Willis Polk, the son of a carpenter architect, was born in Jacksonville, Illinois. He apprenticed to a carpenter when he was fourteen. At fifteen, he won a competition for the design of a six-room schoolhouse in Hope, Arkansas.

In 1885, Willis and his father and his brother founded W. W. Polk & Sons in Kansas City. For several years, Polk traveled extensively and acquired experience working for many architects including Ernest Coxhead and A. Page Brown.

In 1889, Polk joined the office of A. Page Brown and moved with Brown's firm to San Francisco. After Polk's family moved to San Francisco in 1892, they formed the firm of Polk & Polk with Willis providing the creativity, Daniel doing the drafting, and their father supervising construction.

During the 1890s, Polk produced unusually diverse architectonic forms, space, scale, and imagery. He drew from post-medieval vernacular sources and from classical schemes.

In 1901 Polk and his wife moved to Chicago to work with Daniel H. Burnham who had inspired the American Renaissance known as the City Beautiful Movement. Burnham's firm had already designed two important building in San Francisco, the Chronicle Building in 1889 (San Francisco Landmark 243) and the Mills Building in 1890 (San Francisco Landmark 76).

Polk returned to San Francisco in 1903 and worked with Burnham on a master plan for San Francisco following the precepts of the City Beautiful Movement. The 1906 Earthquake and Fire ended any hope of implementing the plan.

Polk was placed in charge of Burnham's west coast office after the catastrophe. The association lasted until 1910 when Polk converted the office to his name.

Polk and his partners completed more than one hundred major commercial buildings and residences in the Bay Area.

Seven Polk buildings in San Francisco are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the Carroll and Tilton Building, the Flood Mansion, the Fuller Company Glass Warehouse, the Jessie Street Substation, the Mills Building, One Lombard Street and the Tobin House.

Four Polk buildings in other California towns are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: Carolands in Burlingame, Le Petit Trianon in Santa Clara, the Valentine Rey House in Belvedere, McCullagh-Jones House in Los Gatos.

Two Polk buildings are California Historical Landmark: Carolands in Burlingame and Filoli in Woodside.

Twelve Polk buildings are San Francisco Landmarks: the Atkinson-Escher House, the Alvinza Hayward Building, the Beach Chalet, the Bourn Mansion, the Flood Mansion, the Gibbs House, the Hallidie Building, the Hobart Building, the Jessie Street Substation, the Mills Building, One Montgomery and the Tobin House.

Polk directed the renovation and structural strengthening of Mission Dolores in 1920. Mission Dolores is a California Historical Landmark, a San Francisco Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Path of Gold Light Standards and Robert Louis Stevenson Monument are also San Francisco Landmarks.

You can view buildings designed by Polk in chronological order here, or use a link in the following table to visit a specific property.