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The St. Regis
Apartment building on the east end of Lafayette Park is the only privately
owned building in San Francisco's public parks. The beaux arts luxury apartment
building exists as the result of a 19th Century feud between the City and
former City Attorney Samuel Holladay, who successfully challenged his eviction from property on the park which Holladay said he had purchased
in 1851. (The land surrounded by Washington, Sacramento, Laguna, and Gough
streets was designated for public use in 1855.) The City failed in four
attempts to have Holladay declared a squatter and removed. The U.S. Supreme
Court upheld Holladay's claim in 1896. Though Holladay's 1869 house at
the summit of what was then known as Clay Street Hill was razed after his
death in 1915, Holladay sold the portion of his land at 1925 Gough to Swedish
immigrant Alexander W. Wilson who built the St. Regis Apartments there
from 1905-1908.
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