San Francisco Suites on Nob Hill is a unique timeshare, actually self described as a “City Share.” It has only fifteen units stacked on four levels reached by a tiny elevator that itself is a work of Old Master art. On the rooftop is an enclosed gazebo (sometimes it gets windy or foggy up there!) with a table and chairs that overlook the beautiful City by the Bay. Each unit is filled with Edwardian antique furniture (it began as a place for a couple guys who were fanatic collectors of Edwardians to put all their stuff!) and old maps and other Old World wall hangings. A calligrapher hand prints your last name and places it (e.g. “Smith Suite”) in the brass slot by your unit door. There’s an impressive crystal chandelier in each corner unit near the bay window that overlooks the busy intersection below. I awake each morning about 6:15 to the sound of the underground cables outside warming up, and in about ten minutes or so I hear the “Ching-Ching, Ching-Ching” of the cable cars going up and down steep Powell Avenue —pure white noise to me! A copy of the day’s San Francisco Chronicle newspaper is slipped under my door. As one who quit print newspaper subscriptions for digital news many years ago, sitting on the wrap around couch at the bay window with a cup of tea and flipping the pages of the newspaper is wonderfully nostalgic, and a special pure pleasure is reading a full two pages of comic strips again. A maid comes in once a day to do my dishes (the kitchen has no dishwashing machine, but btw, bears a special faucet with on demand hot water for my tea at anytime), and she quickly does other light tidying. As someone who hates time spent in housekeeping, this is pure decadence. She also puts more chocolates (oh no!) in the refrigerator as well as replaces other snacks and drinks I may have consumed. At 4:30 pm each day the “house gentleman” places some nice California wines, cheeses, crackers, and jalepeno jelly—all set in crystal dishes and glasses—in the parlor on the first level and the small circle of guests have a lovely time chatting with each other. They are typically people on very interesting life paths from across the US and Western Europe. Late in the evening a sherry nightcap is available in the other sitting room and the talk is softer. This small but so classy place is not a resort and nobody would EVER approach you about buying anything or going to a “presentation.” There are over a hundred great things to do in San Francisco and also within a hour’s drive there is the other-worldly John Muir Redwood Forest or in the opposite direction the Napa and Sonoma Wine Country, and great beaches are all around, but as person with a hectic, highly demanding job, just spending a day or two of rest being pampered and watching the world below go by from that bay window at the San Francisco Suites is all very, very fine with me.
