HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Queen Anne Victorian built 1881-1882 for Dominga de Goni Atherton, mother-in-law of novelist Gertrude Atherton; subdivided into apartments in 1923 and the subject of one of San Francisco's most-told mansion ghost stories.
1990 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94109
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Private apartment building. Not open for public tours; exterior visible from California and Octavia streets.
Access
Limited Access
Public sidewalk on the California Street side; moderate Pacific Heights grade.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1881 · San Francisco Landmark #70 · Associated with novelist Gertrude Atherton · Queen Anne / Stick-Eastlake architecture · Subdivided 1923 — surviving 13-unit conversion
Dominga de Goni Atherton commissioned the house in 1881, after the death of her husband Faxon Atherton, and lived there with her family until her own death in 1890. The architect has been variously attributed to John Marquis and to the Moore Brothers; documentary evidence is incomplete. The exterior combines Queen Anne and Stick-Eastlake elements and is one of the surviving examples of the style in Pacific Heights.
Dominga's son George H.B. Atherton married author Gertrude Horn (later Gertrude Atherton), one of the most prominent California novelists of her generation; Gertrude wrote about the house, her overbearing mother-in-law, and her unhappy marriage in her published memoirs. George died of a kidney attack while sailing to Chile in 1887. A persistent legend — repeated across San Francisco ghost-tour literature and the FoundSF history archive — holds that the ship's captain preserved his body in a barrel of rum for the return voyage and that the family did not learn of his death until a servant opened the barrel back at the house. The story is widely retold but has not been independently verified in shipping records and is generally framed as folklore rather than documented history.
After Dominga's death the house passed through several owners. In 1923 architect Charles J. Rousseau bought it and subdivided the interior into 13 apartments, a configuration the building retains today. His widow Carrie Rousseau lived in the apartment that occupied the original ballroom, with as many as fifty cats, until her death there in 1974. The City designated the building San Francisco Landmark #70 and it remains under residential use as a multi-unit property.
Sources
Atherton House lore concentrates on four named figures, all tied directly to the family's documented history. George Atherton's 1887 death at sea and the contested 'barrel of rum' story is the seed legend: in the conventional retelling, his body was preserved in spirits for the trip back from Chile and the family discovered the death only when a butler — or, in other versions, Dominga herself — opened the barrel. SF Ghosts and FoundSF both note that this account is folklore: George's death is documented, the return-in-a-barrel detail is not.
Residents of the apartments subdivided in 1923 have reported for decades a recurring pattern of phenomena: knocking on bedroom doors with no one in the corridor, sudden cold spots in particular rooms, and faint disembodied voices. Some accounts describe footfalls in the upper hall during periods when tenants were demonstrably alone in the building.
Psychic Sylvia Browne investigated the property and, according to the FoundSF account, reported sensing three female spirits — Dominga, Gertrude, and Carrie Rousseau — whom she described as the dominant presences in the building, and a 'pale and frail' male figure she identified with George. Browne's reading is one source among several and should be treated as interpretive rather than documentary.
The house is a private apartment building with no public tour program; investigation has been limited to occasional tenant accounts and to ghost-tour stops on the exterior. The persistence of the legend across multiple generations of San Francisco haunted-history writing — and the documented family tragedy at its core — gives the story a stronger footing than many San Francisco ghost legends, even as individual details remain unverified.
This venue is a privately owned apartment building and not open to the public — appreciate from the public sidewalk at California and Octavia only.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Walk-up exterior view of the Queen Anne / Stick-Eastlake facade, with its corner tower and decorative shingle work, from the public sidewalk at California and Octavia. The house appears on most San Francisco haunted-history walking tours.
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