Discover the original features of the brick structure that once housed a chocolate factory. Today, the stately red brick building still features the famous clock tower and a 15-foot-tall Ghirardelli sign, which was installed in 1923 and was a beacon to sailors on the San Francisco Bay. Historical elements from the original chocolate factory are found throughout Fairmont Heritage Place - Ghirardelli Square, such as exposed red brick walls and timber beam supports.

Learn how the gold rush in 1849 spurred industry across the city. Promise of business motivated immigrants like Domenico Ghirardelli to open small shops along the Pacific Coast near mining communities. Eventually, the successful Ghirardelli opened shops across the booming city of San Francisco before purchasing an entire city block by 1892 in the area now known as Fisherman’s Wharf.

Discover how two San Franciscans, William M. Roth and his mother, Lurline Matson Roth, worked to save the original factory structure in the 1960s. The Roths hired the architectural firm Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons—as well as landscape architect Lawrence Halprin—to convert the location into a commercial facility known as “Ghirardelli Square.” The U.S. Department of the Interior has highlighted their work on the facility as a “prototype of commercial adaptive re-use.”