Ask on late Academy of Art University president’s Woodside estate down to $22.5M

A 1930s-era French-inspired Woodside estate that has belonged to the family of Richard Stephens—the late Academy of Art University president and mastermind behind the for-profit college’s real estate empire—is asking $22.5 million.

The estate of a little more than three acres at 234 Albion in the Silicon Valley town, dubbed “Hilltop House,” has been on and off the market several times since Stephens died in 2017 at the age of 92. It started off with an asking of $28.5 million in 2019 and returned to market in 2020 and 2021 at $24.8 million. At the end of last month it listed again with another $2 million-plus shaved off the price tag. Mary and Brent Gullixson of Compass are the listing agents and have represented the home since 2020.

The Gullixsons describe the property as “quintessential Woodside” in their marketing materials, pointing out “added layers of privacy.” The tony locale currently has the second-most-expensive listing in the Bay Area, an $84-million new-build across the street from Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s estate, The newly built property was originally listed for $110 million.

234 Albion is set back from the street and surrounded by redwood groves and a meadow from an adjoining conservation easement. The French-inspired house was designed in the mid-1930s by noted architect Gardner Dailey, who created the Brazil Pavilion for the Golden Gate International Expo in 1939 and several buildings in the UC system, as well as a lecture hall at Stanford. It has 7 bedrooms and 7.5 baths in over 11,000 square feet, plus a pool and tennis court.

In 1995, Stephens and his wife Susanne bought the property for $4.5 million, according to public record, which is when he retired from his role as president of the Academy of Art University. It had been started by his father in 1929 as the Academie of Advertising Art and is now in the hands of his daughter, Elisa. When Stephens took the helm in 1951 it had only 30 students, and by the time he died the for-profit school had a peak enrollment of 18,000 and father and daughter had amassed about 40 properties, making them “among the largest landowners in San Francisco, with more than 1 million square feet and an estimated value of well over $100 million,” according to a Chronicle obituary.

The San Francisco art school is controversial in that it requires no portfolio and takes any students who apply and can pay tuition.

“It’s not the Salk polio vaccine,” Stephens told the Chronicle in an earlier interview. “If you can write your name, you can draw.”

The school has also run afoul of numerous zoning laws and was repeatedly accused of illegally creating student housing; in 2020, after a lawsuit that pre-dated Stephens’ death, it agreed to pay the city $38 million in cash to create affordable housing, restore 12 of its historic buildings and convert nine back into their legally intended purposes.

Nevertheless, Stephens was lauded by former San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Angela Alioto and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown after his passing.

“There was nothing comparable to what Dick Stephens did with this educational establishment,” Brown told the paper. “He did that with flair and an appreciation of the city.”

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