The San Francisco Funeral Home and Columbarium: A Unique Landmark in the City by the Bay

The Columbarium is a unique and stately site in the City by the Bay
Credit: Dignity Memorial

Although The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and Fisherman’s Wharf may be San Francisco’s most popular landmarks, they’re not necessarily the most elegant or intriguing.

The San Francisco Columbarium and Funeral Home sits just north of Golden Gate Park at the end of a cul-de-sac in the Richmond District. A place of inurnment, a columbarium is a public storage place for urns that traditionally sit in smaller niches; at the San Francisco site, many of these niches sit behind glass with trinkets or mementos honoring those who died. 

An Odd History

Built in 1898 by Bernard J.S. Cahill, the Columbarium is designed in stately, Neo-Classical style, evoking the Roman times from which columbaria originate.
The structure boasts of a large rotunda, copper dome, stained glass windows, a giant 45-foot atrium, and three giant halls.

Originally, it was part of Odd Fellows Cemetery, a burial place for the international fraternal order who, per the Columbarium’s website, “saw death as something to approach without fear and funerals as events that should be ordinary yet dignified.”

Unfortunately, when an ordinance passed in 1902 that banned cemetery lots or restricted any further burials within the city, the Odd Fellows moved their burial grounds to Colma, California, a necropolis founded in 1924. The Fellows exhumed and transferred many of the bodies in the 1920s and 1930s, and headstones were even removed and used as a seawall at Aquatic Park.

According to Atlas Obscura, five decades passed with one cemetery association buying and selling it to another while looters, vandals, and vermin inhabited it and destroyed it.

A view of the stately interior of the Columbarium
Credit The Trident Society

The Neptune Society of Northern California purchased the Columbarium in 1980, and since then, its current caretaker Emmit Watson has worked to restore it. Initially hired as a painter, he now serves as its primary caretaker and tour guide.

In 1996, the San Francisco Designated Landmarks added the Columbarium to the register, and in 2016, the San Francisco Funeral Home was erected on-site. Now owned by Dignity Memorial, it features a chapel that can accommodate up to 70 people, and it features many of the ornate features like glass windows, stately balconies, and marble flooring.

Inside, there are four stories containing thousands of niches; halls are named after mythological wind spirits or constellations. Overall, the Greco-Roman architecture and Baroque features inspire feelings of reverence, peace, and respect.

Other Points of Interest

The Columbarium houses the ashes of approximately 30,000 San Franciscans, including some notable local celebrities like Jose Santana (1918–1997), Harry August Jansen (a.k.a. Dante the Magician) (1883–1955), and former mayor Edward Robeson Taylor (1838-1923). Civil rights activist Harvey Milk (1930-1978) has a memorial here (although his ashes appear to have been spread in several locations).

For a San Francisco site off the beaten path, the Columbarium may be well worth a visit. Please call ahead for a tour at 415-221-1838 or visit during these hours:

Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday – Sunday, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.