Late Multimillionaire’s Mansion A Real Cat-Mandu Animal Lover’s Will Lets 15 Cats Live In Style In $300,000 House

An animal-rights crusader who founded groups to find homes for strays and to fund animal-protection groups in the region while she was alive didn’t forget her friends in death.

When Angela Albohn died in September at age 85, she left behind no relatives but a house filled with 29 cats that had been abandoned by their former owners.

In her will, she directed Catherine Heay, a longtime friend, to find them homes.

Ten cats were placed around town, but four wild cats had to be euthanized.

The rest - Timmy, Here Kitty Kitty, Sam, Willow, Melissa, Baby, Mystic, Smitty, Mikita, I Tina, Chloe, Freddy, Emily, Precious and Popcorn - got the $300,000 house on a bluff in Tony Harbor, north of Olympia, and a housekeeper to live with them for the rest of their lives.

When they die - the youngest cat is about 2 years old - the house will be sold and the money will go to the Albohn Family Foundation.

“They’re very comfortable,” Heay said. “They all have beds or boxes to sleep on and all the food they can eat.”

In 1980, Albohn, who was known to rail against friends when they wore leather, founded Concern for Animals, a group that finds homes for strays. She also established the Albohn Family Foundation in 1992 to fund animal-protection groups in the region.

“She just loved animals - all animals,” said Albohn’s friend, Doris FitzJames.

Albohn once rescued and later adopted a small burro.

“She was a real rescuer, anything that was abandoned,” FitzJames said. “It wasn’t only cats; she helped dogs, too. And rabbits, goats, abused horses and cows.”

Donna Lawrence, the live-in caretaker, and her 16-year-old daughter moved in on Thanksgiving.

Lawrence’s day begins at 4:30 a.m. with feeding. When she’s not burning incense to keep the house smelling fresh or medicating the animals when they’re sick, Lawrence tries to navigate the politics of the Albohn Board, which doles out about $200 a month for the cats’ care.

The current debate is whether to let the cats roam through the entire house or keep them confined.

Lawrence prefers they remain in a garage, garden and sun room replete with beds and scratching posts and even kitty art on the walls. It’s the only way to keep the house from becoming a zoo, festooned with cat hair, cat urine and claw marks, she says.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MYSTERIOUS BENEFACTOR How Angela Albohn amassed an estate worth $2.5 million is still a mystery to friends. But there is little secret about how she spent money: Albohn paid for thousands of local dogs and cats to be spayed and neutered. She used to hand over her own Social Security checks to elderly women living on fixed incomes who could not afford to buy cat food for their pets. Albohn also routinely picked up the tab when owners couldn’t afford to license their pets or provide emergency medical care.