Yerba Buena Island sits in the bay between San Francisco and Oakland. Daniel Parks/CC BY-NC 2.0
There’s a mansion nestled below the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge
The Nimitz House was built in 1900 on Goat Island, now Yerba Buena Island, as a residence for the Commandant of a Naval Training Station.
Officially known as Quarters One, the Classical Revival home got its nickname from Admiral Chester Nimitz, a World War II naval hero who spent his last days there.
A Bay Bridge structure was nudged over to accommodate sunshine at the Nimitz House.
Casey Smith
In 1998, the house became a bizarre flashpoint in the construction of the new Bay Bridge when the Navy refused to let Caltrans engineers onto Yerba Buena Island. Why? Their design called for a span that would cast a shadow on the Nimitz House.
Construction didn’t restart for a year and a half as the plans were redrawn to ensure the historic home would remain in the sun.
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