Partner William Plath
Queer Places:
814 Grove St, San Francisco, CA 94117
Richard
"Dick" J. Rousseau (January 10, 1932 - February 6, 2001) and his partner of 45 years,
William Plath, hosted a variety of civic events, parties and political figures at their Alamo Square home.
Bill Plath, Dick Rousseau, and
Billy Brunski bought the Victorian at 814 Grove
Street in 1957, for $13,000 in 1957. Because the three gay men were white, the 800 block of Grove
was spared from being included in the city's redevelopment plans for the area, said
Michael Nelson Finn, a gay
man and performance artist who in the early 2000s inherited the home from the
men.
"We were friends long before I knew they had this house," said Finn, who rented out several of the houses' five bedrooms via Airbnb to help pay the property taxes
up until his own death.
Rousseau and his partner hosted political fund-raisers at their home for a variety of politicoes, including former San Francisco Mayors George Moscone and Dianne Feinstein and former Assemblyman Milton Marks. The couple's house was also legendary as the site of an annual Christmas party.
After the Black Cat Café, an historic queer bar on Montgomery Street in San Francisco,
closed in 1964, the original papier mache mascot, a roughly 6 foot long cat
that sat above the bar of the, was inherited by Bill Plath and Dick Rousseau.
After their death, the cat was then inherited by Plath’s adopted son, Michael Finn.
Rousseau died on February 6, 2001, and was survived by Plath, who died one
year later. K.M. Soehnlein in his book
You Can Say You Knew Me When thanked Plath and Rousseau: Finn had provided
their letters to Soehnlein for the book.
Michael Nelson Finn
My published books:
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