There are many facets of Bay Area life circa 2019 that rightly cause stress, anger and frustration. If an octogenarian’s choice in lawn ornaments in her own backyard is what’s got you in a tizzy, consider yourself lucky. Or maybe take up a hobby.

The city of Hillsborough last month sued Florence Fang, the 84-year-old former publisher of the San Francisco Examiner and AsianWeek, in San Mateo Superior Court. What had she done to earn the scorn of her own city? She dared to decorate and improve her home — the one she bought for $2.8 million in 2017 — in a fashion “out of keeping with community standards,” according to the lawsuit.

Mind you, this isn’t any home. It’s the world famous “Flintstone House,” which any kid who’s ever ridden in the backseat on Interstate 280 into San Francisco knows well. It got its name for looking like the sort of prehistoric cave dwelling 1960s cartoon TV stars Fred and Wilma Flintstone might have lived in. Then it got even more noticeable when the previous owner painted the off-white facade orange and purple.

And mind you, this isn’t any city. Hillsborough is a super-rich enclave of around 11,000 people perched on the hills between San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

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According to a real estate industry news site, Hillsborough is the fourth-richest town in the country, with a median home price in 2015 of $4.3 million and an average household income of $368,900. It’s mostly sprawling single-family homes with lovely gardens where, yes, Fang’s 15-foot woolly mammoth lawn ornament is not in “keeping with community standards.”

So when the hubbub over Hillsborough vs. Fang made international news, I texted Fang’s attorney, former San Francisco supervisor and erstwhile mayoral candidate Angela Alioto, about taking a peek inside. What exactly had Fang done to “create a highly visible eyesore,” according to the lawsuit?

It became obvious within three seconds of setting foot on Fang’s property that the media mogul had really gone for it. In a Pottery Barn era when most houses and front gardens are pretty uniform, hers is anything but.

There’s a life-size statue of Fred Flintstone near the front door, and lettering alongside a hill facing the house reading “Yabba Dabba Do.” There’s a white carriage with a smaller Flintstone, inexplicably lying on his face, next to pals Barney and Betty Rubble. Wilma, Fred’s wife, stands off to the side.

There are also astronauts, a giant rooster and a sign reading, “Someday my prince will come.”

And all that comes before you even enter the house.

Alioto stood just inside the front door, explaining that this was a fight about property rights, one she’s escalating by countersuing over Fang’s First Amendment rights to decorate her home however she pleases.

“The house was empty for two years! They couldn’t sell it!” Alioto exclaimed excitedly, which is how she communicates most of the time. “Along comes Florence Fang with obvious youthful flair — full of life. She’s very full of joie de vivre. I think the town of Hillsborough is so lucky to have her as a property owner, as opposed to this house going vacant and being boarded up and being a true nuisance to the neighborhood.”

The house has been a love-it-or-hate-it attention grabber since being constructed in 1976. Designed by architect William Nicholson, it was built by inflating huge balloons, shaping rebar and mesh frames around them, and spraying the shapes with concrete. The 2,700-square-foot home is composed of nine circular rooms grouped together like a bunch of grapes, plus a rectangular garage jutting off to the side.

The front room contains a sofa lined with round pillows that look like watermelon slices. Off to the right is a sunken room where one steps down to sit on a semicircle sofa with a view through a circular window of Highway 280.

There are three bedrooms and two bathrooms. In Fang’s master suite, the bed is covered in emoji pillows, and there’s a dresser with a unicorn head statue on top.

The other side of the house contains the kitchen and dining area. Imagine Fred Flintstone’s kitchen done up with top-of-the-line stainless steel appliances, and you’ve got the idea.

Dotting the house are a series of strange decorations, from the purple glass octopus hanging on a wall to the giant Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figurines in a spare bedroom to the lettering in the floor reading, “Dance like no one is watching.”

Fang rehabbed the property like no one was watching, and that’s what got her in trouble with Hillsborough. She began work without informing the city, obtaining the proper permits or going through a design review process, but a city staffer spotted the work on the famous house and reported it.

Assistant City Attorney Mark Hudak said Fang ignored three orders to stop work on the project.

“Most of the residents that I talk to are concerned that if we don’t enforce our permit-and-review process for a project like this, then people can build whatever they want wherever they want, and the town will lose its character,” Hudak said.

The backyard space is what appears to have really set off the city. It now features a huge statue of Bigfoot on the patio, plus 15-foot metal dinosaurs, a giraffe and a woolly mammoth down below. There are dozens of big, colorful mushrooms and some alien figurines thrown in for good measure. Fang also built staircases throughout the garden, without any railings.

Fang lives in another home in Hillsborough and uses the Flintstones House as a personal retreat and to host parties and charitable functions.

“This is her happy place,” Alioto said. “This is her fantasy.”

Alioto said Fang, who wasn’t there for the tour, was “shocked” to be sued by her own town.

“Why the attack?” Alioto said. “What is it they really don’t like?”

There’s got to be some way for Fang to remedy her misdeeds — like adding required railings on the outdoor stairs and paying some sort of fine — and have this all go away.

But the decorations should stay. As far as I could tell, nobody but the drivers on Highway 280 would be able to see the giant dinosaurs and woolly mammoth in the back garden anyway. And since the house is on a quiet cul-de-sac, hardly anybody would see the Flintstones characters out front either.

So what’s the big deal? An eclectic matriarch buys a kooky house and rather than turn it into a boring cookie cutter of a home, preserves the weirdness and makes it even more eye-catching. There was a time in the Bay Area when that would have been reason to celebrate.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @hknightsf