Ex-Google CEO Drops $24 Million on Luxe Apartment

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is adding another luxury property to his extensive real estate portfolio with a new apartment purchase in San Francisco.

The ex-exec paid $24 million for a three-bedroom abode at 2006 Washington Street in Pacific Heights, The Wall Street Journal reported. The unit spans 5,700 square feet and has wraparound terraces with views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge.

Retired shipping executive Chris R. Redlich, Jr., bought the pad for $32 million in 2015 and extensively remodeled the place. A private elevator opens to an octagonal domed entry. The makeover included a marble floor in the entry modeled after Kedleston Hall, a country house in England.

The unit hit the market in March 2024 for $35 million.

“The taxes were too high relative to what we were getting,” Redlich told the Journal. “I wouldn’t put a business in California now on a bet.”

In 2024, Redlich paid $32 million for a 50-acre property outside Nashville, Tennessee.

After seeing the dire state of the wider market in the city post-pandemic, Redlich expected to take a hit on the price of his unit. “On my balance sheet, I’d already reserved a big discount on that place and our discount number was relatively close to what it ended up being,” he said.

The last sale in the Washington Street building was in 2022 when a lower floor sold for $19 million, down from its initial $30 million listing price. Past residents of the 11-unit tower included philanthropist Phyllis Wattis and financier Dean Witter of investment firm Dean Witter & Company.

Schmidt bought the apartment in the century-old Beaux Arts building as an investment, people familiar with the deal told the Journal. He offloaded his home in Atherton last year for $24.5 million.

He and his wife Wendy Schmidt own property around the globe. Last year, they bought a mansion in London’s Holland Park for approximately $55 million with plans to rent it out. They also count homes in New York City; Los Angeles; Montecito, California; Rhinebeck, New York; Washington, D.C.; Miami Beach, Florida; and Nantucket, Massachusetts.

— Chris Malone Méndez