Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences
- Architect
- Burnham and Root
- Year
- 1890
- Style
- Richardsonian Romanesque
- City
- San Francisco, CA
The Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences is a luxury residential skyscraper that rises atop the historic Chronicle Building, also called the de Young Building. M. H. de Young, owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, commissioned the original from the firm Burnham and Root in 1888; completed in 1890, its ten stories and 218-foot clock tower made it San Francisco's first skyscraper and the tallest building on the West Coast.
the building
The clock tower fire. In 1905, fireworks set off during a celebration for Mayor Eugene Schmitz's re-election ignited the building's wooden clock tower. The damaged tower was removed, and de Young responded by adding two more floors along Market Street and a sixteen-story annex along Kearny Street.
Rebuilt after 1906. The Chronicle Building survived the 1906 earthquake structurally, but the fire that followed gutted its interior; architect Willis Polk oversaw the rebuilding.
the style
The original Chronicle Building was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style associated with Burnham and Root's practice, brought west for de Young's newspaper headquarters as, at the time, the tallest building on the West Coast.
More on Richardsonian Romanesquethe architect
Burnham and Root, a major architecture firm, designed the Chronicle Building for de Young; Willis Polk later oversaw its rebuilding after the 1906 fire.
significance
The 1890 Chronicle Building is counted as the first skyscraper built in California, and for a time was the tallest building on the West Coast.
nearby
- Hallidie Building
- Building at 735 Market Street
- Rialto Building
- V. C. Morris Gift Shop
- Contemporary Jewish Museum
- San Francisco Curb Exchange Building