New hotels in Nob Hill, San Francisco

Two hotels tracked here sit on opposite sides of a steep climb. The Huntington Hotel reopened in March 2026 at the summit, six years after it closed. Hotel Julian San Francisco has been open since October 2024, down the slope at 940 Sutter Street. Their starting rates, $600 and $105, are about as far apart as their altitudes.

How the hill got its name

The hill was once California Hill. The four men behind the Central Pacific, Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker, built their mansions on the crest, and the neighborhood took its name from them: the Nobs, then Nob Hill. The earthquake and fire of April 1906 destroyed nearly all of it. Of the great houses, only the granite walls around the Stanford, Crocker, Huntington and Hopkins properties were left standing.

One mansion did survive as a building. James Flood's brownstone, finished in 1886, lost its interior to the flames but kept its stone shell, and the Pacific-Union Club bought it in 1909 and had Willis Polk rebuild it. It is still a private club and still sits at the corner of California and Mason, which is as close as most visitors will get to it.

The hotels followed the mansions. The Mark Hopkins went up in 1925 on the site of Hopkins's house. The Fairmont, gutted in 1906 and refitted, opened in 1907 across the street. The Stanford Court and the Ritz-Carlton Nob Hill came later. Four of the best-known hotels, the Mark Hopkins, the Stanford Court, the Huntington and the Fairmont, line California Street.

The reopening lands in a hotel market that has been through a rough few years. Newbond Holdings and Conversant Capital paid $408 million for Parc 55 and the Hilton Union Square, about 75 percent below their value a decade earlier, and Blackstone bought the Four Seasons on Market Street in December.

Where to stay

The Huntington Hotel

The brick building at 1075 California Street, twelve stories in Italian Renaissance Revival style, was designed by the firm Weeks and Day in 1922. It was not meant to be a hotel at all: it opened as an apartment house, and developer Eugene Fritz converted it in 1924 into a residential hotel named after Collis Huntington, whose mansion had stood on the site of the park outside. It became a conventional hotel in 1947. In 1950 Fritz handed the property to his daughter Dorothy for her fourteenth birthday. She and her husband, Newton Cope, furnished it in an Old World style, and Cope ran it until his death in 2005. The guest book over those decades included Marlene Dietrich, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Truman Capote, Luciano Pavarotti and Desmond Tutu. Princess Margaret stayed in 1965.

The hotel shut in 2020 during the pandemic and stayed shut. Greg Flynn's group bought it in 2023, in partnership with Highgate Hotels, and the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in September 2025. It reopened in March 2026. The brick shell and the rooftop sign, visible from Union Square, are unchanged.

Inside, almost everything is new. Ken Fulk, a San Francisco designer, redid the interiors, with BAR Architects & Interiors as architect of record. The corridors are pink and hung with abstract paintings, and the lobby ceiling is painted with clouds. There are 143 rooms and suites, 71 of them guestrooms and 72 suites, up from 135 rooms before the closure; the penthouse measures nearly 1,500 square feet. Rates run from about $600 to over $1,000 a night.

Two of the food and drink rooms have histories. The Big Four, a 72-seat restaurant across from the lobby, is back in its dark wood, forest-green furniture and 19th-century art, in time for its 50th anniversary, with the chicken pot pie on the menu. Arabella's, a small cocktail bar, takes its name from Collis Huntington's second wife; a mural by Rafael Arana is dedicated to her, and the menu follows episodes of her life. The Nob Hill Spa, which opened in 2001 in the space once occupied by the restaurant L'Étoile, now covers three floors, with an indoor pool, twelve treatment rooms and an 1,800-square-foot fitness center.

Hotel Julian San Francisco

Hotel Julian has a different kind of pedigree. The building at 940 Sutter Street began life as the Empire Hotel, then became Hotel Vertigo, a name that came from its link to Alfred Hitchcock's film. In October 2024 Oxford Hotels & Resorts reopened it under a new name after a multimillion-dollar renovation, the second Hotel Julian after the brand's Chicago original. It has 107 rooms and a reconfigured two-story arrival lobby.

Sutter Street at this point is a working corridor of apartment buildings and small hotels, not a postcard. That is the trade. Union Square's shops and the cable car lines are within walking distance, as is the SoMa arts corridor, and rates start around $105 where the Huntington's start at $600. A two-story, indoor-outdoor wine bar named Carlotta's, after the portrait in the film, was announced for the building in 2023, but its current status is not confirmed here.

What to do

Grace Cathedral stands on California Street, steps from the Huntington. The Crocker family gave the block to the Episcopal diocese after the 1906 fire, and Lewis P. Hobart drew the French Gothic design, with Ralph Adams Cram consulted. Building began in the late 1920s and the Depression slowed it: it was consecrated only in 1964. Inside are casts of Ghiberti's doors, two labyrinths, and the Interfaith AIDS Chapel, which holds work by Keith Haring. Sightseeing is by timed ticket, $14 for adults, Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 p.m.

Across California Street from the cathedral, the Nob Hill Masonic Center is the headquarters of the Grand Lodge of California.

Huntington Park fills the block across the street on the site of Collis Huntington's house. His widow gave the land to the city in 1915. The centerpiece is a copy of the Fountain of the Turtles in Rome, moved here in 1955, and there is a playground.

The Cable Car Museum, at 1201 Mason Street, is free and closed on Mondays. It is also a working building: the powerhouse that drives the cables for the whole system, so what you see through the windows is the machinery actually pulling the cars. Service began in 1873, and the museum has the early cars and photographs.

The Tonga Room, in the basement of the Fairmont, is a tiki bar built around what was a swimming pool, a fixture since 1945. The hotel changed hands in 2015 for $450 million, and the room stayed.

Getting around

The California Street line runs the length of the hill and passes the Huntington's door. The Powell-Hyde and Powell-Mason lines cross it at Powell, and the Powell-Mason line passes the Cable Car Museum. The single ride costs $9, and the SFMTA has approved an increase to $12 from January 2027.

The hill is steep in every direction, which is the point to weigh when choosing between the two hotels. From the Huntington, Union Square is roughly half a mile downhill, and the way back is the climb that cable cars were invented for. Hotel Julian is already partway down, a few blocks west of the Square.

For other parts of the city, see Union Square, the nearest neighborhood to the south, SoMa across Market Street, and the San Francisco hub for everything else we track.

Which hotel for which trip

The Huntington suits a stay built around the building: anyone who wants the landmark address, a bar named after a railroad tycoon's wife, the spa, and the cathedral and cable car line within a block or two. At $600 and up, it is priced as a destination in itself.

Hotel Julian makes sense for a shorter trip when the hotel is a place to sleep, and for travelers who know the city and want to spend the difference elsewhere. It is not at the summit and does not pretend to be.

Frequently asked questions

Is The Huntington Hotel open yet?

Yes. It reopened in March 2026 after being closed since 2020, with 143 rooms and suites redesigned by Ken Fulk.

What is the newest hotel to open in Nob Hill?

The Huntington Hotel, which reopened in March 2026 in a building from the 1920s. Before it, Hotel Julian San Francisco opened in October 2024 at 940 Sutter Street.

How much does a night cost?

From about $600 at The Huntington Hotel, with rates reaching over $1,000, and from about $105 at Hotel Julian San Francisco. Both are starting rates, not guarantees.

Is Nob Hill walkable to Union Square?

Yes, downhill in a few blocks. The California Street cable car line and the Powell lines also link the two.

Is Nob Hill a good base without a car?

Yes. The California Street, Powell-Hyde and Powell-Mason cable car lines serve the neighborhood, and Union Square and Chinatown are within walking distance, although the climb back up is steep.