Building up in San Francisco

I realize the title of this post may be misleading, so before you get any ideas in your head: no, Dick and I are not moving, nor are we building, or adding on to our house. :)

I've noticed these two houses recently while taking my daily walks. It's a striking sight: an entire building, lifted and raised, presumably to add additional living space, or a garage, and a new foundation below.

Dick and I had considered doing something like this at our condos (before we bought our current house) so that we could add a garage. The logistics of it wouldn't have worked out for us, so we never went into the planning stages.

I remember describing the process to my friend, Tammy, who lives in Chicago. She was astounded that something like this could, and is done.

I thought these photos of these two houses give an interesting perspective on this process of what we crazy San Franciscans might/could/would do for some extra space, or a garage. This is no small feat! Basically, you lift up the existing building, dig out the land/hill to create more living space, and build a new foundation to support it.


You can't quite tell in this photo, but in person, you can see directly through the stilts and into the backyard of this lot. From what I can tell by the indicators on the building next to it, this house was only lifted 4-6 feet.


Not sure how high up this one is raised, but I'm guessing just 2-6 feet.