San Francisco Proper Hotel
a 1904 flatiron building on Market Street, turned into 131 rooms designed by Kelly Wearstler, with a rooftop bar
The place
The building forms a prow at the corner of Market Street and McAllister; on its roof, the Charmaine’s bar stands 37 metres above the street, according to the operator’s website.
The main reservation concerns the neighbourhood: Mid-Market is still marked by the street, as many Tripadvisor reviews point out. The rates recorded start at 227 USD, to which a mandatory daily fee of 45 USD is added.
A 1904 prow whose real history is bumpier than the brochure says
The operator’s website and the Marriott listing describe the same starting point: a flatiron building constructed in 1904 on Market Street, attributed to the architect Albert Pissis. Forbes Travel Guide gives the same date of 1904. The triangular shape of the plot, where Market, McAllister and Jones meet, explains the geometry of the plan and the fact that every room is advertised with a view.
Sources diverge markedly on what followed. According to a file published by SocketSite, the original construction, known as the Callaghan Building, was a six-storey office building reduced to two levels after the 1906 earthquake and fire, then rebuilt and raised to seven storeys between 1926 and 1927 by the architect H. A. Minton, before opening under the name Hotel Shaw. The same source reports a listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, as part of the Market Street Theatre and Loft District. The address subsequently carried the names Hotel Miramar, United Nations Plaza Hotel and then Renoir Hotel. In other words: the 1904 date put forward commercially tells only part of the story of the building visible today.
The current conversion dates from 2017: the hotel opened in September 2017 according to Forbes. Knapp Architects, the preservation consultants, report works completed in 2018 for a construction cost of 108 million dollars, of which 75 million was rehabilitation, with Hornberger+Worstell as architect of record and Kelly Wearstler for the interiors. The operator’s website states 131 rooms and suites; Tripadvisor mentions a range of 128 to 131, a gap left unexplained. The published categories run from the Deluxe Queen (200 square feet, about 19 m²) and a Bunk Room with bunk beds (172 square feet) to the 875-square-foot Two Bedroom Suite (about 81 m²), by way of the Premier King, Junior Suite, Premier Suite and One Bedroom Suite.
A rooftop bar that makes the property’s reputation, and a bill that builds up in layers
The public areas are the central argument. According to the operator’s website, Kelly Wearstler composed the lobby, the lounges and the rooms with antique marbles, second-hand furniture, vintage Scandinavian rugs and works by local artists; Forbes reports that the designer built the narrative of the place around a fictional character, “Gilda”, a well-travelled great-aunt. The hotel also states a gym accessible 24 hours a day with Tonal equipment, a rooftop fire pit and a hair salon.
Charmaine’s occupies the roof. The operator’s website places it 120 feet above Market Street, about 37 metres, in an indoor-outdoor configuration with fire pits and planting, open Monday to Friday from 5pm to 11pm and Saturday and Sunday from 4pm to 11pm. Booking is advised; for tables of three or more in the evening, a minimum spend of 50 USD per person is stated on that page, while the FAQ on the same site mentions a minimum of 65 USD, waived for hotel guests. Both amounts appear on the official site and they do not match.
As for dining, the operator’s restaurants page now lists only Villon, seasonal Californian cooking served from breakfast to dinner, plus weekend brunch, and room service. The Marriott listing still mentions a third outlet, “Gilda’s Salon Dinner”, and the site elsewhere refers to a café named La Bande: the dining offer appears to have changed and the sources are not up to date at the same moment. What is charged on top, according to the official FAQ: a mandatory daily fee of 45 USD before tax (welcome drink, premium wifi, water, morning coffee, priority access to Charmaine’s, gym), a municipal occupancy tax of 14%, a pre-authorisation of 200 USD a day for extras, and 100 USD non-refundable per pet, two dogs maximum, 35 lb maximum, cats refused. The “amenities” page on the same site states, for its part, that the fee for the first dog is waived on direct booking: here again, two official pages contradict each other.
Mid-Market, an ideal transport location and a pavement that is not
The hotel is in Mid-Market, the central stretch of Market Street between the Civic Center and the theatre district. The operator’s website presents it as a short walk from Hayes Valley, SoMa, the Civic Center and the Theater District; Forbes Travel Guide attaches the same address to the South of Market neighbourhood, which is a different reading of the same point. The Asian Art Museum, the public library, the city hall and the San Francisco Symphony are all within a radius of less than 1 km; Union Square is about 900 m away on foot.
