Pacific Heights Victorian Sells for $25 Million

Amid a tight luxury market and booming wealth leaving San Francisco with more millionaires than mansions, one the city’s rare properties — on arguably its premiere street — drew a new buyer earlier this month.

Listed for $25 million, the nine-bed, eight-bath Queen Anne Victorian home at 2315 Broadway Street in Pacific Heights hit the market on May 7 for the first time in nearly 60 years. By May 18, the former owners, Susan McLaughlin and Joseph Hartman, were signing the deed transfer, according to public documents.

The buyer, a Delaware-incorporated company named 2315 Broadway Holdings LLC, closed on the deal on June 10, according to public records, in an all-cash transaction. Although the sale price was listed at $22.2 million, listing agent Erin Thompson of Compass said the buyer agreed to pay both sides of the broker commission and the real estate transfer tax, which all-in amounted to about $25 million.

The property last changed hands more than six decades ago when famed architect Herb McLaughlin bought the home for $100,000 in 1969. McLaughlin was best known as a leader in conversions for old buildings, leading projects to preserve properties like Dearborn Station in Chicago and San Francisco’s Hallidie Building in downtown, which now houses the city’s chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

McLaughlin lived in the house with his second wife, Susan, until he died in 2015.

His well-preserved, 149-year-old mansion was chosen as the exhibition house for San Francisco’s 2026 Decorator Showcase, a monthlong event in which interior decorators stage a prominent San Francisco home and open it to the public, exhibiting the latest in design.

Thompson said the buyer, who works in tech, first saw the home during the showcase, and continued to return.

“This buyer pool is a lot more selective, they are not interested in doing a bunch of work, they just want to buy an exceptional place that is move-in ready,” Thompson said.

In May, San Francisco’s inventory of homes for sale fell to 900, down by 500 homes year-over-year. It was the first time since 2019 that available homes in May dropped below 1,000. Yet, sales from January to May are up 8 percent year-over-year in the city, according to Redfin, fueled in large part by the increasing wealth created by the artificial intelligence industry.

The economic boom has exacerbated the pressure on supply in the luxury market. The median home price in the city neared $2.2 million earlier this year, an all-time high. Yet, many brokers agree that this is only the beginning, especially as major AI companies make plans to go public later this year, which will mint a new generation of millionaires and billionaires in the city, many of whom will be looking for homes.