Ingleside Terrace

Sandwiched between the campuses of a state university on the left and a city college on the right, Ingleside Terrace would seem to be teeming with students. Both places of higher education (San Francisco State University and City College of San Francisco) bring a combined student body of tens of thousands to the area a day. Yet this place, though claiming a student resident here and there, is more a traditional neighborhood, with neatly maintained (and often grand-scale) single-family homes instead of dormitories and cramped apartments.

Ingleside Terrace has a history that belies its quiet, almost suburban aspect. These tranquil, upper-crusty blocks with wide, landscaped yards, palm trees, and grassy public spaces were once home to makeshift gambling operations, a shooting range, and a certain seedy element in the late 19th century. Then, the Pacific Coast Jockey Club opened the Ingleside Racetrack across the way from a well-frequented roadhouse and toned things up a bit with a fancy clubhouse and even a rail line to transport horserace enthusiasts to the site.

The new track was not all that successful (the dense fog that often visits the area in the summer obscured the action at inopportune moments), and after the owners attempted to bring other types of races to the track (including autos), they gave up and sold the place to a competitor in 1905. But the city’s other racetracks were declining at the time, and when the 1906 earthquake struck, the track was converted to a camp for quake and fire refugees and the clubhouse served as a temporary home to the residents of the Laguna Honda Hospital, which needed extensive repairs.

By 1910, sensing an opportunity, developer Joseph A. Leonard bought the racetrack and its surrounding land (for $2,500 an acre) and began building the neighborhood seen today—a community of broad streets, curved drives, grand entries off Ocean Avenue, and tastefully landscaped small parks with unique ornamental touches and landmarks. Urbano Drive itself follows the oval contours of the original racetrack, and the irregular-sized lots are in keeping with his vision of creating a semi-rural retreat in the midst of a growing metropolis.

Perhaps the most enduring reference to Leonard’s vision is Entrada Court, which is actually two streets leading at 45-degree angles to a circular drive, in the middle of which sits a massive sundial (which Leonard marketed with great fanfare), surrounded by curlicue walkways, benches, and low-profile trees, shrubs, and pedestals topped with plants. It imparts a stately, tasteful aspect to the western end of the old racetrack, a reminder to those who gaze upon it that time is indeed fleeting.

Leonard’s plan for the neighborhood is also evident in the styles of homes arrayed on the curved street plan. These pastel-hued domiciles—a Craftsman here, a Mission revival there, punctuated occasionally by a two-story Tuscan villa—comprise a vision of an early 20th century “residence park.” Many of the area’s homes follow this eclectic architectural pattern, giving it the feel of Southern California—or at least Monterey.

One pernicious effect of Leonard’s grand plan was the shutting out of minorities, especially African Americans. Then, in 1957, Cecil F. Poole, a black lawyer (and Harvard grad) arrived, the first non-Caucasian to buy a home in Ingleside Terrace—one of Leonard’s former residences to boot. Poole, president of the San Francisco Urban League and an assistant district attorney, would one day become a federal judge. Still, that did not spare him the indignity of having a cross burned on his front lawn. Despite such overt expressions of hate, Poole and his family remained in the neighborhood until the 1980s, by which time most barriers to home ownership based on race had been challenged, if not removed altogether.

Today the enclave’s population of 4,500 is more diverse than ever, if still somewhat dominated by whites (about 60 percent, according to U.S. Census figures). Asians have a strong presence (30 percent), and African Americans and those of two or more races make up the remaining 10 percent. The mostly upper-middle class residents (median annual household income is above $100,000) overwhelmingly own their homes (90 percent).

Shopping is along Ocean Avenue, with its array of service stores (dry cleaners, hair salons, nail parlors) along with an assortment of shops, from Ocean Cyclery and Golden Gate Wine Cellars to Aquatic Central (for rare aquarium fish) and the Comic Outpost (“We have issues” is the store’s slogan). A number of mom-and-pop cafes (King’s Coffee et al.), restaurants (like Emmy’s), and baked-goods stores (e.g., Zanze’s Cheesecake) also line Ocean Avenue as it curves gently around the neighborhood’s northeastern perimeter. Residents can also take advantage of the big department stores and specialty shops at the nearby Stonestown Mall on 19th Avenue.

The small neighborhood has no schools, private or public, within its bounds, although a number of options (Aptos Middle School, Mercy High School, Lick Wilmerding High) are nearby.

Public transportation is limited for the most part to the “K” streetcar line, which travels regularly along Ocean Avenue en route to the West Portal stations and downtown destinations beyond or to the Balboa Park station, where it connects with BART. Many residents here choose to drive, however, and with so many homes having garages, onstreet parking is never difficult, except near the neighborhood’s western edge, where competition for spaces increases with the daily influx of SFSU students. For this reason, the city’s Department of Parking and Traffic has issued the “H” residential parking permit, enabling those who live in those western blocks affected to park their cars longer than for two hours. The only other restrictions to parking on the street elsewhere are the weekly street-sweeping times and the usual (if rarely enforced) 72-hour limit on occupying any one spot.

There is not much crime here: an instance of vandalism or disturbing the peace, an occasional burglar, the rare assault or even sex crime. Vehicle theft and car break-ins are also infrequent, contradicting a trend that San Francisco police are increasingly at a loss to prevent in other neighborhoods. No murders have been reported in the last three years.

Real estate is predictably pricey, even as the neighborhood suffered one of the biggest drops (26 percent) in median sales price in the economic downturn, according to Trulia.com. A four-bedroom, two-bathroom single-family home recently listed for $1.2 million, while a two-bedroom, one-bathroom home was advertised at $860,000. Rentals, driven by the student market to a great degree, are reasonable: a small three-bedroom, one-bath in-law unit off Estero Avenue recently listed for $1,900 a month, while a three-bedroom, two-bath single-family home was asking $2,800 a month. In spite of the slide in the market, homes and apartments in Ingleside Terrace remain in demand, as more residents seek to “move up” to this earliest of San Francisco’s planned residential communities.