CLIENT: Golden Gate National Park Conservancy

Inspiration Point is a historic viewshed in the Presidio that showcases classic views of northern San Francisco and the western half of the Presidio National Park. The site also supports a rare slice of a California serpentine grassland which now includes two federally endangered plant species and a great diversity of native wildflowers. Exotic tree plantations planted at the turn of the century grew tall enough to obscure historic views and succeed the grasslands as forest. Only a small fragment of the historic native grasslands and views remained.

Restoring the Inspiration Point native serpentine grassland community reinstated new growth for other native plant and animal species in the area.

In 2001, Presidio natural and cultural resource managers decided to remove the exotic forest and restore the serpentine grassland community to reinstate the classic view and restore the serpentine habitat for endangered plants. After the trees where removed by a logging company, Shelterbelt was challenged to remove all the remaining exotic vegetation and logger’s slash, 75 years of accumulated forest litter, the entire organic horizon of the soil, install erosion control materials and then prep the site for volunteer stewardship groups to plant natives in the Fall. Approximately 900 cubic yards of topsoil were removed from the site, mostly by hand methods, to cautiously reach the serptitic soils below. Native bulbs were salvaged in the process. As Inspiration Point is a very popular tourist destination in the Presidio National Park, public perceptions of the project where a constant risk. Great care was taken to minimize the destructive look of the work and interpret the restoration process to the public as necessary. Now, Inspiration Point remains as one of the Presidio’s largest and most ambitious restoration projects.