At The Walt Disney Family Museum, we take enormous pride in our location in the heart of The Presidio of San Francisco.
For 218 years, the Presidio served as an army post for three nations. World and local events, from military campaigns to the rise of aviation, from World’s Fairs to earthquakes, left their mark. Since 1994, the Presidio has been a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
The three buildings that house the Museum are on the National Register of Historic Places. The permanent galleries of our museum are located at 104 Montgomery Street, one of the five identical barracks built in the 1890s on the Main Post. Offices for our museum and a space for use as a Diane Disney Miller Exhibition Hall are located at 122 Riley Avenue. Erected in 1904, the building was originally the army post gymnasium. A 1940s machine gun storage house now accommodates the mechanical systems for our museum campus.
The supervising architect of the museum project was Jay Turnbull, FAIA, Founding Principal of Page & Turnbull in San Francisco.
Established in 1973 (as Charles Hall Page & Associates), Page & Turnbull was established to provide architectural and conservation services for historic buildings, resources and civic areas. The firm was the first architectural practice in the San Francisco Bay area to specialize in historic preservation and is one of the longest-practicing such specialty firms in the country.
Jay Turnbull was educated at Princeton and began work in New York as an architect and urban designer. He came to San Francisco in 1971 and later served as the staff architect of the Foundation for San Francisco’s Architectural Heritage from 1974–1979.
Jay’s work on the rehabilitation or restoration of significant landmarks in the American west has been recognized with numerous awards and publications. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, past president of San Francisco Architectural Heritage, and chairman emeritus of the Maybeck Foundation.
The restoration and adaptive reuse of these historic buildings is one of the seldom-told stories among the hidden treasures of The Walt Disney Family Museum.
Images above: 1) The Walt Disney Family Museum, photo by Ric Miller. 2) WDFM Project Architect Jay Turnbull, FAIA. Photo by Emily Hung Wilson.
