Embattled Atherton Home Finally Sells for $46 Million

A sprawling Atherton estate has sold after more than a year on the market.

The modern mansion at 88 Tuscaloosa Avenue sold to an unnamed buyer for $45.5 million, the San Francisco Standard reported. But it was a rocky road to the sale marked by legal back-and-forth and nearly a decade of construction work.

In 2021, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan agreed to buy the property before it was finished, though the executive never closed the deal. The builder, Ali Sadeghi, took Yuan to court over the drawn-out discussion timelines and $37 million construction cost. The home finally hit the market in the fall of 2024 at $55 million, and the price hovered around $50 million over the following year.

Joe Piazza of Coldwell Banker was recruited by the developer to sell the mansion, showing the house to both local buyers and Chinese billionaires. “What am I going to do to bring a lifestyle to the buyers, and to really immerse them into the home, and then to, quite honestly, compel them to get involved?” Piazza told the Standard of his thought process.

The winning bid was an all-cash offer from an unidentified “top Silicon Valley executive” who bought the property through an LLC managed by a Marin-based CPA, according to public records reviewed by the Standard. The buyer was represented by Ken DeLeon of DeLeon Realty.

The buyer didn’t just buy the house itself; the $45.5 million price tag included all the staged furniture inside. “I sold the whole enchilada,” Piazza said. The mansion boasts nine bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, five kitchens, two panic rooms and a 14-seat movie theater. Outside, the property has a glass-walled pool, a heated cabana with a kitchen and bath, a fruit orchard, a one-bedroom guest house and a sports court. Overall, the Tuscaloosa Avenue home spans nearly 17,000 square feet on a 1.4-acre lot.

While Atherton has long been the priciest ZIP code in the country, the town recently lost the top spot to Fisher Island in Miami Beach, toppling Atherton’s $8.3 million median sales price with a $9.5 million median sales price.

— Chris Malone Méndez