Places sierrawest Wants to Go

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

Noble beasts perhaps, but not the Emperor's dogs.

An art supply shop holds the secrets of this quiet neighborhood's raucous Barbary Coast past.

Once the largest windmill outside of Holland, with enormous 114 foot sails.

Art in the form of a winding, man made crack in stone.

The taxidermied remains of the "last wild grizzly bear in California" and of the symbol of the state of California.

Guns that have been defending San Francisco since 1904.

A miniature view of the park, caught in time.

The largest whiskey stash on the West Coast survived the 1906 fires--but not without heroic effort.

This giant head is all that remains of a once proud statue that survived an earthquake but not a fall off of a wagon.

An enormous illuminated figure dances on the Las Vegas strip.

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

A free, public museum dedicated to the fascinating science of sight.

A pair of mutilated bronze octopuses slump at the base of the monument honoring California's admission to the U.S.

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

The only visible piece of San Francisco's most famous shipwreck.

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

A brooding mansion of clinker brick stands out among the Victorian houses of Pacific Heights.

Radioactivity still cause for concern at this urban explorer's paradise.

One of few lasting examples of the brief octagon craze that developed into folly.

Gold Rush ship-turned-hotel buried underneath San Francisco's financial district.

The grand, column-fronted, sculpture-adorned home of the ambitious digital library.

A speck of nature and art in one of San Francisco’s most notorious neighborhoods.

Barely visible foundations remain where Stow Lake’s “observatory” once welcomed visitors.