Purrfect Retirement Home : Pets: Bertha Yergat worried about what would happen to her cats after she was gone. So when she died Tuesday, she left the cats--all 90 of them--her shelter.

LAGUNA BEACH —  Bertha Yergat, nearing 80, knew she didn’t have much time left.

But what worried her most was the fate of the 90 cats she would leave behind.

For more than a decade, the former schoolteacher had run a shelter for homeless cats out of her four-bedroom house in Laguna Beach. Here, at her Blue Bell Country Club for Cats, felines lounged in luxury, free to roam the well-manicured grounds, bask in the sun and sip cool water from a pond specially stocked with goldfish.

Yergat had devoted her life to creating a slice of kitty heaven that featured fishing, bird-watching, gopher-hunting and tree-climbing. Everything, she’d say, but golf or tennis.

“She was concerned that if something happened to her, her cats would be sent off to the pound,” said Dorothy Palmer, a friend. “She wanted to do something so her cats would have a place to live for the rest of their lives.”

Two years ago, Yergat set out to insure her cats’ futures. She deeded her house to a foundation established solely for the purpose of maintaining the Blue Bell Country Club, named after one of her favorite cats.

Yergat died Tuesday at age 80, leaving several properties to the Blue Bell Foundation with orders to use the proceeds to maintain the shelter on Laguna Canyon Road. The other property will be sold, board members said. For Yergat, who never married, the cats were like children.

“They’re all little heirs. She’s leaving them a considerable amount of property,” said Philip May, a board member of the foundation. “I call them the Blue Bell Cats.”

Their inheritance is a sprawling house framed by canyons and steep cliffs. Inside, those who don’t feel like socializing snooze in cages. Those who do trade shrill insults in a living room furnished with matching wicker chairs and stoops. A Siamese takes a swipe at an orange tiger-striped. A black tabby stands on a dining room table, eating from five different dishes. Nearby, three felines snuggle on a twin bed.

Outdoors, various other cats, some as big as small dogs, lounge on lawn chairs and benches scattered around the pond.

“It’s just like a house with beds, chairs, blankets and everything, made comfortable just for them,” said Tina Rodman, 21, who will take over the running of the shelter.

On Friday, friends and family members attended funeral services for Yergat in Laguna Beach. She lay in a white coffin, a stuffed kitten at her side. She will be buried next week in Pennsylvania.

After the service, relatives and friends gathered at Blue Bell to admire Yergat’s life work.

The daughter of Armenian immigrants, Yergat was one of two children raised on a farm outside Philadelphia. She taught grade school in Pennsylvania, moving to Laguna Beach shortly after World War II. It was here that she began to acquire property and cats, her brother John Yergat said.

“Have you ever seen this many cats in your life?” Yergat asked. “I didn’t know what to think when she first started. I never dreamed it would develop into this.”

Friends described Yergat as a fiery woman who devoted her life to building Blue Bell. For the past two years, strokes had left her bedridden. She was unable to live with her cats and moved to another home on Glenneyre street.

“This was her whole life,” said longtime friend Barbara Cross. “Toward the end she needed full-time nurses, but she had my husband and me trying to carry her to Blue Bell to see her cats.”

Through Blue Bell, Yergat made friends with cat-lovers from around the world, friends said.

“She would hold court and people would come by to talk,” said John Hamil, another board member. “If she didn’t think you were taking care of your cats the right way she would tell you.”

The shelter is home to at least a dozen felines whose owners paid $750 to send them into early retirement.

“Some leave it in their will,” Rodman said. “A month ago, a lady went into a convalescent home and she didn’t want anyone else to have her cat. Chee Chee’s owner is 93 years old and can’t take care of her.”

Many of the cats are brought into Blue Bell for adoption. “One lady said the cat changed when she got pregnant so she told her husband it was either her or the cat,” Rodman said.

Meet Stevie, who, like his namesake, singer Stevie Wonder, is blind. And Tommy, a three-legged cat. Miko, Muffin and Bogie, refugees from a divorce. Lacey, who made it back to Blue Bell from another city after her owner was murdered. Dozens more cats are boarded in an addition.

All were individuals to Yergat. Even without their name tags, she could call them each by name, friends said. “She told me once the reason she got along so well with cats is she saw in them the childlike qualities that she saw in the kids she taught,” May said. “No matter how old they got, they still had those childlike qualities.”

Yergat first started running a boarding house for cats about 25 years ago at another location in Laguna Beach. It wasn’t long before she began taking in strays. “Whenever someone would say, ‘My husband did this’ or ‘My husband did that,’ she’d say, ‘That’s why I never got married. Cats will never do that to you,’ ” Rodman said.

Dozens of postcards of cats line the walls of a small room that serves as an office. “These are postcards that owners sent to their cats,” Rodman said. “She would get very angry if people went away somewhere and didn’t write to their cats.”

Rodman, who went to work for Yergat two years ago, says she will keep Yergat’s dream alive.

“I plan to stay here forever because I love the cats,” she said. “Cats are a lot nicer than people. Bertha always said that and I agree. All they ask for is food, water, some clean blankets and litter boxes.”