SF duplex penthouse asking nearly $20M finds a buyer

A Pacific Heights duplex penthouse asking $20 million has found a buyer after going on and off the market since 2019. 

The four-bedroom with four full baths, two half-baths and a media room, library and home gym on its upper level has about 6,200 square feet, according to listing notes from agent Gregg Lynn.

The Sotheby’s agent declined to comment on the listing, which went into contract on Jan. 3. A sales price is not yet known but if it sells for anywhere close to the asking price, it would kick off the year with a top-tier San Francisco sale. Prices on the biggest deals from last year were between the mid-teens and the low $20 million range, with only one home selling over $30 million. 

The duplex penthouse at 2000 Washington Street, built in 1922, originally listed for $25 million in September 2019 and went off the market between mid-2021 and mid-2022. After coming back with the same $25-million ask in May 2022, it took a 20 percent price cut to just under $20 million in October 2022. It has held at that price ever since. 

The duplex penthouse is one of only three such properties on the north side of the city and they do not change hands often, according to Joseph Lucier, also of Sotheby’s. 

“It’s a connoisseur category of property,” he said. 

He represented the sellers when it last changed hands in 2014 for $16 million. To his knowledge, the owners, listed in public records as Trinity Sky Revocable Trust, spent about $3 million renovating it into the “triple-mint superlative condition” it’s in today. 

He particularly liked the reworking of the floor plan, which moved an underutilized formal dining room into an interior space so that an informal family room with breakfast nook could take its prime bay view spot off the kitchen. The upper level was also reconfigured into an open concept media room and lounge with tiered seating and a barrel vaulted ceiling. It leads out to a terrace. There is also another shared terrace that Lucier said is typically only used by the other occupants in the building when the Blue Angels are in town for Fleet Week. The unit also comes with two parking spots in the doormanned building.

“It’s absolutely one of the top five apartments in San Francisco,” he said.

When the property first came back on the market in May 2022, Lynn told TRD that the increased costs of construction due to the pandemic made the turn-key penthouse even more valuable than when it first listed in 2019. He also said that the sellers “have long lived primarily in Europe and purchased the penthouse when they had substantial business interests that required them to stay at length in the Bay Area,” which they no longer do.

Lucier said the penthouse likely found a buyer after all of this time due to the “tenacity of its agent,” as well as that, to his knowledge, the new owner will be a local who is “very familiar with the building.” 

“He is a San Franciscan who is very committed to the city and its continued [position] as a center for technological innovation and investment,” he said. 

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The sale is a clear sign to other wealthy individuals that COVID concerns related to shared spaces are a thing of the past, he added, and he expects to see increased interest in other luxury-view flats in Pacific Heights, Nob Hill and Russian Hill this year. 

As to whether it will help usher in a year of broader luxury buyer enthusiasm, he was less certain. A lot will depend on the new inventory that comes on in the next few months, Lucier said, but kicking off the new year with a sale near the $20million mark “certainly doesn’t hurt.”

“Buyers like the comfort of being in a pool of other buyers making transactions,” he said.