Est. 1912 · Presidio of San Francisco
Presidio
House.
Presidio House is a startup founder hacker house set among cypress and eucalyptus, a short walk from the parade ground and the shoreline.
01 — The House
Built for a captain in 1912. Now a house for founders who still ship.
Presidio House sits on a rise above Presidio Boulevard, one of a small row of officer residences laid out when the post was still a working army garrison. Cream stucco, a low terracotta roof, a pair of chimneys, and an arched entry that has seen more than a century of arrivals.
Inside, the plan is honest and unfussy. Two floors, seven bedrooms, a wide living room with a stone fireplace, and windows that fill with morning light off the bay. The restoration kept what mattered: the oak floors, the plaster, the original casement windows. Now it is wired for the next century.
Address
544 Presidio Boulevard
City
San Francisco, CA 94129
Built
1912 · Restored 2023
Grounds
Half acre, private
02 — The Grounds
A neighborhood of fifteen hundred acres, mostly trees.
The Presidio is a national park with a post office, a bakery, and a shoreline. From the front door: five minutes to Crissy Field, ten to the bridge, fifteen to downtown by car.
03 — Inside
Rooms that hold the light, and let it move.
The living room faces east. By seven the sun is on the mantel, by nine it has crossed the floor. The kitchen was rebuilt in 2023 in white oak and honed marble.
Interior
3,400 sq ft
Bedrooms
Seven
Fireplaces
Two, working
Ceilings
10' 6" ground floor
"We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."
— Benjamin Franklin, 1776
04 — Residents
Mostly Harvard. Mostly founders.
The house holds founders and operators who have already built something. Most come from Harvard; all come to ship. Dinner runs long, the kitchen table doubles as a desk, and nobody has to explain what they do.
01
Harvard founder
Founding team member of a startup now doing $50m in profit
02
Harvard founder
Started a marketplace that runs $1B in GMV
03
Exited dropout founder
Built a company and sold it
04
Harvard founder
Raised $80m to date
05
Thiel Fellow
Skipped school to build instead
06
Dropout Founder
Founding team member of The Residency
05 — History
A century and change of quiet occupants.
1776
El Presidio Real de San Francisco established by the Spanish
1912
Constructed as officer's quarters, 4th Cavalry, US Army
1946
Reassigned to Sixth Army headquarters staff housing
1994
Presidio transferred from Army to National Park Service
2023
Restored and opened as a founder residence under park lease guidelines
06 — Visit
Come by, before the fog does.
Private viewings by appointment. Weekdays before noon are best. Bring a coat.