After Dominga Atherton 's death in 1890 , the mansion was sold to Edgar Mills , brother of Darius Ogden Mills of the Bank of California , and in 1900 was renumbered from 1950 to 1990 California St. In 1908 it was purchased by George Chauncey Boardman , a real-estate magnate and president of San Francisco Fire Insurance , whose house had been destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire . His widow and other family members lived there until 1923 , when it was bought by Charles J. Rousseau , an architect , who subdivided it into 13 apartments . His widow Carrie lived there with fifty cats until her death in 1974 . it was still subdivided . The house is reportedly haunted by as many as four ghosts , including Carrie Rousseau , and is featured on ghost tours . The commonly cited story is that the original ghost is George Atherton , who died at sea in the South Pacific in 1887 and whose body was shipped back to San Francisco in a rum barrel , but the barrel was delivered to the docks , not to the house
1906 earthquake and fire
1906 San Francisco earthquake
Atherton House