Exploring San Francisco through the lens of city blocks, Blocker is a weekly series by Charles Hodgkins. Look for it on SFist each Wednesday, around the lunching hour.

View the map of all published Blocker episodes.

Blocker, No. 16: Country Club Dr. in the Parkside

A stone’s throw from Lake Merced and San Francisco Zoo, there’s a secluded land where the scent of freshly cut and watered grass wafts through the air. Where the juniper bushes are neatly sculptured and the single-family houses are defiantly unattached to one another. Where untidiness of yard and home is possibly met with scorn and derision among whispering neighbors.

On Country Club Drive between Berkshire and Ocean, landscaping is king, putting green lawns and rock gardens remain all the rage, and the number of residents in the 20-39 age bracket appears to be minimal, at most. This block may be an allergy sufferer’s or Mission hipster’s nightmare, and its name may portend false images of Chase and Hilary Whitebread whizzing off in their electric golf cart to the first tee, all bent out of shape about how “the help” failed for the third time this month to feed Shrilly the Pomeranian her Alpo Premium. But, holy smokes, the street’s called “Country Club Drive,” and it’s in San Francisco. We could not resist its pull.