27-room home built with the fortune of a sugar magnate.

An elaborate gift from Claus Spreckels is now a piece of San Francisco history.

Forgotten and then destroyed by fire, this was once one of the largest saltwater swimming pools in the world.

San Franciscans leave gifts and messages for the magical beings that live behind the tiny, mysterious door installed on a tree in Golden Gate Park.

A masterpiece in Golden Gate Park by virtue of the artist’s debt.

A mysterious painting of the self-declared Emperor of the United States watches over a local hof-brau.

A man-made island in scenic San Francisco Bay.

Alleyway plaque commemorating the death of a fictional character in The Maltese Falcon, not far from the author's home.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

This concrete tangle of square pipes has stood as a proud thorn in the city's side since the '70s.

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

This turn of the century masterpiece has a mysterious goaty interloper.

Not merely a museum – but a whirring powerhouse that offers a subterranean peek into the heart and soul of cable car operations.

A still functioning vaudeville carousel that has operated for over a century boasts a colorful menagerie and past.

A 300-ship graveyard, with a few still visible at low tide.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

The remains of a ruined mansion memorialize the 1906 earthquake.

Tiki luxury on Nob Hill.

Big gun installations, built over a massive cemetery, now abandoned & hidden in trees.

Nestled in the heart of San Francisco’s bustling Financial District stands a unique homage to the Mayan and Beaux Arts.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

The one-time watch house for incoming ships at the Golden Gate now stands abandoned and hidden in trees.

A shop full of natural curiosities, carnivorous plants, and costumed taxidermied mice.

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.