It is also the aspect most unfavourably commented on in the reviews. Tripadvisor, which rates the property 4.2 out of 5 from 963 reviews and ranks it 82nd out of 240 hotels in San Francisco, aggregates repeated feedback about the street: visible drug use, a feeling of insecurity after dark, immediate proximity to the Tenderloin. Booking.com shows a markedly lower rating, 7.5 out of 10, on a low volume of reviews — the reviews page consulted indicates 60 reviews while the listing for the same link states 70 — with the same remarks about the neighbourhood. Kayak, which aggregates several platforms, gives 8.0 out of 10 from 343 reviews. Three scales, three volumes, one constant: the building and the service are well rated, the street is not.
On recent developments, Beyond Chron reported in 2026 that daytime street activity on Market Street has decreased but that the night-time drug market at the corner of 6th and Market persists; the article cites 60 million dollars raised for the San Francisco Downtown Development Corp., the “Vacant to Vibrant” and “Pop-Up to Permanent” programmes intended to fill vacant ground floors, and a theatre district plan led by Supervisor Mahmood. The same text concludes that nothing currently committed points to a rapid recovery for the neighbourhood. Local News Matters reported in April 2026 that elected officials were calling for an overall plan for Market Street, which suggests that the situation was not settled at that date.
What to take away
- The building’s triangular prow pointing towards Market Street, at the corner of McAllister.
- The lit fire pits and the planting at Charmaine’s, 37 metres above the street.
- The antique marbles in the lobby, which Forbes describes as more than eighty years old.
- The Bunk Room and its walnut bunk beds, each berth with its own socket and screen.
The main thing to watch out for is the immediate surroundings. Mid-Market borders the Tenderloin, and the Tripadvisor reviews — 4.2 out of 5 from 963 reviews — return consistently to drug use in the street and to the discomfort felt after dark, including on the few dozen metres between the BART station and the hotel door. Booking.com rates it 7.5 out of 10 with the same criticism, on a low volume of reviews whose count varies between 60 and 70 depending on which page of the same site is consulted; Kayak shows 8.0 out of 10 from 343 reviews. Reviews also report rooms judged small for the category, the entry-level ones starting at 200 square feet, about 19 m². On the bill, expect more than the advertised rate: a mandatory daily fee of 45 USD before tax, a municipal occupancy tax of 14%, valet parking charged at 84 USD before tax overnight according to the operator but 89 USD a day according to the Marriott listing, and 100 USD per pet, while another page on the official site states that this fee is waived on direct booking. The minimum spend at Charmaine’s is given as 50 USD per person on the bar’s page and 65 USD in the FAQ. Finally, Charmaine’s is a busy end-of-day bar, open until 11pm seven days a week: the rooms on the upper floors and those giving onto the terraces are exposed to noise, and it is wise to mention this when booking if you are a light sleeper.
We have not stayed at this property. This entry is written from verified sources, including the operator's own website, rather than from a visit.
Practical information
According to the operator’s FAQ, San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is about 13 miles away, that is 21 km, and Oakland (OAK) about 19 miles, that is 31 km; the hotel quotes an Uber or taxi ride of between 40 and 50 USD from SFO, to which the Market Street traffic at the end of the day must be added. The operator recommends using the 45 McAllister Street entrance on arrival rather than the one at 1100 Market Street.
Public transport is the real asset of the address: the same FAQ states that the entrance to the Civic Center BART station is directly across 7th Street, less than 200 m away, and that all lines stop there. A specialist guide consulted indicates an SFO-Civic Center journey of about 26 to 30 minutes for 11.05 USD, with no change. The surface MUNI lines and the historic F streetcar serve Market Street in front of the hotel. Parking is valet only, at the rates displayed in the official FAQ: 47 USD before tax for six hours during the day, 84 USD before tax overnight with unlimited in and out, 94 USD before tax for an oversized vehicle. The Marriott listing for the same property, for its part, states 89 USD a day, with a 10 USD supplement for an oversized vehicle and 20 USD per electric charge: the two price lists do not match. Maximum height in the garage: 7 feet, about 2.13 m.