 2 now — to conserve, and archive the pieces, during which we will be planning Phase 3, which will be to find our home for them to be on display for the public.”
The nonprofit plans to hold public discussions on that. It wants the items to stay near the city’s salty coast.
“Real historic artifacts make history incredibly tangible in ways nothing else can replicate,” Meldahl said. “It just seemed important to keep this part of San Francisco’s soul, its heritage, intact and give the city a win in a year marked by loss.”