Alamo Square and the Painted Ladies collectible travel poster

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Alamo Square and the Painted Ladies

The Alamo Square Painted Ladies are six Queen Anne row houses at 710 to 720 Steiner Street, built between 1892 and 1896 by developer Matthew Kavanaugh, who lived next door at 722. The block faces a 12.7-acre park the city set aside in 1856. Their multicolor paint dates from the 1960s, not the Victorian era.

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Quick answer

1The six row houses at 710 to 720 Steiner were built 1892 to 1896 by Matthew Kavanaugh

2The block has appeared in an estimated 70 movies, TV programs and ads

3About 48,000 Victorian and Edwardian houses were built in San Francisco between 1849 and 1915; another 16,000 were demolished

Full transcript

Seven Houses, Six Sisters

The Alamo Square Painted Ladies are usually called the Six Sisters, and the photograph almost everybody takes contains seven houses. Six of them are the sisters: 710 to 720 Steiner Street, matched Queen Anne row houses put up by a speculative builder named Matthew Kavanaugh between 1892 and 1896. The seventh, the tall one anchoring the left edge of every frame, is 722 Steiner. That was Kavanaugh's own mansion, finished in 1892, wider and grander than anything he sold. He developed the row, kept the best corner for himself, and had six near-identical neighbors built to frame his view. It is why the group reads slightly off-balance in pictures and why nobody can say quite why. Count the houses from the left and stop at the first one whose bay window does not match its neighbor.

Battleship Gray

…

Why They Are Still Standing

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The Square Came First

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The Sixteen Thousand That Went

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The Full House House Is Not Here

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The Mansion Behind You

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The People Who Kept Them

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The Hidden Facade

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The Seventh House's Secret

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The Photographer's Light

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The City in a Frame

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Deep-dive audio

1Seven Houses, Six Sisters0:49Free preview
2Battleship Gray0:43Unlock to listen
3Why They Are Still Standing0:43Unlock to listen
4The Square Came First0:47Unlock to listen
5The Sixteen Thousand That Went0:53Unlock to listen
6The Full House House Is Not Here0:44Unlock to listen
7The Mansion Behind You0:52Unlock to listen
8The People Who Kept Them0:50Unlock to listen
9The Hidden Facade0:44Unlock to listen
10The Seventh House's Secret0:48Unlock to listen
11The Photographer's Light0:44Unlock to listen
12The City in a Frame0:49Unlock to listen

On the ground

Checked against official sources on the dates shown. Nothing here is a price or an opening hour — those go stale.

Which way in

Fulton and Scott, the corner by Divisadero
The way in if you are coming from the Divisadero side.
checked 2026-09-07
Hayes and Scott
The wheelchair-accessible corner entrance. Accessible picnic area and restroom at the centre of the park.
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Muni, not a car
Parking here is a nightmare. The 5 Fulton stops at Divisadero and McAllister, the 21 Hayes at Hayes and Divisadero.
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When to come

Afternoon
The sun comes from the west and lights the house fronts. In the morning it rises behind them and throws the colour into shadow.
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Late morning to early afternoon
The window that most reliably dodges the fog.
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When not to

Weekdays between one and five
That is the park's busiest stretch. At weekends the crowd starts building from about ten.
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Expecting the east side to ever be quiet
It is the side facing the houses, so it is always busy with people going for the same frame.
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Where the shot is

The sloping east lawn of the park
The park's height lets you shoot over the roofs of the row to the downtown skyline behind it. That elevation is the whole reason the shot works.
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710 to 720 Steiner Street
The row itself, on the east side of the street at the east end of the park.
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The corner of Fulton and Scott
The Westerfeld mansion at 1198 Fulton, twenty-eight rooms, built in the 1880s. A different Victorian from the postcard row.
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Eat nearby

The Mill, 736 Divisadero Street
A couple of blocks west of the park's Scott Street edge. Josey Baker Bread and Four Barrel Coffee under one roof; the thing to order is the toast.
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Where next

hayes-valley-sf walk
Leave on Hayes Street and walk east down the hill — the one Bay to Breakers runners dread from the other direction. You land at Patricia's Green at Octavia and Hayes, two blocks of lawn, benches and public art.
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fillmore-district-sf bus
Walk one block east and take the 22 north along Fillmore.
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The checkable facts

The seventh, the tall one anchoring the left edge of every frame, is 722 Steiner.

