La Avanzada, the Mansion on the Hill before San Francisco’s Sutro Tower
Adolf Gilbert built the mansion he called “La Avanzada,” the site of the Sutro Tower, in the 1930s for roughly $250,000.The home was a “Spare No Expense” villa. In an article written by the Oakland Tribune in 1969 the home was described as something akin to a mystery novel manor:
The three-story villa, La Avanzada, of dun colored stucco, as turrets and bays and its iron-banded, double front doors recessed and reached by a flight of stone steps across a stone terrace. Great boulders enhance the look of heavy permanence.
… Imagination could have a splendid time making this an eerie background for thrills and excitement — especially on a dark night with the wind whipping the tall eucalyptus trees and fog curling up the hill to blot out the lights below.
The home was literally a mansion on the hill and fittingly presided over San Francisco, crowning the tallest hill in the city. Adolf Gilbert, who lived in the mansion with his mother, eventually moved the both of them in 1948 to San Luis Key, near San Diego, and sold the house.
ABC television bought the mansion to use as a studio and broadcast station for their local affiliate, KGO-TV. Two years later KPIX, the CBS affiliate, moved in and shared use of the facility. By now, the mansion’s ambiance migrated into something more bizarre and techier. An Oakland Tribune article describe the new interior design:
In the basement, men work at panels in a room filled with cabinets. A huge fireplace incorporating fossil specimens hidden by a tool panel. Half the big living room is divided by aural and visual amplifiers. Acoustical tile blocks out the orange and blue pan is that ornament the ceiling
A New Tower Rises
KGO moved out in 1953 followed by KPIX, leaving a skeleton crew to man the TV broadcast tower that provided signal for the city and surrounding area. The location became targets for vandals, quickly degenerating into a wooden corpse.
In 1956, Bay area television stations decided they needed better signal through the rolling hills of San Francisco. What the mansion offered was to meager to feed swelling broadcasting needs. They needed a new tower. This would be San Francisco’s Sutro Tower
This was the death sentence for La Avanzada. The city condemned the building as a fire trap and target for vandalism. The mansion on the hill was leveled. The San Francisco’s Sutro Tower rose.
Originally, two locations were being considered. San Bruno Mountain and Mount Sutro were the best candidates. The FCC disqualified San Bruno because it was too close to the airport.
With the site selected, a new company was formed named Sutro Tower Inc through joint ownership by ABC, The San Francisco Chronicle, Westinghouse, Cox Broadcast and Metromedia for Channels KGO-TV, KRON, KPIX, KTVU and KNEW-TV.
This was the death sentence for La Avanzada. The city condemned the building as a fire trap and target for vandalism. The mansion on the hill was leveled. The San Francisco’s Sutro Tower rose.