Photographs of 2500 Steiner Street by Erik Anderson
GARDENS | DEMI BOWLES LATHROP
At the crest of Steiner and Jackson Streets rises a 12 story cooperative apartment building — each floor a full flat — designed in the Mediterranean Gothic Revival style in 1927 by prominent San Francisco architect Conrad Meussdorffer. Crowned with a penthouse at the top and a maisonette with a separate entrance on the ground level, the apartments overlook their neighbor, Alta Plaza Park, and offer sweeping views in all directions.
A small garden surrounds 2500 Steiner, running north toward the bay along Steiner Street, then around the corner down Jackson. To fix the building to its site, a simple, traditional garden of small trees and evergreen shrubs was installed when the tower was built, and it remained unchanged for nearly 80 years.
Then, in 2006, star landscaper Topher Delaney — who bills herself as a creator of “dynamic physical installations” — was commissioned to design a new garden. Her creation was radically different: 19 angular steel planters ranging from 30 inches to four feet in height that marched in both directions from the corner, each carefully calibrated to compensate for the slope of the street so that every tree was planted at a uniform height.
The modern makeover became a subject of considerable discussion among the residents of 2500 Steiner. Earlier this year, they decided they’d had enough. The modern garden was removed and traditional evergreen trees that mimic the original planting returned. “It was fun while it lasted,” said Michael Lazarus, president of the building’s board of directors, “but it didn’t match the architecture of the building.”
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