More photos of this stop

All from Wikimedia Commons, each credited to its photographer; tap any photo for the original and its full licence.

wolfgang.mller54 from Niedersachsen /Germany · CC BY 2.0

Browse every photo of this place →

Open in maps

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Opens a search for this place — no app install, no account.

What travelers say

Distilled from Google, TripAdvisor, Reddit and Chinese-language posts — every claim links to its source.

"Enter Alamo Square at Grove & Scott or Grove & Fulton and look west for Sutro Tower views."

Tip: The Painted Ladies face east — shoot them with the downtown skyline BEHIND you from Steiner Street; then turn around for the Sutro Tower hillside shot most tourists miss.

Photographers time Painted Ladies shots for odd hours, usually super early, to dodge crowds.

Tip: Sunrise gives empty sidewalks and soft light on the Victorian facades; by midday Steiner Street is packed and parked cars block the classic frame.

Car break-ins are a big problem, especially in the Alamo Square area.

Tip: Park in the small lot on the park's north edge rather than circling residential blocks, and leave the trunk empty-looking.

TripAdvisor

A public park ringed by Victorians — you can sit with downtown views for free.

Tip: Full House fans: the show's actual house is elsewhere — these seven 'Postcard Row' homes only appeared in the credits-style establishing shot, a fact locals love correcting.

TripAdvisor reviewer clarification

After the guide

Practical bookings for this stop. These are affiliate links: they cost you nothing extra and they do not change what we recommend.

Frequently asked

Why are the Painted Ladies famous?

Because the row lines up with a downhill park and the downtown skyline behind it, handing photographers Victorian rooftops and skyscrapers in one frame. That composition has carried the block into an estimated 70 films, shows and commercials, most famously the Full House title sequence. The houses themselves are ordinary speculative row housing from the 1890s.

Who built the Painted Ladies on Steiner Street?

A speculative builder called Matthew Kavanaugh. He put up the six matched Queen Anne houses numbered 710 through 720 Steiner between 1892 and 1896, and lived alongside them in his own larger mansion at 722, finished in 1892. No famous architect is credited; this was developer work that aged into a postcard.

Is the Full House house one of the Painted Ladies?

No. The picnic shot in the credits was filmed on the Alamo Square lawn, but the Tanner family exterior was a separate Victorian at 1709 Broderick Street, roughly a mile away in Lower Pacific Heights. Series creator Jeff Franklin bought that house for about $4 million in 2016. Interiors were shot on a Los Angeles soundstage.

Are the Painted Ladies painted their original colors?

Almost certainly not. Many San Francisco Victorians spent the war years under battleship-gray Navy surplus paint, and the multicolor treatment seen today grew out of a movement an artist began in 1963. The phrase itself only appeared in 1978, in a book by Morley Baer, Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen. Owners pick their own schemes.

Can you go inside the Painted Ladies?

No. All seven are private homes with no tour, no lobby and no interior access, so the sidewalk and the park are as close as anyone gets. Alamo Square itself is a public park with posted opening hours, and the Recreation and Park Department lists restrooms, a dual-level playground, a tennis court and an off-leash dog area.

How old is Alamo Square park?

Older than the houses around it. San Francisco set the 12.7-acre hilltop aside in 1856, during the term of Mayor James Van Ness, decades before the Steiner Street row went up. The name comes from a single cottonwood tree, alamo in Spanish, that marked a watering hole on the riding trail between Mission Dolores and the Presidio.

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Image credit

Photo: Painted Ladies San Francisco January 2013 panorama 2.jpg by King of Hearts, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. This poster is a derivative work and carries the same licence.