When I sit buyers down and tell them about Potrero Hill, the first thing I tell them is that it has some of the City’s best views. You also get great weather — and extra-easy access to freeways for those who need to zoom down to the airport or further south to the Silicon Valley.

Nestled right between the City’s two major freeways (280 and 101)Potrero Hill spans roughly 10X10 blocks from 17th Street to Cesar Chavez. “Tight-knit community’ is a hackneyed phrase, but in Potrero Hill’s case, it’s a  genuinely apt term.  I think some of the neighborhood’s intimacy comes from its geographic borders, which are bounded by freeways on its east and west side.

Potrero Hill’s architecture is another singular draw. Home styles here are a catch-all that run from the modest to the mighty, with small Victorian cottages and buildings elbowing up to mid-century homes and showcase properties that have been featured in Architectural Digest.  The effect is both charming and funky– and generally the buyers I’ve taken there love it or hate it.

Price-wise, the homes on Potrero Hill get less expensive once you crest its hill and move south toward Cesar Chavez. Naturally the view homes are the most expensive with the Architectural Digest ones garnering over $1M. There are also a good number of contemporary condominiums in the area with great downtown views.

Potrero Hill’s quasi-isolation makes its commercial district heavily used and most Potrero Hill dwellers know each other by sight if not by name.  Its main shopping strip is 18th Street between Texas and Connecticut. There are some destination restaurants here, such as Chez Papa and Goat Hill Pizza (check out their “all you can eat” Monday nights). There’s also a great independent coffee shop, (you’ll see no chains up here!), bookstore, ice cream parlor and several other interesting small shops.

Some people have expanded their idea of Potrero Hill and moved its North border up to 16th Street. My preference is to call this flat section at the base of the hill the “Showplace Square District,” named for the nearby Design Center buildings. This neighborhood of small warehouses, mixed in with the occasional multi-unit building or loft development is slated for rezoning so that more housing can be built without disrupting the light industrial business climate of the district.

Since Potrero Hill isn’t for everyone, and like-minded people tend to stick together, there’s a shared ethos among those that choose to live here which makes neighbors more inclined to be friendly. For those that love it, Potrero Hill often becomes the only place in San Francisco where they ever want to live. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 5:04 pm and is filed under San Francisco Neighborhoods. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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