In its heyday, Bankers Hill was the center of luxury and wealth in San Diego. The end of the Victorian era brought huge growth to the city as a whole, but especially propelled the few blocks west of Balboa Park into popularity among the financial elite.

The name “Bankers Hill” comes from the great number of financiers and banking tycoons who made their homes in the area. Perhaps the most culturally important mark Bankers Hill made on San Diego's history was its abundance of architectural gems, some of which still stand today.

From Victorian manors to modernist homes, the neighborhood is a visual, living history of major movements in architecture, with enormous contributions from often overlooked founding fathers of modern San Diego. Bankers Hill undeniably has its roots in the Victorian era, when it began to rise in prominence. Architect and Southern California congressman William Bowers designed the Florence Hotel at Fourth Avenue and Fir Street, in 1884.

At the time, the Florence Hotel was the biggest luxury hotel in the city, holding onto the premier position until the Hotel del Coronado opened four years later. A promotional pamphlet boasted, “Chief among the places where the visitor may find comfortable and even luxurious accommodations is the new FLORENCE HOTEL, which was opened to the public January 24, 1884. This house was especially designed to be a first-class family hotel. It is the unanimous verdict of the guests that it is the best hotel they have found.”

The 136-foot long hotel attracted affluent visitors to San Diego with its reputation of quality and its proximity to the growing Balboa Park and downtown. In fact, it is possible that Bowers chose this particular location specifically to complement these developing areas, as his brother-in-law was Alonzo Horton – the “founder” of modern San Diego, who was heavily involved with creating the city center we know today, and after whom Horton Plaza is named.

Between the years 1903-1904, Bankers Hill was actually called Florence Heights, an indicator of the influential role architecture played in growing San Diego. Bowers later went on to helm such major projects as the US Grant Hotel, which still stands today as a downtown luxury hotel. Another major contributor to the neighborhood was Irving Gill, an architect who built his career in San Diego and eventually became a pioneer of the modern architecture movement.

The dozens of projects Gill designed in the area between the 1890s and 1920s gave Bankers Hill the nickname “Gill Hill.” Having trained with greats like Frank Lloyd Wright, Gill made a name for himself in America’s Finest City, designing homes for prominent bankers and community leaders, as well churches and centers for disenfranchised groups, like migrant workers. Many of the private homes he designed have since been demolished, but their importance in the development and growth of the neighborhood is indelible.

His influence on other architects in the area can be seen on a variety of historic buildings, from the Tudor revivals to the cubist designs sprinkled throughout Park West. And while Gill originals in Bankers Hill are few and far between these days, a few of his most famous works survive, namely the Marston House in Balboa Park and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. Over his career, Gill partnered with a few different architects, each of whom rose to prominence in their own rights.

His longest partnership lasted eleven years with William Hebbard, who started his career with the Reid Brothers, designers of the Hotel del Coronado. Hebbard contributed a number of buildings around San Diego, including the Gay Mansion in Bankers Hill. Designed in 1890 for the Vice President of California National Bank, it was later sold to financier John Gay. The mansion boasted four towers and a carriage house, and the title as the only stone-cut mansion in San Diego.

A piece of extraordinary Victorian architecture, the Gay Mansion no longer stands on Fifth Avenue and Juniper Street, but Hebbard's contributions to the San Diegan Victorian style can be seen all around Bankers Hill.

The shifting progressive attitudes around the turn of the century, the amazing technological advancement of the early 1900s, and the post-WWI boom all contributed to the successes of architects like Bowers, Gill, and Hebbard. Though by the 1930s,, the Great Depression had hit the United States and did not spare San Diego.

Displaced workers and families from all over the country migrated to California, carrying with them the dream of opportunity in the West. Most found the same struggles here, though, and Bankers Hill emptied of the bankers. Their grand homes were demolished and many of the architectural treasures of the last 50 years were torn down. An architect who also trained under Gill took the lead on a major project to pull San Diego out of the Depression.

Richard Requa was appointed master architect of the California Pacific International Exposition of 1935, a massive event that spanned two years and stimulated the San Diego economy. In preparation for the exposition, Requa designed a number of additions to Balboa Park that in turn influenced the designs of later decades in neighboring Bankers Hill.

Requa brought Spanish and Moorish aesthetics from his travels around the Mediterranean to attractions like Spanish Village and the Alcazar Gardens in Balboa Park, which still survive today. The exposition and Requa's work were massively popular, subsequently inspiring Art Deco and Spanish influences all over Bankers Hill. A few of Requa's originals outside of Balboa Park have survived, most notably his extensive work in Kensington.

The history of San Diego over the last century is written all over the buildings of Bankers Hill. From the same growth spurt that produced Balboa Park and downtown San Diego, Victorian homes in the Queen Anne style flourished.

From the tremendous cultural progression of the early 20th century, modernist buildings came to the vanguard. From the resuscitation of the mid-1930s, sprawling public works thrived. Bankers Hill was the site of creations from some of the most prominent architects in San Diego's history, who brought a worldliness that still survives today in America's Finest City.