$29M SF listing at center of pickleball flap goes into contract

Hotwire co-founder and venture capitalist Karl Peterson appears to have found a buyer for his Presidio Heights home along the Presidio Wall after nearly a year on the market. The home, with an asking price of $29 million, is listed as “pending” as of April 15, according to multiple listing sites.

If the home sells within $5 million of its asking price it will be the highest-priced sale so far this year in San Francisco. Last month, a Pacific Heights pocket listing sold for just under $24 million and was the first in the city to break the $20 million mark this year. 

Steve Mavromihalis of Compass is the listing agent and did not reply to a request for comment.

3630 Jackson Street was originally listed for $36 million last May, but the price dropped to $29 million at the end of November, shortly after the owners argued the noise from the pickleball courts at the park across the street from their home was impacting their ability to sell. One potential buyer backed out because of the noise.

Peterson’s wife Holly and some neighbors started a petition to pause pickleball at the Presidio Wall tennis courts until an environmental study could be completed and hired an acoustics firm for a noise assessment that found the pickleball matches were about as loud as a hair dryer, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. In January, the city’s Recreation and Park Department said it would turn six of the 12 courts into “tennis only” spaces, though pickleball enthusiasts continue to defy that ruling.

The Petersons bought the home for $16.65 million in 2013 and told the Wall Street Journal that they put $10 million into renovating the 1917 Julia Morgan-designed home — including adding a pickleball court of their own to their quarter-acre lot, a fact that only increased the ire of public court pickleball players. 

Other unique features of the eight-bedroom, 7.5-bath, 12,000-square-foot home include a ground-floor speakeasy/karaoke lounge with three disco balls, multiple panic/safe rooms, a two-car garage with a dog washing station and additional parking on the herringbone-patterned driveway. Many of the north-facing rooms have Presidio, bay and Golden Gate Bridge views, including the primary suite, which has two walk-in closets, each with its own bathroom. 

Holly Peterson told the WSJ that they were selling because their teenagers now go to boarding school and that they are renovating another property they own in San Francisco. They also have homes in Aspen and South Bend, Indiana. 

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