The San Francisco Art Institute on Russian Hill, a Spanish Colonial Revival building with a tall bell tower and red tile roof

San Francisco Art Institute – San Francisco, CA: The Bell Tower Ghost, a Paper Trail from 1947 and a Graveyard That Is Not There

Southwestern US Haunted Schools

The bell tower of the San Francisco Art Institute on Russian Hill has been called haunted for decades. Its stories are footsteps on the stairs, doors that open on their own and lights that come back on after closing. Unlike many campus legends, this one has a paper trail that can be followed through newspaper articles from 1963 to 1985 and an essay by the school’s own archivist. This guide follows that trail, sets out the building’s documented history, and checks one popular claim, that the campus sits on an old graveyard. The school closed in 2022, and the campus is not open to visitors.

The building and the school: what the record says

According to the school’s National Register of Historic Places nomination, the campus at 800 Chestnut Street is a Spanish Colonial Revival complex designed by the architects Bakewell and Brown. The 1926 building cost about $250,000 and was dedicated on January 15, 1927. It has a five story campanile at its northwest corner. The nomination lists a later addition of 1969, and the building is also a San Francisco landmark. The school itself began in 1871. Diego Rivera painted the fresco “The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City” there in 1931.

The legend and its paper trail

The earliest account in the stories is that of Bill Morehouse, a student who served as night watchman and lived in the tower. A FoundSF essay by Antoinette May dates his experience to 1947. On his first night, Morehouse said, he heard doors opening and closing below, then footsteps climbing to his floor. The door to his room opened and closed, nothing was visible, and the steps went on up to the observation platform. Faculty member Wally Hedrick reportedly heard the tools in the sculpture studio switch on with no one there, and an evening registrar said lights he had switched off were sometimes on again.

Becky Alexander, who worked in the school library and later the school’s archive, traced the stories through the archive’s “Ghost File” for a 2020 exhibition essay. Her notes give a chain of printed sources:

  • San Francisco Chronicle, June 25, 1963. Dean Wallace’s “A Lively Ghost Problem: The Haunted Art Tower.” Morehouse arranged for a reporter to spend a night in the tower. The reporter experienced nothing.
  • San Francisco Chronicle, October 31, 1968. “A Ghost of Legend Haunts the Artists,” from the period of the building expansion.
  • San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle, January 9, 1972. Gail Sullivan’s “How About a Ghost Story?”, which carries Morehouse’s first night account in his own words.
  • San Francisco Chronicle, October 30, 1976. “Art Institute Puts Ghost to Work,” on a Halloween party held in the ghost’s honor.
  • San Francisco Bay Guardian, February 6, 1985. A profile of the school.

By the late 1960s, the story had darkened. May writes that the 1968 tower renovation was delayed by a motorcycle accident, a case of polio, a family tragedy and a series of snafus among the students on the night shift, that furniture was smashed, and that a seance during the renovation concluded the cause was the “collective psychic energy of generations of frustrated art students.” Alexander cites the October 1968 Chronicle for the same list of misfortunes.

The graveyard claim

Several popular pages say the school stands on or beside a cemetery. Weird California says the building went up “next to and perhaps partially over a Russian Hill cemetery,” and a 2015 Sartle blog post says the neighborhood is built “directly over an old graveyard.” Neither names a source.

The record points elsewhere. A historical marker at 1020 Vallejo Street, placed in 2005, says Russian Hill was named for the graves of sailors of the Russian-American Company who died there in the early 1840s, and that the graves were removed or built over during the 1850s. Alexander writes that the general consensus likely puts that cemetery about six blocks from the school, north of Vallejo Street between Taylor and Jones, and that she found no evidence for a graveyard at the school itself. The cemetery’s story is a separate piece of local history, and nothing connects it to the tower.

What the record does not support

  • Graves under the campus. The marker and the archivist both place the cemetery blocks away.
  • A single seance. May places her seance during the 1968 renovation, and Alexander cites a different one in 1976 with a different conclusion. This guide does not assume they are the same event.
  • The tower closed for ghosts. Weird California says the closure is officially for seismic concerns, and Sartle says “for fear of earthquakes.” Neither cites an official source.
  • A death in the tower. A 1985 Bay Guardian profile reported that faculty members believed they had met the spirit of a young woman who had allegedly died by suicide long ago. Alexander writes that she has heard variations of this and that one related rumor, a jump from the tower platform, is not true. No further details are repeated here.
  • The exact year. May gives 1947. Alexander describes Morehouse as a student and night watchman in the late 1940s, and the 1976 seance report places his encounter in the 1950s. The year is best treated as approximate.

The campus today

Artnet reported that the school closed on July 15, 2022, after the University of San Francisco withdrew from a planned takeover and the board said it was “no longer financially viable.” The school filed for bankruptcy in April 2023, and in March 2024 the Los Angeles Times reported that a nonprofit led by Laurene Powell Jobs bought the campus for about $30 million, with the Rivera fresco included. Artforum reported in June 2025 that the site will become the California Academy of Studio Arts, with plans to reopen the mural to the public. The academy’s website lists no hours and says to “check back for updates.”

Visiting

The campus is closed and is private property, and the tower has been closed for years. The building can be seen from the public street, but there is nothing to visit inside. If public hours for the mural are announced, they will most likely appear on the CASA website. Please do not enter the grounds or knock on doors.

Sources

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Top image: The San Francisco Art Institute at 800 Chestnut Street, viewed from Chestnut and Jones Streets, December 21, 2024. Photo: Mariwlqs, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped, via Wikimedia Commons