Step inside a home that feels like a treehouse, five levels of one remarkable woman's life, each landing more surprising than the last.

She was a UC Berkeley zoology graduate who came of age at Cal in the 1960s, at the height of the campus's civic activism. She stayed a devoted Cal fan for life. She loved Cal football, belonged to the Cal Women's Sports Booster Club, and played golf and tennis. Her home was a menagerie: five parrots, tortoises, dogs, cats, frogs, and fish, and the...