This forgotten part of SF was once affordable. Now, the...

One of the great things about the Excelsior district is that you can see the glittering skyline of the famous city of San Francisco from the hills.

“I like to say that we are the gateway to San Francisco,” said Bruce Colville, who has owned a house on Lisbon Street with his wife, Elizabeth, for 25 years.

The Excelsior is one of the more obscure San Francisco neighborhoods. It’s located south of the 280 freeway, and along outer Mission Street all the way to Geneva Avenue. The western boundary is around San Jose Avenue, and it runs east to McLaren Park. It’s the kind of place Uber drivers can never find and tourists never heard of.

Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who represents the district, called it “the forgotten part of the city.”

The district has a kind of scrappy view of itself. The original developers — the Excelsior Homestead — got it on the city maps 150 years ago in a spirit of optimism. “Excelsior!” is what Victorians would say when they climbed a high peak. Now there is an Ever Upward monument at Geneva and Mission.

“We have a beautiful natural setting and great views,” said Mel Flores, president of the Excelsior District Improvement Association.

In some ways, the Excelsior is more like an older San Francisco than the rest of the city. There are a lot of single-family homes.

“Sixty-eight percent of the residents own their homes, and the others rent,” Flores said, “That’s the exact opposite of the rest of the city.”

That’s because until very recently, the Excelsior was affordable. Working people could buy a house. And so they stayed. There are lots of third- and even fourth-generation neighborhood residents. It’s a close neighborhood as well. Seventy-six percent of the homes are family households.

“We have the highest number of families and single family homes in the city,” Flores said.

But now, for the first time, the Compass real estate website says the average home price in the Excelsior hit $1 million in November.

“And once you sell, you can’t buy another house in San Francisco,” Colville said.

Like everything else in San Francisco, the Excelsior is shifting and changing. The old Excelsior was pretty much an Italian and Irish neighborhood that developed as the city grew. Some of the old flavor is still there, like the Sons of Italy hall on Mission Street, and the now-closed Valente Marini Perata & Co. funeral home near Italy Avenue.

Today’s population in the Excelsior is predominantly of Asian and Latino descent. The Excelsior has the highest concentration of foreign-born and youth populations in the city, according to Excelsior Works, a community organization.

You can see a bit of this in a walk down Mission, the Excelsior’s main business artery. There are dozens of restaurants: Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Salvadoran, two or three taquerias, banks, barbershops, a bakery or two, a big Safeway, small produce stores. Even a bargain store advertising: “Everything $1.25 or less.”

There is a whimsical quality to the street. Kenny Alley, a narrow walkway leading upward from Mission near Italy, was redone a few years ago with a long tile stairway designed to look like a waterfall. There are bright murals of dragonflies and poppies. It was named for Kenny, a neighborhood stray cat who used to hang out there, a friend to all.

Kenny Alley is next to a grim-looking used car lot, surrounded by a chain-link fence. The whole street, Flores says, “is a work in progress.”

This week, the neighborhood celebrated the grand opening of Gentilly, a New Orleans flavored bar and restaurant, at 4826 Mission. Gentilly is on the site of the Witch Doctor’s Lounge, an establishment that closed in 2016 after a 65-year run.

“I’ve lived here for 10 years and my partner for 20,” said Alexis Hyatt, who will run the new place. “We love the neighborhood. There is a good feeling here. We can’t wait to open the doors.”

Carl Nolte’s column appears Sundays. Email: cnolte@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carlnoltesf