Monterey Heights, San Francisco: Homes, History & Local Life

Monterey Heights sits on the south slope of Mount Davidson in a pocket of The City where nearly everyone owns, almost no one rents, and the streets. Ravenswood, Maywood, Fernwood, Rosewood. have a wooded, residential feel that surprises first-time visitors coming from the more densely built neighborhoods nearby. The neighborhood is actually quite small, bordered by Yerba Buena Drive on the east and San Jacinto Way on the west, but what it lacks in size it makes up in consistency: big two-story houses, large lots, and the kind of quiet that is rare inside San Francisco’s city limits. According to Niche, about 98% of residents own rather than rent, making it one of the highest ownership-rate neighborhoods in The City.

Is Monterey Heights right for you?

Monterey Heights is for buyers who want a house that actually feels like a house. not a renovated Victorian with a shared wall and street-level foot traffic, but a freestanding home with a real front and rear yard and a street where the kids can actually play. That’s steep, but the comparison to other premium west-side neighborhoods like St. Francis Wood or Forest Hill is favorable: Monterey Heights offers similar lot and home sizes at a modest discount, and the neighborhood’s position between those two addresses gives it an aspirational adjacent-premium quality.

The buyer profile here skews toward established professionals and families who are done apartment-living. With 98% owner-occupancy per Niche and virtually no rental stock, the neighborhood turns over slowly. It’s also a very thin market. only a handful of homes sell in any given year. so when something comes up, it moves quickly.

How do you get around Monterey Heights?

Transit options in Monterey Heights are honest to assess: this is not a transit-forward neighborhood. The primary bus service is the 23 Monterey, which runs between the Zoo and Bayview via Monterey Boulevard, and the 36 Teresita, which connects through the hill neighborhoods to Forest Hill Muni Metro station, per SFMTA and SFMTA. The 36 runs every 30 minutes, giving access to the K Ingleside, L Taraval, and M Ocean View Metro lines at Forest Hill station. That connection makes a downtown commute possible. Forest Hill to Civic Center is roughly 20 minutes. but the surface bus-to-Metro transfer adds meaningful time for most origins in the neighborhood.

Walk Score: 66. Transit Score: 68. Bike Score: 50. Source: walkscore.com, Monterey Heights.

There is no BART service in Monterey Heights.

The terrain is hilly, making cycling difficult on most interior streets.

For two-career households: a car is effectively necessary for one or both commuters here. Residents who rely on Muni accept 30-minute bus headways as a trade-off for the housing stock and space. Highway 101 and I-280 are accessible from the neighborhood, making car commutes to the Peninsula and South Bay practical.

The history of Monterey Heights

Monterey Heights was developed in the 1920s on the south slope of Mount Davidson, with the first two-story custom homes constructed to a scale comparable to the neighboring St. Francis Wood. “as large and nice as those next-door in St. Francis Wood,” per the Mt. Davidson history site. The streets follow a curvilinear pattern that curves around the hillside, with the main entrance at Monterey Boulevard and Yerba Buena Drive as documented in a 1932 photograph.

Construction slowed dramatically during the Depression, then resumed in the 1938-1942 period with a second wave of split-level houses with garages. a design that suited the topography and the era’s emphasis on automobile access. The architects who shaped Monterey Heights overlap with those working throughout the west-side residence parks of the same period: Harold G. Stoner, who also designed homes in Merced Manor, Lakeside, and Balboa Terrace, designed the 1929 Tudor at 225 Maywood Drive. Charles F. Strothoff, who worked in St. Francis Wood and Westwood Park, designed 85 St. Elmo Way (built 1930), per Mt. Davidson history site. The last home in Monterey Heights was built by developer Hans Nelson, who also built homes in Westwood Park.

One vivid 1927 footnote: St. Emydius Church built and raffled off “Casa Emydio,” a Spanish-style bungalow at 245 Brentwood, to raise $130,000 for the church, with the dedication attended by Mayor Rolph and the raffle held at the Civic Auditorium on December 15, 1927.

By mid-century the neighborhood was complete and essentially unchanged from its original character. It has remained predominantly single-family and owner-occupied ever since.

