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“Helloooo”: Robin Williams’ former Sea Cliff home sells for $18.1M after price cut

Bids rolled in after price on quirky oceanfront dropped to $20M

Robin Williams’ Former San Francisco Home Sells for $18 Million
Robin Williams and 540 El Camino Del Mar (Getty, Open Homes Photography)

The Sea Cliff home where Robin Williams lived for decades with his then-wife Marsha Garces Williams and their children has sold for $18.1 million after more than a year on the market. 

The nearly 11,000-square-foot, six-bedroom home first came to market in October 2023 with an asking price of $25 million

The 1926 Mediterranean-style house sits on a corner lot with nearly half an acre. Close to a year after it listed, the price on 540 El Camino Del Mar dropped to $20 million in September, went into contract in December and sold on Jan. 23. If the sale had closed in 2024, it would have been among the top ten sales in the city last year. 

Steven Mavromihalis of Compass had the listing from the jump, but said he could not discuss the deal. He said, however, that the home received multiple offers once the price fell. 

Robert Landsness, who manages the family office division at Engel and Volkers’ San Francisco office, represented the buyers, who he did not disclose. The Seacliff Holdings Trust, with Daniel Hu listed as the trustee, was the buyer according to public records.

While Landsness could not comment on the sale, he said his clients had been looking for “the right property” for years and found it after the price dropped. 

“It didn’t even make sense to tour it until the price came down,” he said. 

This is actually the second time that Landsness has represented the buyer of a former Williams estate. He, along with fellow Engel and Volkers’ agent Will Densberger, represented the French winemaking Tesserson family when they bought Williams’ Napa estate Villa Sorriso, also for $18.1 million, in 2016. 

“Completely different buyers, same seller, same price, years apart,” he said, adding that in both cases the buyers “respected the memory of Robin Williams, who is an icon in the Bay Area.”

Williams and Garces Williams, his second wife — a producer on the 1993 hit film set in San Francisco, “Mrs. Doubtfire” — bought the Sea Cliff home for $3.2 million in 1991, according to public records. The couple divorced in 2010 and Garces Williams was granted the house. After Williams’ death in 2014, his three children—two of whom he had with Garces Williams—inherited the Villa Sorriso property.

The home features a secret bar behind a wall in the media room, hidden passageways between the children’s bedrooms and metal iguana and turtle sculptures that appear to be climbing the sides of the oceanfront villa.

The location was a huge selling point, Mavromihalis said, with “some of the highest profile and best known tech entrepreneurs” living in the area, which is walking distance to retail and restaurants, China and Baker beaches, Land’s End, and “the best public golf courses in the country.” 

“Often people who buy my listings in Sea Cliff already live there,” he said. “They can afford to live anywhere they want and they choose it because they know their neighbors, and their kids go to school together.”

The Sea Cliff home was the second-largest contract in the neighborhood in 2024. Venture capitalist George Sarlo sold his Seacliff home for its $26 million asking price in July, with the proceeds going to his family foundation. 

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