2250 Vallejo Street 2015

Having quietly hit the market priced at $28 million last year, the list price for the modernized Pacific Heights mansion at 2250 Vallejo Street was reduced by $3 million four months ago.

And on Friday, the sale of the now 9,100-square-foot pad closed escrow with a contract price of $21.8 million, including the furniture, making it the most expensive home sale in San Francisco this year.

Originally designed by the late local master architect James Francis Dunn and built in 1902, the then 7,300-square-foot mansion was converted into an eleven-unit building between 1943 and 1968.

In 2009, at which point ten of the units were controlled by the then owners and the one 1,600-square-foot unit in the basement was tenant occupied, an application to merge the ten units across the top three floors of the building was approved by the City.

And in 2012, the building was sold for $6.95 million, after which it was gutted, expanded, merged and remodeled with a decidedly modern/contemporary new interior by LA-based architect Paul McLean and the addition of a new garage, elevator and roof deck.

14 thoughts on “Modernized Pac Heights Mansion Fetches $21.8 Million”
  1. Yes, it’s a 22% decrease from asking, but I can’t imagine that anything over 20MM isn’t a win here. It’s a really neat place and, for my money, one of the most beautiful facades in D7.

    1. One of the most beautiful facades, as are almost all of those by James Francis Dunn, but one of the greatest criminal hatchet jobs on a magnificent interior.

      1. I don’t know. I am conflicted. I love the older façade, but given that the building was already chopped up, how much interior décor was there to save? Plus, I prefer the clean, simple, light-filled modern interiors, and this does not look like a hatchet job from the photos.

      2. Hatchet job? Talk is cheap.
        Developers do whatever sells and obviously alot of big money want clean open interiors.

  2. Bought for 7M in 2012 and I would guess around 6M for architect, construction, finance, permits, staging, etc.
    That leaves a gain of around 8M after selling, closing costs. Not bad in a soft high-end market.

    1. Considering the structural work and quality of the job, there’s no chance the project budget ran under $7M. I’d ballpark $8-$10M. Decent return at $22M but not spectacular for a 4-year hold.

  3. “Considering the structural work and quality of the job, there’s no chance the project budget ran under $7M.”

    Please give us a rough breakdown of how $7mm would be spent in a project like this. I don’t doubt it’s possible, but it seems like a 50% profit margin for the contractor.

    1. soccermom – there had to have been some decent structural and shoring work to allow for the garage, addition of a roof deck (w/ pool). That could easily get to $1m. In this neighborhood/finishes you aren’t going to get a GC to touch it for less than $800-1000/sf. 9100sf x $800/sf = $7.3m

      1. I know someone who recently did a similar size project (maybe bigger they dug another whole floor into the hill) close to this house (a better area) and they were in around 7M. However this was the ‘retail price’ for a family not in the industry so I estimated a developer/contractor would be able to get it down to 6M. But this is a guess I don’t have any inside info.

  4. This seems like a great outcome. Probably the best house to trade in the past ten years. Sad the interior was lost but this new interior will age well. Congrats to all. Any idea who brought the buyer?

  5. I can’t believe it was sold for $7m in 2012. You’ll likely never get anything like that for less than $15m ever again.

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