1001 California #3: Master Bath

It’s the first resale of the 3,640 square foot full-floor 1001 California #3 since its complete overhaul by architect Andrew Skurman and designer Suzanne Tucker in the late 90’s.

1001 California #3: Before and After Floor Plans

From its Architectural Digest “before and after” feature in 1999 with regard to its pre-overhauled state: “The apartment was trying to be French, but it wasn’t doing a very good job. The quality wasn’t there.” Not unlike many a “luxury” property about town.

1001 California #3: Dining

If you have to ask monthly HOA dues of $5,886 which doesn’t include the $325 a month for leased (but at least valet) parking nearby. And Friia if you have to ask that as well.

With regard to 1001 California‘s long vacant ground floor, a plugged-in reader reports:

Plans are afoot to convert the empty ground floor restaurant space, which has had multiple failed attempts, most recently Beaucoup in 2002, into two multi-level condos. Design by noted Pac Heights architect [Butler Armsden Architects].

∙ Listing: 1001 California #3 (2/2.5) – $7,250,000 [1001california.com]

28 thoughts on “A Full 1001 California Floor Which Would Have Made Vincent Friia Flip”
  1. Yawn, not impressed.
    Seriously, doesn’t it look ancient / 100 years old even after the renovation ??
    It is almost like they (these “architects”) keep trying to take us back to 1906 !

  2. The dining room and bath are great, but what happened to the living room? I can’t even guess what that faux tortoise shell powder room cost.

  3. These condo’s are awesome but for the 16k/mo to live in this place with taxes and HOAs it’s truly hard to understand how this makes economic sense. And I don’t buy the whole, “if you have to ask” card that is played in order to justify the overpriced homes.
    In NYC, the mecca of high priced homes, there is a direct correlation between monthly dues and home prices in high end co-op and condos where similar buildings with lower dues have higher prices than those building with higher dues. As demonstrated by the smaller listing in this building, people do in fact care about this sort of thing.
    There was a 950sqft condo that just closed escrow at 2200 Sacramento St, #1306 in 5 DOM and over asking at about $1100 PSF with parking. Dues were ~750/mo. First, I can’t believe that this place actually sold for over asking, but I have to assume this is a Piede a Terre and that the low HOA’s drove the price up. This place had gold coast type views. If this place has 2000/mo HOAs there is no way it sells for over $1M.
    Anyway, the market will tell us, and I admittedly don’t fully understand the mindset of the likely buyer here, but I still believe in rational behavior and market efficiency; and I just don’t see how this is going to sell at anywhere close to this price.
    All that said, 2100 Pacific Ave #9 is In Escrow for 5190sqft and $4500/mo dues so, what do I know!?!?

  4. I have always been curious what a major Arch Digest feature, as well as other PR, adds to the value of a property. Perhaps I’ll find out with this one.

  5. Leaving aside the matter of whether the dollars make sense, that’s one beautiful apartment.
    Not everything is to my taste…the powder room is over the top and I prefer a walk-in shower. However, I appreciate the “old” look. Not all of us reading this blog are interested in living high in a shiny tower in a neighborhood that may be years away from being fully realized.
    As the view photos show, being low in the building isn’t such a bad thing when there are interesting views of the street, surrounding buildings, and the park.
    To nit-pick slightly, the top of Nob Hill lacks some of the nice retail and and restaurants that you get around Union/Chestnut, Fillmore, or Polk. But it would be a great place to live in if you’re old and don’t go out much.
    Too bad they can’t find a restaurant for the commercial space. Adding two more residential units doesn’t do anything for those living in the building.

  6. Let me add that this layout does a good job in separating the bedrooms from the “public” areas of the apartment. That’s uncommon in modern buildings, and a lot of older ones too.
    Also, I like that the kitchen isn’t located in the living room…but I know from previous discussion on this site that others may not share that preference.

  7. The President of Academy of Arts University lives next door to this pink building. Which one the only single family home on that block. Which is only about 2700 square feet. And all of her fixtures are from Home Depot. So I would much rather move to this place and live like a queen and is a bigger place. But No way I would pay 7M. I would maybe give them 4M?

  8. How accurate is the sq. ft? I’ve been wondering about this, SF home always appears much smaller than the listed size. My house in the suburb has a lr, fr, fdr, nook, 5 bedrs, 3 ba, and an entertainment room and it’s 3300 sq ft. All the bedrooms are big (12×14); the master bed, the fr and the entertainment rm each is about the same size as the living rm in this luxury building. There is just no way this flat is 300+ sq ft bigger than my house. No way. Do they include common area like the public hallway and elevator into the area size? Even so, the sq footage does not add up.

  9. As I scrolled through the photos, I expected some old, short, bald guy to pop out and exclaim ‘I’m hunting wabbits!”
    Then I got to the first photo with the “view”. Um, $7+M? No thanks.

  10. For the HOA, I would want a butler a la “How to murder your wife”. That, and daily breakfast consisting of belgian chocolate and swan meat.

  11. although not to my taste, this is actually a luxury condo, unlike most of the tripe that is pawned off on the consumer as “luxury”
    Unfortunately, it has a bad kitchen work triangle. My goodness you’d think these designers would learn the very first and foremost rule of kitchen design! that rule is there for a reason: because the kitchen is first and foremost a FUNCTIONAL room.

