
The Cliff House and Sutro Baths
Posted: 02.04.2021 | Updated: 02.07.2025
The Cliff House and Sutro Bath in San Francisco are one of the most active and paranormally diverse locations in California. You won’t find anything more strange and unusual when it comes to tragedy, shipwrecks, explosions, mummies, dead children, secret graveyards, disastrous fires, apparitions, or Satanists! They have all been part of the history of this haunted Land’s End monument.
Book a walking ghost tour to learn more about the Sutro Baths and the rest of San Francisco’s haunted history!
Are The Cliff House and Sutro Baths Haunted?
Hidden in the fog of the 200-acre expanse know as Land’s End, The Cliff House and the remains of the Sutro Bath House are known haunted locale in San Francisc. Many have seen phantoms wandering near the rocky crags where the ocean meets the land. Brave adventures have heard mysterious voices in the skeleton of the old Sutro Baths. Do you dare
The Tragic History of the San Francisco Cliff House

The Cliff House has been rebuilt many times over the years. Not one, not two, but FOUR Cliff Houses have existed throughout history. Why does this house keep getting destroyed? Could it be haunted by the land it keeps trying to hard to stay atop of?
The first Cliff House in San Francisco was built around 1863 by senator John Buckley. Its splendor was enjoyed by five U.S. presidents and many famous citizens from around the world. Self-made millionaire Adolph Sutro built his estate on Sutro Heights overlooking the Cliff House and eventually purchased it in 1883.
However, the Cliff Houses’ misfortune started in 1887, when the schooner Parallel, abandoned and loaded with dynamite, ran into the rocks below. The explosion that followed was so powerful it was heard throughout the bay area.
That version of the San Francisco’s Cliff House operated until 1889, when it was given hefty renovations. On Christmas day in 1894, it was destroyed by a chimney fire.
The Lands End restaurant and hotel remained a favorite of the rich and famous until September 7th, 1907, when it yet again burned to the ground. It was reduced to ash in less than two hours.
It was purchased by George and Leo Whitney in 1937 and rebuilt once more. Then, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area acquired the house in 1977.
Today, it stands as a beautiful restaurant with panoramic seascape views. But did any of these events leave spirits trapped here, and why is the land surrounded it shrouded in such mysterious, tragic circumstances?

The Cliff House Ghosts
There have been a plethora of ghost sightings reported around Lands End, Sutro Bath House, and The Cliff House. But, the most famous is the story of a forlorn woman who wanders the large rocks below.
Legend has it that she is the restless spirit of Natalie Salina Harrison, who, in life, reportedly waited on the shores in vain for her fiancé to return from battle during World War I. She died utterly broken-hearted, and people have reported seeing her apparition at ever since.
The 1887 shipwreck of the Parallel was one of the Cliff House’s more tragic events. But it was not the first boat to wreck around the large rocks. It was the fourth. The King Philip, SS Ohioan, & SS City of Rio De Janeiro, all met their end on this craggy cliff.
The Parallel hid its wreck well, thanks to the 40 tons of black gunpowder and dynamite aboard. Unsurprisingly, the crash also took out the Cliff House’s entire north wing.
Today, people report seeing the apparition of the Parallel headed for the rocks. But, only minutes later they see that the ship vanished.
The vicitims of the SS City of Rio De Janiero wreck are also said to wander the rocks just as Natalie does.
The Sutro Bath House
The Cliff House isn’t the only haunted structure on the land! The Sutro Baths, built by the self-made millionaire Adolph Sutro, also have their share of spirits.
Sutro designed the baths and the entire Sutro Heights neighbordhood above them. Developed in 1894, the Sutro Bath House were an ocean pool aquarium among the rocks of the north part of the San Francisco Cliff House.
Sutro’s dream for the baths was to provide a safe and healthy recreational swimming facility for San Franciscans. When it wa sall finished, the three acre complex boasted impressive artistic details.
There were slides, trapezes, springboards, and a high dive. The Pacific Ocean provided the water for the baths and could fill them all within an hour. The Sutro Bath in San Francisco were indeed a luxury of the time, built to accommodate 10,000 people.
The front entrance contained natural history exhibits, galleries of sculptures, paintings, and artifacts from ancient Egypt, China, The Middle East, and Mexico. The most popular was the group of Egyptian mummies.
In 1964, developers planned to replace the baths with commercial apartments. But in 1966, a fire destroyed what was left of the baths. The city did not pursue the high-rise apartment further and instead left the concrete slabs and ruins of the baths to sit.
For those who believe in curses, one may wonder whether Adolph’s persistent fire issue resulted from his penchant for collecting ancient artifacts. The Sutro Bath House contained some of the rarest and most expensive collectibles around.
Not only were there multiple mummies, dug up along with their sarcophagi, but also two seperate 3,500-year-old mummified heads and a mummified hand. Any paranormal enthusiast can tell you that keeping cursed artifacts can surely stir up a haunting that won’t soon be forgotten.
Is Lands End Cursed?
To make this area’s realty value even worse, the area was once home to a Native American Encampment and burial site. The Yelamu tribe traveled here annually to fish and hunt while the summer season was at its peak.
All of that stopped when the Spanish travelers arrived in 1776, bringing disease and an entire mess of other horrors.

All the strange energies can also be explained by the fact that the area surrounding the Cliff House and Sutro Bath House was once the Golden Gate Cemetery.
In the 1930s, the Board of Supervisors wanted to exhume and move over 18,000 bodies to Colma, and the job was done haphazardly.
In 1993, hundreds of bodies were discovered here in unmarked graves. On the concrete slabs of what remains of the San Francisco Sutro Baths, voices can be heard faintly over the sound of the crashing sea when no one is around. Disembodied laughter and apparitions of men in bathing suits have also been reported frequently.
Haunted San Francisco
Even with the threat of giant waves hitting the area, and the potential of being swept out to sea, history holds onto its ongoing popularity with both locals and tourists alike. San Francisco’s Cliff House and Sutro Bath House sit on an insanely beautiful stretch of coastline and boast a fascinating history, to say the least. Perhaps that can explain why the spirits of lives lost here don’t leave.
Learn more about this fascinating history, which surrounds the City By The Bay as much as does its trademark, on a San Francisco ghost tour!
For more hauntings in the Bay Area, read our blog! Keep up with us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for even more spooky content from across America
Sources Cited:
- https://cliffhouse.com/history
- https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/sutro-baths.htm
- https://www.kqed.org/pop/103040/are-the-cliff-house-and-the-sutro-baths-cursed
- https://medium.com/@kksparks/the-strange-yet-delightful-histories-of-san-franciscos-lands-end-e123da161ace
- https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/sutro-baths.htm
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