14-acre Japanese-inspired Marin County estate sells for $14M 

A 14-acre property owned for more than half a century by a family who helped build the Golden Gate Bridge sold for $14 million at the end of March, according to property records. 

Known as Quail Hill, the estate at 21 Canyon Road in Ross is one of the biggest sales in Marin County so far this year, coming just short of two Belvedere dock homes that went for around $14.2 million each. The buyer was QHHQ, LLC, according to Marin County public records. The LLC is linked to Douglas Michael Ackermann Jr., a bioengineering professor at Stanford University, according to state records and his LinkedIn profile. 

The sellers are the grandchildren of Jack Pomeroy, who brought his construction and engineering company from Seattle to the Bay Area in the 1930s to help build the Golden Gate and Bay bridges.

This is the first time the 11,600-square-foot, eight-bedroom, 10-bath Japanese-inspired home has been sold since it was built by Jack’s son, Robert Pomeroy, and his wife Kathleen in 1970. Robert worked for his father’s company beginning in 1940, and he led many large-scale construction projects across the Pacific Rim and in the Middle East, according to his 1991 obituary. Kathleen continued to live in the home until her death in 2018, according to her obituary. 

The Pomeroy children inherited the property, according to public records, and Mark Pomeroy told Architectural Digest in a video tour of his childhood home that the property is still in largely original condition, from the padded velvet walls that were inspired by his mother’s trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the exterior metal railings, painted International Orange to match the famous bridge his grandfather helped build. The home — designed by Japanese-born architect Mitsuru Tada and inspired by the Imperial Palace in Tokyo that had been built just a few years earlier — has shoji screens, “Quail Hill” hand painted in Japanese calligraphy on one of the walls, and numerous pools and fountains surrounded by Japanese maples and Hinoki cypress.

The elaborate grounds were designed by Nagao Sakai, who also created the zen rock garden in Golden Gate Park’s famous Japanese Tea Garden. They have been photographed by the Smithsonian and archived as a quintessential example of a Japanese garden, Pomeroy said. The home has one of the first black-bottom pools, Pomeroy added, and is meant to look more like a pond to go with the overall Japanese aesthetic, where even the covering over the barbeque was inspired by a Shinto shrine.

When the property first came to market in late 2019, it was asking $43 million, according to media reports at the time. When Pomeroy made the video alongside listing agent Neal Ward of Compass, in February 2022, the home was asking $29 million. In late June, Ward dropped the price to just south of $20 million and it went into contract in mid-December. When the price dropped last year, the over-20-acre property was reduced to the current 14-acre listing, so it’s possible the Pomeroy children decided to keep some acreage in the family or sell it separately. Ward did not reply to a request for comment.

Shana Rohde-Lynch of Compass represented the buyer. She declined to comment on the deal other than to confirm the $14 million sales price.