Hospital to Housing

Hospital to Housing. Presidio of San Francisco. In 1932, a new campus for the Public Health Service Hospital replaced the wood-frame facilities that dated from 1875. A modern, concrete hospital was the central feature. The original mission of the hospital was the care of merchant seamen. In 1952, an addition to the front of the building obscured its original façade. The hospital closed in 1981 and the facility was briefly used by the Army’s Defense Language Institute as a training center., In 2010, the former hospital, the Presidio's largest historic building, was rehabilitated for residential use and its 1932 façade was restored. The effort was led by Forest City Enterprises, a national real estate company that specializes in historic rehabilitation, in partnership with the Presidio Trust. The project represents the best principles of historic preservation and environmentally-sensitive design and materials and is recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. , [Caption one] , US Marine Hospital, Front Elevation Designed by the Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department headed by James A Wetmore, rendering by E. C. Bachschmid, 1929 , [Caption two] , 1952, wings were added to the hospital. In the 1960s, U.S. Coast Guard helicopters ferried critically-patients. , [Caption three] , Public Health Service physicians and nurses at the groundbreaking for the new hospital on April 7, 1930, For an online experience of this exhibit visit www.presidio.gov