Nob Hill

The word "nob" traces back to the Hindi nabob — a person of great wealth and influence — and few neighborhoods in America have lived up to a name quite so consistently. In the 1870s, the railroad barons known as the Big Four — Stanford, Hopkins, Crocker, and Huntington — claimed the hilltop and built the most extravagant mansions California had ever seen.

The 1906 earthquake leveled nearly all of it. What survived were the granite foundations, the stone facade of James Flood's mansion, and the shell of the newly completed Fairmont Hotel. Both were rebuilt. Nob Hill did not retreat — it reconstituted itself as one of the city's most enduring addresses.

Today, the neighborhood sits between Russian Hill and Chinatown, above the bustle of Polk Gulch and Union Square. Its streets are quieter than the city below — a dense urban calm, bounded by cable cars on California and Powell, and anchored by Grace Cathedral, Huntington Park, and the landmark hotels that have hosted heads of state and Hollywood for over a century.