3725 Washington Street Aerial

Listed for $11 million last September, the nearly 10,000-square-foot mansion at 3725 Washington Street and former Presidio Heights home of Diana Dollar Hickingbotham Knowles quietly sold for $8,400,000 four months ago.

3725 Washington Living circa 2013

From the listing at the time:

“This remarkable property was reinvented by the well-known designer, Michael Taylor, and has extraordinary light-filled public rooms, large spaces and a wonderful indoor/outdoor feeling. Five bedroom suites and numerous expansive gathering rooms. Two garages, additional bedrooms for guests or live-in help, and beautiful outdoor areas including a front terrace with a fountain and a sun-drenched South-facing garden with a pool.”

Two months ago, a permit to remodel the home’s existing kitchen, laundry room, and a bath and a half — all within the existing footprint of the house and without any structural work — was issued and a number of inspections to legalize the earlier “reinvention” were scheduled.

And as a plugged-in tipster reports, the Presidio Heights property is once again “Coming Soon,” this time with a preliminary list price of $9,500,000.

13 thoughts on “Forget Flip This House, It’s Time For Flip This Mansion!”
  1. House seems to have staging pieces inside , would like to see what it looks like when its actually been furnished , and has some bold color inserted

  2. I got a marketing postcard from Nina Hatvany a couple of years ago. It was a picture of her sitting on a park bench listening to an i-pod. That’s some weird stuff. Who thinks of that? Who thinks the right person to sell a house is someone who sends postcard pictures of themselves listening to an i-pod? I mean, I understand self-promotion and all, but WTF?

    I am baffled by the game and the players.

    Also, holy crap, that house sold for @ $840/foot four months ago? Seems cheap.

  3. I think this was a difficult sale because of Taylor’s redesign. Some of his interiors have held up reasonably well, but, this one… no. Knowles’ idea of enclosing the garden in that tomb-like structure really marred this place. I think some minor updates including staining the hardwood floors, trashing the copious amounts of limestone in the public rooms, and maybe tearing down the mausoleum, er “garden room” would help tremendously.

  4. Eveyone has a hard time ripping out “square feet” since it hurts the math on ($ * sqft) but this is a case where the lot is poorly utilized.

  5. @eddy What would you do with the building footprint? I haven’t seen the house personally, but it appears that it sprawls all over the big lot in 1 and 2 stories. Almost looks like the single story area with the big ‘hotel lobby’ skylight was “filled in” at some point. Would you make a smaller house with a bigger yard? This is a real question, FWIW.

  6. Soccermom, I can’t speak for eddy… but the garden room (shown above) was added by Knowles and Taylor. It used to be the garden and is now the one-story area you can see in the aerial photo. I’d lose it. If its anything like Taylor’s other indoor/outdoor spaces, the central rooms flow off of it adding square footage, but creating a nonsensical floor-plan. The living room is now walled off from what used to be the foyer. I’d send the heavy stones to the trash-heap.. er recycle it… and restore the garden. I might leave the “new” entry where it is for privacy. I’d then scrap the pool and maybe add on in the back to create a larger kitchen and maybe an additional seating area, albeit with a smaller rear garden. Currently, the access to the kitchen seems unnecessarily circuitous. In total, you wouldn’t lose much square footage. These are the best couple of blocks of Presidio Heights.. and a purchase price of 1k a foot still seems like a comparative bargain.

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