The Painted Ladies

Across from Alamo Square park, the row of Queen Anne houses at 710–720 Steiner Street does what no other block in America can: it turns a park picnic into a postcard. Built between 1892 and 1896 by developer Matthew Kavanaugh, these gingerbread confections of bay windows, turrets, and carved trim stand three stories tall above the park's green slope, the city's modern skyline rising behind them.

They should not exist. The 1906 earthquake flattened most of the city, and in the 1960s urban renewal nearly took the square. But preservationists held the line, and in the 1960s and 70s the 'colorist movement' began dressing the city's gray Victorians in the three-or-more-color palettes that made the Ladies famous — a full-throated revival of the bright Victorian paint schemes history had forgotten.

The cameras followed. The Ladies have appeared in an estimated 70 movies, TV shows, and ads, most famously in the opening credits of Full House, cementing them as San Francisco's unofficial front door. The houses themselves remain private residences, but nobody needs the interiors — the show is outside, especially at sunset, when the pastel facades catch the light against the bay sky.