I came across the Land's End Octagon House when I was looking for odd things to do in San Francisco. It had potential to be interesting, but I should have known from the walk to get there that it wouldn't be worth it. Since the Octagon House wasn't too far from the Sutro Baths I thought we could kill two birds with one stone. However, I'm out of shape and walking up the hill on a mildly hot day wasn't my favorite thing to do. Eventually Megan convinced me that we should still try to find the house. I had the basic location of the house, but we kept walking around where it should be located and we saw nothing. After a while I realized that it was actually up another hill and I wasn't sure it was going to be worth it. Again, Megan convinced me that it wasn't THAT far. We saw the house, but we still didn't know how to actually get to it. Finally, I saw a path through a parking lot and decided we should try it.
The Land's End Octagon House was built in 1927 to replace the older lookout, built in 1889, to make way for a more scenic lookout for the park. It was the third lookout in Land's End. Unfortunately, now the building is surrounded by a fence which makes it difficult to take good photos or get close to it. I'm also not one to break rules or enter a place that clearly doesn't want to be entered. The lookout is waiting to be restored by the National Parks Service, and I think it would make a cool cafe or observation deck as long as you're willing to have trees blocking your view.
Despite kind of being a waste Land's End did have a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
What a cool little building! It reminds me a bit of the Warner observatory in CLE have you been??
ReplyDeleteYes, I have been there! It's actually the background on my phone... but the observatory is cuter and you can actually go inside.
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