• China Beach
• Baker Beach
• Palace of the Legion of Honor
• Lands End Coastal Trail

Sea Cliff was founded in 1913 as one of San Francisco's master-planned residence parks, developed by landscape architect Mark Daniels on the northern coastal bluffs of the city's western shoreline. The name is descriptive, drawn directly from the neighborhood's dramatic physical character — homes perched on and integrated into cliff faces overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Daniels designed the curvilinear streets with narrower sidewalks and symmetrically lined trees to create a suburban atmosphere distinct from the city grid. The Spanish colonial-era name for the area was Coyote Gulch, reflecting a creek that once flowed from Mountain Lake in the Presidio down to Baker Beach. The first single-family residence was built in 1908, and formal development as a residence park followed the master plan from 1913 onward, attracting architects including Julia Morgan, Albert Farr, and Willis Polk, who produced homes in Spanish-Mediterranean, Georgian, and Craftsman styles across the neighborhood's limited residential streets.

China Beach, situated within Sea Cliff's boundaries, takes its name from Chinese fishermen who established a camp in the cove during the Gold Rush era beginning around 1848. The Palace of the Legion of Honor, a fine arts museum housing over 4,000 works of European art, sits in adjacent Lincoln Park and is closely associated with the neighborhood's cultural identity.

Sea Cliff's combination of cliff-top drama, architectural distinction, and Pacific coastline access is the kind of singular neighborhood story MY-NHD was made to wear.