What does the housing look like in Monterey Heights?

Detached single-family homes are the sole housing type in Monterey Heights. There are essentially no multi-unit buildings in the neighborhood’s core. The homes date primarily from the 1920s through the early 1940s, with architectural styles ranging from Tudor (including the Stoner-designed example at 225 Maywood), to Spanish Colonial, to the split-level ranch variants that appeared in the late 1930s. Lots are large by San Francisco standards, often providing meaningful front and rear yards.

Attached homes and flats are not meaningfully present. The original development and the neighborhood’s configuration as a hillside single-family enclave produced almost no attached stock.

Multi-unit buildings are absent from the residential core. The Mt. Davidson park boundary wraps around the northern edge, reinforcing the single-family character.

Where locals eat, drink, and shop in Monterey Heights

Monterey Heights has no commercial strip of its own. Daily life runs primarily to the West Portal Avenue corridor a short drive west, supplemented by the Ocean Avenue strip a short drive south.

West Portal provides the closest mix of family Italian restaurants, Thai kitchens, bakeries, an independent bookstore, and neighborhood bars. Gold Mirror Italian Restaurant (1969) is the closest historic anchor. Ocean Avenue adds the broader Cantonese-Lao-Italian-burger mix and the Whole Foods at 1150 Ocean for grocery runs. The pattern is consistent with the other hill-top residential pockets in the southwestern quadrant of The City.

Monterey Heights Pros:

• Exclusively single-family detached housing with large lots
• 98% owner-occupancy rate means stable, long-term neighbors
• Immediately adjacent to Mt. Davidson Park, the highest natural point in The City
• Quiet and private, with low through-traffic on interior streets
• Similar character to St. Francis Wood at a modest price discount

Monterey Heights Cons:

• No neighborhood retai. Daily errands require a car or bus trip to West Portal or Ocean Avenue
• Transit is limited: the 36 Teresita runs every 30 minutes, and the hillside position makes walking to Muni Metro a real exercise
• No BART. Peninsula commuters need a car or an extended transfer
• One of the thinnest resale markets in The City. sometimes fewer than 5 homes sell in a year
• Fog and marine layer from the southwest affects this neighborhoo. Summers are cool and often gray

What’s the Monterey Heights market doing?

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Reach out and I can flag anything coming up in this corridor: luba(at)lubasf(dotted)com

Monterey Heights frequently asked questions

What is Monterey Heights like to live in?

Monterey Heights is for buyers who want a house that actually feels like a house. not a renovated Victorian with a shared wall and street-level foot traffic, but a freestanding home with a real front and rear yard and a street where the kids can actually play. That’s steep, but the comparison to other premium west-side neighborhoods like St.

Who is Monterey Heights right for?

The buyer profile here skews toward established professionals and families who are done apartment-living. With 98% owner-occupancy per Niche and virtually no rental stock, the neighborhood turns over slowly. It’s also a very thin market. only a handful of homes sell in any given year. so when something comes up, it moves quickly.

How do you get around Monterey Heights without a car?

Monterey Heights has a Walk Score of 66, Transit Score of 68, and Bike Score of 50. Transit options in Monterey Heights are honest to assess: this is not a transit-forward neighborhood. The primary bus service is the 23 Monterey, which runs between the Zoo and Bayview via Monterey Boulevard, and the 36 Teresita, which connects through the hill neighborhoods to Forest Hill Muni Metro station, per SFMTA (https://www.sfmta.

What kind of homes are in Monterey Heights?

Detached single-family homes are the sole housing type in Monterey Heights. There are essentially no multi-unit buildings in the neighborhood’s core. The homes date primarily from the 1920s through the early 1940s, with architectural styles ranging from Tudor (including the Stoner-designed example at 225 Maywood), to Spanish Colonial, to the split-level ranch variants that appeared in the late 1930s.

What’s one thing people don’t know about Monterey Heights?

Monterey Heights was developed in the 1920s on the south slope of Mount Davidson, with the first two-story custom homes constructed to a scale comparable to the neighboring St. Francis Wood. “as large and nice as those next-door in St.