Westwood Highlands
Views of Westwood Highlands construction by Baldwin and Howell in the 1920s north of a now completed Westwood Park and an aerial in 1937 after completion of the first phase. All 283 custom-built homes of the original Westwood Highlands tract were built from 1924 to 1929. Each one with a different architectural design from its neighbor with detached single family homes, garages, and utility poles in the rear, the last original streetlight is still in place at 345 Valdez. Without the blight of street sweeping signs, there are only the eight iron ones identifying the neighborhood’s boundaries. “Nice gardens…tiled roof houses colored orange, yellow, or white…here an ‘Englishy’ house with small, leaded windows…there a stuccoed pink with a tiled cupola. Utilities are underground in this family neighborhood, where the higher you go up, the grander the dwelling.”
Early transportation to the area seen here at the intersection of Monterey Boulevard and Plymouth in 1927. Route No. 1 – Park bus line ran from 10th Avenue and California, via California, 11th Avenue, Clement, 10th Avenue, Golden Gate Park, 9th Avenue, Judah, 7th Avenue, Laguna Honda Blvd. to Forest Hill Station and Twin Peaks Tunnel, Portola Drive, Miraloma Drive, Yerba Buena Avenue, Plymouth Avenue, Monterey Boulevard, to Ridgewood Avenue, to Hearst, to Edna.(Courtesy Ron Davis.)
Joseph R. Bisho, standing on California Street in the 1920s, traveled to San Francisco from Honolulu on business and got married here in the early 1920s. His grandson David Bisho would move his family to Westwood Highlands.(Courtesy Dave Bisho.)
Joe Bisho with his family in Hawaii. His parents emigrated there from the Azores.
James Coughlin home at 325 Yerba Buena in 1930. (Courtesy Beverly Coughlin.)
Warren Coughlin (future owner of Willig Truck Lines) in front of his house at 325 Yerba Buena in Westwood Highlands in 1930. (Courtesy Beverly Coughlin.)
Ken Hoegger graduated from Riordan High School and Kathy Conte graduated from Lowell before they both went on to San Francisco State and married in 1969. They bought their home on Burlwood Drive in 1972, pictured here in the living room with their 6 week old first born, Eric, in 1974. One of the founders of the Friends of Mount Davidson Conservancy, Ken has been one of West of Twin Peaks most active civic leaders, initiating or participating in a number of historic and park preservation efforts, with his wife, Kathy. (Courtesy Ken and Kathy Hoegger.)
Third generation San Franciscans, 6-year old Eric and 4-year old Roxanne Hoegger, in their Burlwood Drive garden. Like her mom, Roxanne would graduate from Lowell High School. Eric would graduate from Phillip Burton Academic High.