Pacific Heights eight-bedroom from 1880s gets $8.5M price cut

A $28-million home at 2828 Vallejo Street on the market for the first time in more than 60 years had its price chopped by $8.5 million, its listing shows.

The eight-bedroom 1880s home was originally built by a shipping magnate as a wedding gift for his daughter. Silver baron James Flood wanted the property, but not the house, after he lost his own home in the 1906 earthquake and offered to move it to a new location. The owners accepted and in 1911, it was cut into pieces, moved seven blocks to its present site, and then put back together, Gordon Andrews, whose parents bought the home in the late 1950s, told the Wall Street Journal.

“I remember my mother saying that the house was cut in half, or maybe in quarters, and you could see where it was put back together,” Andrews said. He never could find the seams.

He had fond memories of growing up in the home, which has quirky features such as a wet bar hidden behind a bookcase in the library that provides a secret passage to the formal dining room. “You don’t know it’s there until someone pops up with a cocktail,” Andrews said.

His parents were at a party when they were first wowed by the home, with its large flat lot, bay views and 20-foot living room ceilings. When it came on the market a few years later, they jumped at the opportunity to buy it, even promising the previous owner that they would never tear it down, according to SFGate.

True to their word, the Andrews didn’t change much in their six decades, other than adding a bigger kitchen to the main level and an elevator that goes from the lower-level recreation room all the way to the game room three flights up. It’s stairs-only to access the bay view roof deck.

(Source: Redfin)

Many of the original features are still intact, including the redwood-paneled walls in the foyer and intricate coffered ceilings in the main entertaining rooms and the bedrooms one flight up. Andrews said his father, who was in the lumber industry and collected antiques, kept whole areas of the 10,000-square-foot home off limits to him and his two siblings in an effort to keep them from breaking things.

His father died in 2017 and his mother followed two years later. Neither Andrews nor his siblings wanted to move in, so they decided to sell, he said.

The home is on the market at a time when San Francisco buyers are more interested than ever in large, luxury properties with spacious, private outdoor spaces in prime locations, which would seem to fit the Vallejo property. But they’re also paying a premium for turnkey properties, not “a dream waiting to happen,” as the home is described in the listing notes.

The new price may be an indication of just how expensive and time-consuming it will be for a new owner to update the home while keeping its historic features intact. The listing imagines the buyer will be “someone who values and embraces the heritage of the home, and moves it forward into the 21st Century.”

The $8 million price cut may prove a lucky number. A grand gothic mansion formerly owned by Nicolas Cage and also in need of updates just sold after years of price cuts – for $8.8 million.

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