When Tyler Mitchell moved to San Francisco to take over upscale clothier Wilkes Bashford, he was tired of cramming himself into standard-sized lofts.
“I dreamed of a loft with more space,” Mitchell told Curbed SF. “I didn’t even really think there were lofts in San Francisco at all. One day my friend sent me the link to this one as a joke.”
At the time (2012) Mitchell rented in Cow Hollow. He showed up to tour 9 Bernice Street more out of curiosity than anything else. He ended up buying it for just over $3 million. The ultimate impulse purchase.
He wanted a bigger loft, and he certainly got it: The city lists 9 Bernice as a handy 5,555 square feet, but its new, $7.95 million listing bumps it all the way up to 7,000. (City records do tend to be spotty about that kind of thing.)
It sits in a mostly anonymous looking building just a few blocks from the DNA Lounge and the Rainbow grocery on Folsom. Not where you’d normally expect to find multi-million homes of mammoth proportions.
“It’s a little like coming into a speakeasy” getting home, Mitchell admits. Almost as if you’re sneaking in through an unassuming front.
(The vault door hiding the elevator is a particularly nice touch in that regard.)
Mitchell says all the room is indeed part of what attracted him. “We would have parties for 200 or 300 people, or seat 30 for dinner with no problem.” As you do.
It’s so big, in fact, that at one point he was able to add a movie theater on the fly, converting one of the mezzanine spaces previously unused. The rear wall is now coated with paint specially calibrated for HD projection.
So why move out of presumably the only vault-sized SoMa loft with 17-foot ceilings, multiple overlooks, and stylish black interiors that you’re ever going to find?
“We just had a baby,” Mitchell says. “And we got a puppy. It’s a little too urban for us now, and we don’t really need all that space.”
We can only imagine what kind of buyer lines up for a home like this. Because what kind of buyer even thinks to go looking for it in the first place?
- Bernice Street Penthouse [Gregg Lynn]
Loading comments...