If you remember Liberty House, you probably remember the elevators.
Not because they were glass. Plenty of department stores had glass elevators in the 1970s. Liberty House filled theirs with mannequins.
At stores like Eastridge in San Jose and Southland in Hayward, fashion models rode endlessly between floors, frozen in place behind the glass. As a child, I didn't think much of it. Looking back, it's one of the strangest department store ideas I've ever encountered. Imagine shopping for socks while a mannequin in a pantsuit silently glides past you on her way to the third floor.
Most people remember the elevators.
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| Liberty House's iconic glass elevators at Eastridge Mall carried mannequins between floors, becoming one of the chain's most memorable features. Photo: San Francisco Chronicle, August 12, 1971. |
For me, it was the Snoopy Shop.
Inside the Liberty House store in Dublin was a little corner devoted to Peanuts merchandise. Every visit felt full of possibility. All I wanted was one of the tiny outfits made for Snoopy dolls—a corduroy jacket, a tennis sweater, anything my mother might agree to buy. I still remember the pink-and-gold Liberty House price tags hanging from the displays.
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| The Snoopy Shop became a favorite destination for young shoppers, offering Peanuts-themed clothing, toys, and collectibles. |
The funny thing is that Liberty House itself feels a bit like those childhood memories: vivid in pieces, blurry as a whole.
That's because Liberty House was never really a Northern California institution.
It was a Hawaiian one.
The company traced its roots to Honolulu in 1849 and eventually became part of Amfac, one of Hawaii's largest corporations. By the late 1960s, Amfac had grown into a sprawling conglomerate with interests ranging from agriculture and food production to hospitality and retail. Northern California looked like an opportunity.
Beginning in the early 1970s, Amfac embarked on an ambitious mainland expansion. The company acquired Rhodes, City of Paris, Baza'r, and Joseph Magnin, assembling a patchwork retail empire across California. New stores opened while older stores were rebranded under the Liberty House name.
Suddenly, a department store chain from Hawaii was appearing everywhere.
San Jose.
Hayward.
Sacramento.
Dublin.
Santa Rosa.
San Francisco.
Even Reno.
The stores were hard to miss. Architect Avner Naggar designed several of the most recognizable locations, featuring soaring atriums, dramatic interiors, and those unforgettable glass elevators. Many stores included restaurants with names like the Eucalyptus Room and the Anxious Grape, turning an afternoon of shopping into something closer to an event.
On paper, Liberty House seemed poised for success.
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| Liberty House invested heavily in San Francisco, replacing much of the historic City of Paris store with a modern flagship at Union Square. |
Yet there was a problem.
Many Northern Californians never quite understood what Liberty House was supposed to be.
The company carried the prestige of a well-established Hawaiian retailer, but that identity didn't always translate to the mainland. People heard "Liberty House of Hawaii" and expected something distinctly Hawaiian. Instead they found a stylish department store selling much the same mix of fashion, cosmetics, home goods, and gifts offered by its competitors.
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| 1978 newspaper photo of the Liberty House sign on the Eastridge building, marking the store’s closure after years as a beloved, but under-performing, department store. |
Meanwhile, those competitors weren't standing still.
In 1972, another outsider entered Northern California: Bullock's, the celebrated Southern California department store. Like Liberty House, Bullock's arrived with impressive new stores, ambitious plans, and a strong reputation elsewhere. Like Liberty House, it struggled to gain the same foothold enjoyed by long-established Northern California names such as Macy's and Emporium-Capwell.
The similarities are striking.
Both chains expanded aggressively.
Both spent heavily on new locations.
Both began retreating by the early 1980s.
And both largely disappeared from Northern California at almost exactly the same time.
By 1983 and 1984, most Liberty House and Bullock's locations had either closed or been sold.
Yet both chains left behind a curious mystery.
Each retained a lone outpost at San Mateo Fashion Island long after the rest of their Northern California stores had vanished.
Why those stores survived longer than the others remains something of a retail-history puzzle. Perhaps the location performed better. Perhaps lease agreements played a role. Perhaps the answer has simply been lost to time.
Whatever the reason, the pattern feels oddly symbolic.
Two outsiders arrived.
Two outsiders struggled.
Two outsiders retreated.
And two lonely stores in San Mateo held out until the very end.
For Liberty House, that end came on April 12, 1987.
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| Liberty House thanked Northern California customers one final time before closing its last remaining store in 1987. |
Today, most of the chain's buildings have been remodeled, repurposed, or demolished. The City of Paris dome still survives in San Francisco. Former Liberty House stores have served as Macy's locations, office buildings, and countless other uses. At Southland Mall, traces of the original architecture remain, including attachment points high above the sales floor where the famous glass elevators once traveled.
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| Macy’s at Southland Mall, Hayward (2025) — Once home to Liberty House, the store still bears architectural traces of its past, including ceiling fixtures where the iconic glass elevators once glided through the atrium. |
Yet Liberty House survives surprisingly well in memory.
Mention the name and someone will remember lunch at the Anxious Grape. Someone else will remember shopping bags or holiday displays. Others will immediately bring up the elevators and those strange mannequins endlessly riding between floors.
For me, though, it will always be the Snoopy Shop.
Not because it was important to the company's history. It wasn't.
But history and memory don't always preserve the same things.
Long after the stores closed and the signs came down, what remained wasn't a corporate acquisition or a balance sheet. It was a childhood moment. A tiny sweater for a stuffed beagle. A pink-and-gold price tag. The hope that maybe this time my mother would say yes.
Like Liberty House itself, the memory survives as a fragment.
And somehow, that's enough.
Comments
I've been researching exact dates. Harder than I thought!
The City of Paris Stonestown opening and closing dates are sketchy. I'll keep looking!
Scott