The Spreckels Mansion is the enormous white limestone palace facing Lafayette Park, built in 1913 for the sugar heir Adolph Spreckels and his wife Alma — the model for the bronze figure atop the Dewey Monument in Union Square. Designed in a grand Beaux-Arts style, it is one of the most imposing private houses in a neighbourhood full of them, its pale stone a deliberate contrast to the painted Victorians nearby.
Since the 1990s it has been the home of the bestselling novelist Danielle Steel, which keeps a steady trickle of curious visitors at the railings. It is strictly a private residence — there is no public access and the front is screened by a famously tall hedge — but it is worth pausing to admire from the Washington Street side, as part of a walk among the Pacific Heights mansions and the parks they overlook.