Pacific-Union Club facts for kids
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The Pacific-Union Club is a social club located at 1000 California Street in San Francisco, California, at the top of Nob Hill. It is considered to be the most elite club of the West Coast, and one of the most elite clubs in the United States, along with the Knickerbocker Club in New York, the Metropolitan Club in Washington D.C., and the Somerset Club in Boston.
It was founded in 1889, as a merger of two earlier clubs: the Pacific Club (founded 1852) and the Union Club (founded 1854). The clubhouse was built as the home for silver magnate James Clair Flood. The former Flood Mansion was designed by Canadian architect Augustus Laver and is located in the Nob Hill neighborhood. The reconstruction and expansion of the original Mansion into the clubhouse was designed by Willis Polk. It is considered the first brownstone constructed west of the Mississippi River. Along with the Fairmont Hotel across the street, it was the only structure in the area to survive the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906.
The club figured prominently in the history of the west coast of the United States.
Prominent members
Many notable citizens have been Pacific-Union Club members, including:
- John Barneson, founder of General Petroleum Corporation, General Pipe Line Company
- Riley P. Bechtel, CEO, Bechtel Corporation
- Stephen Bechtel Jr., former CEO, Bechtel Corporation
- Warren A. Bechtel, founder of Bechtel Corporation
- Benjamin Biaggini, former president and CEO, Southern Pacific Railroad
- William Lane Booker, British diplomat
- Benjamin Dillingham
- William Henry Draper III, businessman
- Paul B. Fay Jr., (deceased) former Undersecretary of the Navy and PT squadron mate of John F. Kennedy
- Tirey L. Ford, former California Attorney General
- Henry F. Grady, first US Ambassador to India; Dean of the Commerce Department at the University of California, Berkeley; President of American President Lines
- Walter A. Haas Jr., CEO (1958–1976) and chairman (1970–1981) of Levi Strauss & Co
- Randolph Apperson Hearst
- William Randolph Hearst Jr.
- William Randolph Hearst III
- William Redington Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard
- Henry J. Kaiser, engineer and founder of Kaiser Family Foundation
- William S. Mailliard
- Robert McNamara, former U.S. Secretary of Defense
- David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard and former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense
- R. A. F. Penrose Jr., prominent geologist
- Donald J. Russell, former president, Southern Pacific Railroad
- Charles R. Schwab, founder of Charles Schwab Corporation
- Caspar Weinberger, former U.S. Secretary of Defense
- Plácido Vega y Daza, former General and Governor of the Mexican state Sinaloa. He descended directly from Christopher Columbus' great-great grandson, the Admiral and 3rd Duke of Veragua. General Vega y Daza also became a vice-president of the Pacific Union Club of San Francisco
Pacific Union Club Punch
Pacific Union Club Punch is a drink named after the Pacific-Union Club in William "Cocktail" Boothby's 1908 work The World's Drinks And How To Mix Them with the recipe:
For a party of ten. Into a large punch-bowl place ten tablespoonfuls of bar sugar and ten tablespoonfuls of freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice. Add two jiggers of Curaçao and dissolve the whole in about a quart of effervescent water. Add two quarts of champagne and one bottle of good cognac. Stir thoroughly, ice, decorate and serve in thin glassware.
See also
- List of American gentlemen's clubs