  12. “..the kitchen is first and foremost a FUNCTIONAL room”
    And I certainly agree, ex SF-er. However the kitchen has become more and more of a showpiece rather than a place to prepare meals. Kind of like the “living room” of our parents’ generation : a room that no-one ever used, but made a great showroom for high end furniture and geegaws. I used to call it the Dead Room since nothing ever happened there.
    Luxury kitchens are mostly places for the caterers to operate while entertaining. The rest of the time its just a place to reach into the fridge for a beer.
    Most buyers in the $1.5M+ range can also afford to eat out well for every meal. There’s no shortage of excellent restaurants from which to choose. And people wealthy enough to afford this place can also afford to hire a cook, insulating themselves from any work triangle problems. The same goes for bathrooms that are a nightmare to keep looking good : those buy such places have no intention of doing the grunt work.
    Of course there are exceptions : some luxury kitchens are actually used by their owners on a daily basis and hopefully those were designed to be a delightful place to cook.
    Robert – you breakfast requirement made me laugh oatmeal all over the keyboard !

  13. @Eddy: You probably shouldn’t wade into the morass of NYC real estate taxes without a little more knowledge. It’s one of the few cities where taxes bear almost no resemblance to value. In California, at least, the taxes are pegged to recent sales or capital improvements, and that includes co-ops and condos.
    In New York, one owns shares and has a proprietary lease. Real estate taxes are included in the maintenance, and the building is assessed as a whole, on the same basis as a rental building. Condos units, as owned entities, are taxed differently, but many of them have been built with ten-year tax abatements- the incentive the city uses to bring new construction, so you can buy a new multi-million dollar condo with artificially low taxes. Condo prices reflect this ie units with about-to-expire abatements are less expensive. Additionally, New York State imposes a “mansion tax” of five percent on new or resale properties over $1M.
    Back to 1001 California- the maintenance is high because there are so few units, six, I think, all full floors. Originally the building had a private indoor swimming pool and entertaining rooms for the residents. William Randolph Hearst, contrary to urban legend, did not build 1001 California, although he may have owned/leased the penthouse and remodeled it. The building was built by a family named Morehouse.
    Whatever ones taste, this place is out of the ordinary (although not in Paris) and the lives we lead under popcorn ceilings or in shabby Victorians

  14. Home decor like this is so much more than just “taste.” This is a profound statement of social philosophy and one’s place in the pecking order. Someone attracted to this type of home deeply believes in social hierarchy and feels the need to assert their rank…somewhere below Versailles, somewhere above suburbia. Interestingly, they’re willing to spend lavishly to flaunt their wealth and possessions. There’s an oddly bourgeois insecurity in the need to do that.
    Obviously not to my taste; I’d spend the $7M on lots of light, great views, and a modern simplicity aimed at making guests feel secure & comfortable, rather than socially intimidated.

  15. Oh, Sunnyvale Steve…
    Do I see myself living here? No. Not even if I were to win the lottery tomorrow.
    Do I think it might be a great place to play dress up and pretend to be Leona Helmsley? Of course it is!
    It’s nice to drool and fantasize, but when it comes to choosing a place to live… me neither. But I still liked paging through the AD piece.

  16. @Rocco, you are confusing the issue of taxes and hoa’s. Perhaps your point is more valid on co-ops, but on condos there are huge swings in price per square foot metrics in NYC and they correspond to higher, or lower HOAs. In SF, it seems the price per square foot is pegged to the home regardless of the HOAs.

  17. “How accurate is the sq. ft? I’ve been wondering about this, SF home always appears much smaller than the listed size. My house in the suburb has a lr, fr, fdr, nook, 5 bedrs, 3 ba, and an entertainment room and it’s 3300 sq ft. All the bedrooms are big (12×14); the master bed, the fr and the entertainment rm each is about the same size as the living rm in this luxury building. There is just no way this flat is 300+ sq ft bigger than my house.”
    Sam, square footage can be off in a number of ways, including the inclusion of common areas that you reference, or just outright mistakes. This happens in both the suburbs and the city. In San Francisco, older buildings that convert from apartments to condominiums can sometimes have the common area error, but the error tends to be marginal in a building like this with full-floor units (the error can be substantial, but usually no more than 100-150 square feet, in multi-unit buildings with lots of hallway space).
    Having said that, I can report that listed square footage for San Francisco homes is *generally* accurate. For older homes/condo’s, especially those built in the 1920’s, rooms can be much bigger than new construction with bedrooms the same size or even larger than living rooms. There can also be more “foyer”, hallway, and other connecting space. The floorplan is deceptive in such cases for those homes with only a few rooms. There are one-bedrooms in the older parts of town for example that are in the 1000-2000 square foot range, but with only 4 main rooms or so, all of relatively equal size (living room, dining room, bedroom, etc.) I’m lucky enough to live in such a place with the bedroom measuring 23×20, the same size as the living, and the dining only a bit smaller.

  18. ^Yeah, I was going to say, 12×14 is pretty decent size for bedrooms in suburban areas, but I’ve never had a bedroom in SF (three places, all built 1910 or earlier) where a bedroom was less than 18×20 (my current two bedroom has one 28×18 and one 22×18. It was much more common to have larger bedrooms shared by multiple children than it was to have multiple bedrooms back in the day.

  19. UPDATE: Having failed to sell in 2009 (and 2011 as well), 1001 California #3 returned to the market priced at $9.9 million last March, was withdrawn from the MLS at the end of December and has just been listed anew, with an official “1 day on the market” and an “original,” non-reduced asking price of $8.9 million, at least according to all industry stats and aggregate reports.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *