Protecting Grace Marchant Garden on Filbert Steps

The Grace Marchant Garden

Friends of the Garden

Grace Marchant began planting her world-famous garden along the Filbert Steps on the eastern slope of Telegraph Hill in 1949, working the steep hillside for 33 years. Gary Kray began working with Grace in 1979 and took over the responsibilities of the garden after her death in 1982. Gary in turn died in 2012.

Friends of the Garden (aka FOG), an unincorporated association of community members, are carrying on the legacy of Grace and Gary to maintain and improve the Grace Marchant Garden. With a start-up grant from the San Francisco Foundation, along with private donations, the Conservancy is helping to fund the work of FOG by acting as its fiscal sponsor so that all donations are tax deductible.

Although all work in the garden is by volunteers, the Conservancy’s fund is used for garden supplies and tools, bulbs and plants; professional pruning of trees; irrigation equipment and supplies; educational materials and horticultural consultation.

Photograph of Gary Kray tending the garden by Larry Habegger

Photograph by Larry Habegger

Photograph of Grace Marchant by Larry Habegger

Protecting the Grace Marchant Garden

Following a 1992 landslide at the end of Alta Street above the Grace Marchant Garden, the City demolished the apartment building that had occupied the site. Beginning in 1994, the property was the subject of an application to build a large a multi-level single-family structure that would have developed the upper part of the garden and shaded the gardens below.

After years of neighborhood opposition to the development, the owners granted a conservation easement to the Conservancy to protect the lower-most portion of the lot in its natural open space condition, in return for allowing development to proceed on the southern (upper) portion of the lot. Although a permit was issued for the proposed building, it was revoked by the City for failure to proceed in a timely fashion. However, a new building permit application was soon filed.

Tiring of contention and dreading years of major construction activity and its accompanying impacts, nearby neighbors asked the Trust for Public Land (aka TPL) for assistance to acquire the entire site with the intention of allowing the land to remain as natural open space contiguous with the Grace Marchant Garden.

TPL successfully negotiated an agreement with the owner, conditioned on raising the funds necessary to cover the purchase price.

As a result of the generous donations of many individuals, local philanthropists and charitable foundations, TPL purchased the property in 2007 and donated it to the Conservancy as permanent open space. Subsequently, with the help of a City beautification grant and the work of volunteers, the Conservancy installed a drip irrigation system and planted trees on the site.