Listed for $1,599,000 as a bit of a fixer (or at least an updater) in July of 2007, 56 Sotelo Avenue sold for $1,900,000 a month later establishing a friendly neighborhood comp.
And sure enough, the property has been “updated” and whitewashed a bit since.
Back on the market and asking $1,995,000 for the 2,770 square foot Forest Hill home.
∙ Listing: 56 Sotelo Avenue (4/4.5) 2,770 sqft – $1,995,000 [56sotelo.com] [MLS]
So, is this a minor remodel or a major restaging?
Personally, I prefer the old landscaping and brick
walkway.
I prefer both before pictures. When I think of all the foggy mornings out there in that cold gray kitchen I want to start drinking.
And is it me or are these fake skies creepier than usual? They sort of add a nightmare dream sequence effect.
Cool house and floorplan though.
Nice stove. Another annoying website though!
Case study in how to take a cosy family house and make it cold and pretentious. Worst web site ever.
Cold and pretentious is very fashionable, and looks good on this property. As usual the core problem is with pricing. I guess this goes for around $1.75 million with $1.85 being the upper limit, but I’m often wrong about this sort of thing and don’t know this area all that well.
I’m with jlasf. The previous exterior landscaping was much warmer and in my view far superior.
Minor remodel of poorly fluffed up?
Way overpriced for what you get! Not to mention the fogbelt……
Worst gallery photo interface EVER.
What are those pieces to the sides of the stove in the “before” pic?
And the color of the wall behind the stove I think qualifies as an archetypal “Dwell Brown.”
is this the view from the back yard, with the garage facing back? or is this a property with a prominent garage and then an interior courtyard?
is there a back yard?
I can’t get over the odd exterior of the place.
does anyone have an opinion on the 1940’s gas stove.is it preferable to electric?
as long as it works does it need to be replaced to increase desirabilty to buyers?
it sells for $1.7 5 to 6 months from now
@meep, That’s a Wedgewood stove. Serious cooks know that they are fantastic to cook on and are unlikely to replace it. That one has clearly been maintained in exceptional condition.
They are built like tanks and will last forever. The flip up shelf is huge (it’s down in the before photo and up in the after photo) and holds spices and oils. That one appears to have a double oven (some just have storage on the left side) and they have a built in griddle in the center. The simmer setting can get incredibly low, yet steady, yet blast away to a much higher setting, like a DCS stove.
They were a world ahead of their time for the 40s, however, they look old. It would be a crime to get rid of it. And very expensive to do so, they weigh a ton.
Once you use one, you’d never get rid of it, no matter what it looked like.
I actually have that exact stove. We were talked into keeping it when we re-modeled our kitchen by an excited service guy who came to clean it up. One great feature he pointed out is that the flame in the oven rises and falls to maintain a very consistent temperature. Most ovens (other than high-end types) simply cycle on or off so the temperature swings quite a bit. We loved the look of the thing but assumed that because it was old it was inferior to newer designs, but it appears that the opposite is true.
Worst site navigation ever. Wow. Totally confusing.
One thing about those old stoves is that the oven (as you can seen in the pic(s)) tends to be much much smaller than current models. You might think twice or opt for a Molteni type “modern classic” if you’re inclined to cook 20lb turkeys.
Why would you leave the driveway unfinished? At least you can match the material on the walkway; this is an odd house.
We have that exact stove as well, it’s fantastic. The only negative is it is a bear to clean!
Wow, some of the worst website navigation I’ve come across in a long time. Just horrible!
Why would you redo the walkway and not the driveway? That looks ridiculous. The kitchen is lame. Money needs to be put into that room. Drawer knobs are laughable and not placed correctly. Paint color in the dining room is terrific.
It’s really hard to get a sense of the property on that terrible website.
i am trying to decide weather to get a new high end stove or restore my wedgewood.
http://www.applestoves.com/
this place in oakland paints and restores them
but the viking and wolf have a much larger “sexy” factor
while the wedgewood is still reliable at 60+ years old !
Recently, we had to give away our 1950’s O’Keefe & Merritt when we did our kitchen remodel. Loved the old stove- it worked great – but it was too bulky and the oven too small.
Tried unsuccessfully to sell the old stove on Craigslist, but ultimately had to give away to the Salvation Army. I thought there’d be more interest.
Gap Bag Blue belongs on a front door and maybe shutters, not a place to eat unless it is 1968 and there are belly dancers.
@EH, on the left of the stove is a metal kitchen cabinet most likely from the 1963 Sears and Roebuck catalog, and on the right is a trash compactor.
Be carefull if you have one of those stoves restored. I have seen a couple of them ruined because the chrome plater didn’t have a clue how to do the top and warped them in the replating.
ex SF-er:
The garage is in front. Behind the house is a down slope. This house is across front a Maybeck. See:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=San+Francisco&state=CA&address=56+Sotelo+Ave&zipcode=94116-1423&country=US&latitude=37.749429&longitude=-122.463897&geocode=ADDRESS
click on Launch 360 view
I have a similar Wedgewood now in our kitchen. While they have a very nostalgic appeal these days, they are fairly outdated and don’t cook all that well. Oven is very small, with no light. Burners run uneven..charming, perhaps but out of date. We are looking to get a Bertazzoni.
I had a similar one too – same layout but only one oven. We cooked a 25 lb turkey in that oven for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter every year without any problems. But I had a lucky break which didn’t seem so lucky at the time.
About two weeks after we moved in, I get a call from my gf. “Can you come home?” I tell her in a couple of hours, but she says, “no, now”. Won’t say what’s wrong. I race home.
It turned out she didn’t realize that the shelf folded down. She’s cleaning and it folds down on her. All the vinegars, oils, spices, everything we had on that shelf, comes tumbling down. Lots of stuff in foofy, thin, designer glass bottles falls to the top of the stove and breaks. Before she can get it wiped up, it drips into the stove, everywhere.
So I’ve got this mess of smelly stuff oozing everywhere and if we ever turn it on, the spicy, vinegary oil is going to bond to the stove and smell permanently, every time we use it.
So I dismantle it, clean every inch of it, thoroughly, because I know if I leave even a drop it’s going to smell, and put it back together. Took me about 4 hours.
Little did I realize at the time what a good thing it was that the disaster had happened. What a favor she did us! It worked perfectly from then on. The oven temp never budged an inch from ideal and the burners were even and strong. I’ve used all brands of modern professional stoves, but that Wedgewood was my favorite.
If it’s not working perfectly, thoroughly clean it. You’ll never get rid of it.
The list price for 56 Sotelo Avenue has just been reduced to $1,900,000.
After two months on the market the listing for 56 Sotelo Avenue has been withdrawn from the MLS without a recorded sale.