If you’ve heard the rumors and the whispers about Billionaires Row in San Francisco and wondered where exactly it is, the answer is simpler than you might think. Billionaires row is three blocks of Broadway between Divisadero and Lyon streets in Pacific Heights, perched at the crest of one of the city’s most commanding hills.
But the real story isn’t just about the location, occasional controversies, price tags, or who you might bump into if you take one of those chop-top van tours through the neighborhood.
It’s about how architecture, vision, and a city’s resilience after disaster created one of America’s most iconic residential neighborhoods (and what that means for how we think about home design today).
In this article, I’ll review key historical points, notable designers, and what that means for you when building a unique home worth living in.
How Billionaires Row Came to Be
The 1906 earthquake and fire didn’t just destroy buildings. It reset the entire geography of wealth in San Francisco.
Before the earthquake, the city’s elite lived on Nob Hill, in grand Victorian mansions that proclaimed their status to anyone walking by. When the fire consumed those homes, the wealthy stood in the rubble and asked themselves a practical question: Where should we rebuild? Where can we rebuild?
The answer was Pacific Heights. The hills offered something Nob Hill never could: unobstructed views of the San Francisco Bay, into Marin and beyond (when there wasn’t fog). This wasn’t just real estate. This was pure potential.
The families who rebuilt there after 1906 (heirs to gold rush, shipping and oil fortunes) didn’t just want houses. They wanted architectural statements that would outdo where they just came from.
These might very well be some of the first American architectural lifestyle statements that would also define San Francisco for the next century. And that’s exactly what they built.
The Architecture That Defines Billionaires Row
What makes Billionaires Row in San Francisco architecturally significant isn’t uniformity (like what you see walking up Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills). It’s the opposite. Walking these three blocks, you’ll encounter an eclectic mix of styles that somehow work together: Victorian, Edwardian, Mission Revival, Château, Tudor, and a good number of recent contemporary and modern homes, including the mansion of Larry Ellison.
This wasn’t random. It was intentional. The families and the designers were trying to achieve something that’s fundamental to the “California lifestyle,” before that was even a thing.
The families building here in the early 1900s hired legendary San Francisco architects like Willis Polk (who designed the Bourn Mansion at 2550 Webster Street); George A. Applegarth (who created the Spreckels Mansion’s ornate limestone château, and also student of Bernard Maybek – the Palace of Fine Arts guy); and even Julia Morgan who got in behind the scenes with a carriage house for the Newhall family mansion.
There’s a design shift here. Not modern per se, but something European (and minimalist) and family-focused. In the way we think of it today.
You see it in the way these homes handle light. Massive windows weren’t just about showing off views, they were about bringing the Bay into the living room, making the Bay part of your daily landscape. The architecture anticipated what we now take for granted: that a home should connect you to its surroundings, not wall you off from them.
Who Lives on Billionaires Row Today
The name “Billionaires Row” is relatively recent. It used to be called “Millionaires Row” until tech wealth redefined the pricing scale.
Today, the neighborhood is a melting pot of old money and new – sometimes making for awkward dog-walking sessions for family estate managers representing old oil, or enterprise SaaS.
The Getty family and Levi Strauss heirs still have roots here, but they now share the block with Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Apple’s former design chief Jony Ive, and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman.
Recent sales tell the story: a 7,320-square-foot mansion at 2930 Broadway sold for $42 million in 2025, marking the year’s highest residential sale in San Francisco. Down the street, Laurene Powell Jobs set the neighborhood’s all-time record in 2024 with a $71 million purchase at 2840 Broadway.
These aren’t just transactions. They are acknowledgements of architecture and lifestyle preservation. Many of these homes were designed by the same architect who designed San Francisco’s City Hall, and when they change hands, the new owners typically invest millions more into restoration and modern updates that honor the original vision while making the homes livable for contemporary life.
The Design Influence Beyond the Row
Here’s what’s interesting from an architectural perspective: Billionaires Row didn’t just set a standard for luxury and lifestyle beyond reach. It somehow established principles that influence residential design across San Francisco today.
The emphasis on view capture that defined these early Pacific Heights homes is now fundamental to how I approach any hillside site in the Bay Area. I’m always looking to ask myself how to maximize natural light and frame the best views.
That question originated on those three blocks.
The eclectic “contemporary architecture” style mixing – the willingness to blend Victorian details with modern minimalism, or to add contemporary glass extensions to historic facades – that’s a direct descendant of what happened in Pacific Heights after 1906. The neighborhood proved you could honor architectural heritage while pushing design forward.
And the indoor-outdoor integration that defines California architecture? You can trace that back to these homes, where terraces, gardens, and massive windows blurred the line between interior and exterior space long before it became a design trend.
Why This Matters for Your Home
You don’t need a $71 million budget to apply the design principles that make Billionaires Row architecturally significant.
In fact, you can do mind-boggling things for less than 10% of that!
Every home we design is given the same thoughtful approach that was considered in 1906: understanding what your site offers, designing to capture light and views, blending architectural styles that reflect your personality rather than following trends, and creating spaces that connect you to your surroundings.
That’s the real legacy of Billionaires Row in San Francisco. It’s not about exclusivity or price tags. It’s about what happens when you take architecture seriously. When you treat your home as a canvas for how you want to live, not just a box that provides shelter and storage.
The families who built on Broadway after 1906 weren’t just showing off wealth. I think something deeper was happening there. They were making a statement about permanence, craft, and the role a home plays in a well-lived life. They hired architects who understood that buildings shape how we experience our days, and they invested in materials and details that would last generations.
This is very much in line with the way I work and what my clients are looking to achieve. It’s funny how we get to explore a 120-year-old echo.
How to Make Billionaires Row Yours
Maybe some of you reading this could buy a house there.
For the rest of us, you can capture that spirit of one-of-a-kind design and do it your own way.
You don’t have to live on Billionaires row to be influenced by it. Take a look at your space. Decide if it’s serving you and your life the way it could be.
If your home isn’t living up to its potential, or your standards, maybe it’s time to start exploring how it could be.
If you like, I’d be happy to share what is possible for your lot on a complimentary Design Discovery Session.
By the end of that call, you’ll know exactly how your home can transform into something that pushes design forward, enhancing your life just like the homes do on Billionaires row.
Even if you’re just a millionaire….