601 Fourth Street Lofts

This is the building that started it all: the 1990–91 conversion of the 1916 Heublein wine warehouse at 601 4th Street is widely cited as San Francisco's first large commercial-to-residential loft conversion — the project where Holliday Development and David Baker + Partners worked out the formula the whole city then copied.

The industrial frame does the talking: original factory windows and tall flared concrete mushroom columns, with clean modern insertions set against the raw structure. Roughly eighty-five live/work lofts (published counts vary slightly), a short walk to Caltrain, Oracle Park and the Central Subway.

For a buyer who cares about provenance, "first" matters — this address is to San Francisco lofts what Printers Row is to Chicago's.