Western Addition Legends Walk: Alamo Square, Fillmore Street and Octavia and Bush

Three of San Francisco’s local legends sit within a short walk of each other in the Western Addition: a spooky Victorian on Alamo Square, a famous restaurant on Fillmore Street and a civil rights pioneer’s trees at Octavia and Bush. Here is the walk, with what is true and what is only a story.

Stop 1: The Westerfeld House, Fulton and Scott

What is actually true: The house is real and its history is colourful. NoeHill’s landmark guide says it was built in 1889 and is San Francisco Landmark 135. Locals long called it the “Russian Embassy”, but NoeHill says it never housed an embassy or even a consulate; Russian émigrés ran a club and a nightclub there after 1917, and in the late 1960s it was a commune visited for Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. NoeHill says LaVey held rituals in the tower, and SFist reported in 2016 that the house’s own lore credits the scratches on a tower door jamb to a lion cub, not a leopard. Nobody has independently confirmed the marks or where they came from. LaVey’s actual home, where he kept his pet lion Togare, was at 6114 California Street in the Richmond, according to KQED.

Can you go? Only from the sidewalk: it is a private home. Alamo Square park is right across Fulton Street.

Stop 2: State Bird Provisions, 1529 Fillmore Street

What is actually true: True. New Fillmore reports that chefs Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski opened State Bird Provisions in late 2011 in the old Progress Theater at 1529 Fillmore Street. The James Beard Foundation named it Best New Restaurant in 2013, and the Michelin Guide describes “dim sum-style service” with plates that circulate on carts. The restaurant’s own site says it has held a Michelin star from 2014 to 2026. Reports that Bon Appétit ranked it the best new restaurant of 2012 are widespread, but we have not confirmed that ranking ourselves.

Can you go? Yes, for dinner; check its website for hours and reservations.

Stop 3: Mary Ellen Pleasant’s Trees, Octavia and Bush

What is actually true: The trees and the woman are real, and her real story is bigger than the ghost. San Francisco’s Department of the Environment says Pleasant was born into slavery, worked on the Underground Railroad and planted the eucalyptus trees outside her home at 1661 Octavia Street, which are now city landmark trees. KQED says she arrived in San Francisco in 1852 and built a fortune running boardinghouses and laundries. In 1866, the SF Standard reports, she refused to give up her seat on a streetcar, and her case reached the California Supreme Court in 1868. The “voodoo queen” label is the false part: KQED and the SF Standard trace it to newspaper attacks after the Sharon divorce trial of the 1880s, and historian Lynn Hudson told the SF Standard those stereotypes were rooted in slavery. The chills, the frightened dogs and the thrown nuts are ghost-tour tales, reported as stories, not fact.

Can you go? Yes, it is a public corner. Read her full story.

More Nearby

See what is on this weekend in Western Addition and Fillmore and Pacific Heights, or read all 36 stories in San Francisco Local Legends, fact-checked.