Purchased for $1,320,000 nine months ago with an overgrown yard and “many of [its] 1920’s details intact,” 1360 Portola Drive has since been “updated and redesigned with luxury modern day amenities throughout.”
Look away if it drives you crazy to see original wood trim that’s been painted white. Otherwise, here are a few of the key before and after shots for the West Portal property, including the new kitchen and breakfast nook:
The remodeling also added 900 square feet of legal (i.e. permitted) living space. And now with five bedrooms and six baths, the 3,310-square-foot home is back on the market and listed for $1,999,000.
I’ve driven and walked past this house many times, and always admired it from the outside. Too bad I never got to enjoy the inside as it was, I mostly prefer the way it was before (except for the kitchen). And discovering what a wonderful neighborhood West Portal is was a very pleasant surprise.
all for modernizing kitchens and baths and painted (mostly repainted or changed purple to white) on moldings throughout our remodel BUT i would never rip out well done paneling and millwork. proportions/feel in living and dining were so much better before.
Agreed. When I was deciding on what to do with the ceiling of a home office, I poured over the original blueprints and thought long and hard, when finally it came to me — replicate the existing beautiful ceiling from the dining room. It brought symmetry and balance (front of house and back of house) and combined the modern with the traditional. If it looks good to begin with, there is no need to over tinker.
Modern architecture has its place: within other modern architecture.
Prefer the new kitchen, but it is a shame about the woodwork elsewhere in the house.
Not sure I would want to live on Portola Drive itself, though. It’s a monster.
True. No one really wants to live on a busy street.
The philistines have taken over a city which used to see itself as culturally advanced. This was only supposed to happen in LA, but now we are the new LA and they have become civilized.
There should be a wall of shame where we can post the names of the flippers who destroy SF houses.
This is near my neighborhood; I’m frequently by this busy intersection and am pleased to see the overgrown exterior landscape cleaned up.
Unfortunately the interior problems don’t stop at the painted woodwork, it’s the tile of the LR fireplace surround, the kitchen cabs that don’t go to the ceiling, the cab left of the range that opens the wrong way, the faucets throughout, the kitchen backsplash accent tile, the modern stair railings, the mid-modern staging, the low slung modern looking toilets and more; why were any of these choices made? Why have a beautiful Spanish Mediterranean exterior and plop in an interior that looks pulled from a Home Depot showroom?
Sure the house was in desperate need of updating and some of these problems are in the staging, but how about an interior that matches the exterior? How about honoring the beauty of the exterior with an appropriate interior, respectfully updating the kitchen with one that looks like it belongs in a 1920’s house, only much grander and larger than they would have had back then? It’s not that hard!
If you really want this interior, go buy some brand new condo or a plain mid-modern box. And we all know prices are crazy, but is this all you can get for $2 million – a busy corner with no real yard, plenty of square footage but lots of it lost in unnecessary hallways, odd corners and skinny spaces?
Busy is correct-I fly by this place just to make the lights.
So why did they shave only 2 of the 3 trees?
I think they destroyed value ripping out the custom millwork. Paint it white if you must, but nobody prefers sheetrock walls.
Okay, so I’m a philistine. I happen to like the white woodwork. It’s clean and freshens what previously looked like a Guilded Age museum.
Same here. I agree.
Agree as well. I’d much rather actually live with the redo.
Also agree. All these people act like its so ugly, give me a freaking break – go live in an old outdated house all you want, i’ll take the new design all day!!
I think the point is that if you want “clean and fresh” you have plenty of other options throughout the city – but once original wainscoting and fireplace tiles are removed, and remaining woodwork painted, those things can’t be un-done without exhorbitant expenditures (and in some cases, never – as in, you’ll never again find some of the fine-grained old-growth wood used for 19th and early 20th century homes).
For me it falls into the same category of people who blast hip-hop in a park – if you like hip-hop, fine, but why do you feel compelled to impose your tastes on me? If you like white, clean and “modern” fine, but why permanently destroy an old gem to get it?
“clean and fresh…” is the recurrent excuse for ignorant destruction of old craftsmanship. This was not dirty and it is no more clean now than it was. It is not fresh; no one believes that sheetrock is better than wood. This was never a GILDED Age house, not in decoration or age. Perhaps it was “guilded” in the sense that highly skilled craftsmen who were journeymen or masters in guilds built it.
So many people in SF loving living in the past: natural wood, mouldings, lots of detailing, old kitchens, old style.
I like the new interiors; fresh and white. It reflects the market and it reflects what buyers what. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
But there are PLENTY of “fresh and white” interiors available in the city right now. I posted the William Ford Hacienda before, and my name links to it again, for the architect who bought and restored that home chose to keep the woodwork and the results are fantastic. I believe it is possible to live in a modern way without completely ripping out everything that is unique about a period residence. Here are examples of how other owners chose to live in a modern way in this architectural style.
there is nothing new about these interiors save a coat of paint. what they ripped out was classic, not dated. what they kept cries for at least a bit more.
paint it white, black, grey whatever, but ripping out that degree of craftsmanship is a mistake.
the updated kitchen and baths are improved – but seem builder’s grade with unnecessary accent tiling and big box vanity and faucet choices. the reuse of the old bathtub and the corner shower are particularly poor choices.
i happen to love a minimal white box with no moldings, free or floating edges, and museum detailing (and it is much harder to do then to cover mistakes in crown molding) but this is not that.
it is safe and suburban.
