Historic Pilots Row Neighborhood Awarded Preservation Grant

Presidio of San Francisco (May 11, 2005) — The president of the nation’s pre-eminent historic preservation agency announced today that 13 World War I-era homes next to the Golden Gate Bridge will receive a community revitalization grant as the part of the Home and Garden TV network’s Restore America project.

The $3 million restoration project is expected to be completed later this year. Pilots Row, geographically, is a bridge between the Presidio’s eastern and western regions. It is in the Fort Scott area of the park, which once was headquarters for the Coastal Artillery Corps that guarded the entrance to the Golden Gate beginning in the World War I era.

The annual Restore America grant is awarded to a dozen sites around the country to tell the story of a given community’s distinctive past. The Home and Garden TV network typically films the work for airing at a later date.

Organized in a “V” shape that some speculate to recall that of an airplane, Pilots Row in the Presidio served as officers’ quarter for the pilots of Crissy Air Field during the 1920s. The unusual configuration helps to tell the story of the area’s rich aviation history. The Pilots Row neighborhood was constructed in 1921.

With sweeping views of San Francisco Bay, Crissy Field and the City, Pilots Row is one of the most visible neighborhoods in the Presidio as the area is an approach to the Golden Gate Bridge.

The neighborhood will be restored for modern living using “green” building principles which incorporate environmentally sensitive materials and design. There are about 2,500 residents living in the Presidio, using homes and apartments once designed for military families.

Created by Congress in 1996, the Presidio Trust is charged with preserving the Presidio’s natural, cultural, scenic, and recreational resources while achieving financially self-sufficiency by 2013. Six presidential appointees and the Secretary of the Interior, or her designee, sit on the Board of Directors and oversee the management of 80 percent of the Presidio lands.