Sutro Heights Park

Sutro Heights Park is identifiable by the stone lions that still guard its entrance, replicas of those in London’s Trafalgar Square. Perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Seal Rocks, this park marks the former site of the sprawling estate of Adolph Sutro. In eighteen eighty-one, the Prussian-born silver baron purchased twenty-two acres of undeveloped land here and spent a fortune transforming it into an Italianate public garden. He filled the grounds with hundreds of ornamental trees, a glass conservatory, and over two hundred concrete replicas of Greek and Roman statues to bring European culture to his fellow citizens.