Grand Pacheco Stairway

Grand Pacheco Stairway is located off Castaneda Avenue in the Forest Hill district of San Francisco, California. This is one of many grand stairways in San Francisco where the terrain in places is extremely hilly and was once too steep for horse drawn wagons and carriages. Some of the best stairways are in this particular district, where a special two mile Forest Hill Stairway Walk enables visitors to view these features.

The Grand Pacheco Stairway is generally thought to be the grandest and most elegant of all the stairways in San Francisco. The stairs are 18.5 feet wide with balustrades, columns and patterns of stones adding to the grandeur. At the base of the stairs is an urn of flowers, which is 20 feet in diameter.

Other stairways in the city include the Filbert and Vallejo Stairways, which are the longest in San Francisco or Oakhurst Stairway, which is the steepest. While touring through the Forest Hill area visitors can see a large concentration of homes designed by the Arts and Crafts architect, Bernard Maybeck. He also designed the Palace of Fine Arts, which is another building in the city well worth visiting.