And safe and suburban sells. Isn’t that the point?
Everything sells. The choice isn’t between what will sell and what won’t. It’s between what’s cheapest to do and what takes a bit of time and care.
We’ll see what the market says.
Safe and suburban works in some areas. But this is a very busy street. A buyer might think, I can get a condo/house somewhere else with that same style. To offset a busy street, one might need something more sentimental, unique, something that pulls the heartstrings. So this may be a strategic mistake in the part of the flippers.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a significant number of SF buyers these days are investors. They would probably more likely go after a safe and suburban style home for ease of upkeep. But a market getting heavy with investors may, in the end, not be good in the long run.
And I think that touches on part of my annoyance with this. If someone did this to their own home, where they were going to live – I’d still think it a travesty, but at least it’s for their personal use. But for someone to buy this and rip out its soul, only to flip it – to me that literally adds insult to injury [to the home].
looks like an interior decorator freshened the work of a dead architect so a flipper could clean up.
Painting the woodwork white is a traditional desecration of period architecture (this was even done to a Green and Green house back in the day) but you don’t often see flippers muster up the energy to actually rip out the woodwork.
White painted board and batten panelling is still contemporary (malcom davis, Nick Noyes, and other SF AIA luminaries use it) and varnished woodwork that gets painted can be successfully stripped again, so this kind of ‘freshening’ need not irreversibly wipe out the past.
Too late for this house, though. Now its just a suburban box and is on the path to recurring renos every 15 years as each ‘freshening’ goes out of date.
The last is a very salient point – a period home remains a period home, but once “modernized” it will become dated within just a few years (witness already the critiques above about the kitchen fixtures and tiling), and will have to be “re-done” to stay current.
I’m not so sure as others seem to be that the ‘woodwork’ painted over wasn’t paint to begin with. It was all the rage at some point to do a (very good) faux wood grain paint in houses just like this period.
So if thats the case, we’re just talking one paint over for another.
It could very well be a faux finish. You make a good point.
perfectly on topic for considerations of my existing house. Live in a traditional 1925 house with original gumwood faux grain treated surface. not sure exactly if paint or stain or what they used back in 1925. Has even kind of a slightly waxed feel and look on the top surface. However it has become fairly beaten up over the last 90 yeaas with chips, pealing, paint splatter, dog nail scratches on window sill, etc. Have similar 12 in baseboard and about 24 inch plus panel in living/dining. As well as traditional buffet. I have found it difficult to find any artisans/painters who know how to repair what I have. Some have said that it will be impossible to match the faux finish because the old probably leaded paint is no longer available. All the wood detail is staying for sure. Does anyone know people who repair? White is classic and does look great. Can be contemporary and traditional both at the same time. But also doing something that cannot be undone… Thoughts? Thanks
Well, what do YOU want to do? Seems like you’re on the fence about repairing vs. painting.
Go with what want, then do it.
it’s gumwood for christ sakes – give me a break, if someone wants to remove it or paint it white- who cares!!
it’s their own prerogative, I am a longtime carpenter and builder and actually like the new interior much better than the original.
Right on observer – It’s gumwood. Some other species I would consider saving but that is lot of pedestrian wood. On top of that, some of the stain hues I have seen are downright ugly. Our house in this general area had gumwood doors, kickboards, and window trim. The color had a green / yellowish tinge to it that was garish. Whether this was original or happened over time I do not know. We just knew that It had to be changed. The cost to strip and restain was very expensive so we went with the white paint. No regrets.
I watched a friend work for months removing paint on wood bases, panels, and wainscoting. When finished, he found he had uncovered low-grade finger jointed wood that had always been meant to be painted. So he did. Boy did it look better and spatially larger.
Some contractor made out like a bandit in hauling off all the great woodwork and wainscoting. Amazing! Owners must not have realized what they were giving away!! New owners won’t ever know what they lost !!
I read the comments before I looked at the pics and I was expecting much worse. I don’t think the new look is so bad. It retained a lot of the home’s period features and brightened it up. Personally I would have kept the wainscoting but I’ve seen much worse renovations.
Unless you’ve seen the finishes up close, you can’t assess whether or not they are nice. I’ve seen plenty of dark wood paneling out there that really isn’t very well finished. Looks beautiful from far away or up close in pictures, but feels cheap and unevenly finished when looked at closely.
UPDATE: The sale of 1360 Portola Drive has closed escrow with a reported contract price of $2,250,000 ($680 per square foot).
Cool! Great comp for the neighborhood.
How is it a home sits on the market for nearly three full months and still gets over 110% of the asking price? Only takes one buyer I guess.
It didn’t sit – it was in contract within a month and then took a couple months to close. Not unusual at all.