Make that turn off Lovers’ Lane. Here, the eucalyptus canopy closes in and the city noise drops. You are somewhere else entirely.
This is Wood Line, completed in 2011 by British artist Andy Goldsworthy. The Presidio’s forests were planted by the U.S. Army in the 1880s, alternating cypress and eucalyptus. The cypresses died, leaving a ghosted corridor. Goldsworthy filled it with 1,200 feet of reclaimed branches and called it “drawing the place.”
Mystic, hushed, excluded from everything just outside the tree line. It is as if the city disappears all the way to the far end of the line.
Tips
- Street parking near Arguello Gate runs into residential permit zones. Consider paid Presidio lots ($2–3/hr) or the free PresidiGo Shuttle that stops at Tides Converge on Letterman Drive.
- Palace of Fine Arts is a 25–30 minute walk east: a completely different ambience waiting at the end of the line.
- Bring a layer. The Presidio sits in the path of consistent west winds off the Bay. Even on sunny days it runs cool and breezy.