Saitowitz Tendernob condo asks $1.19 million

Completed in 2014, 1080 Sutter is local designer Stanley Saitowitz’s big contribution to the Tendernob. It’s also his grand, 11-story tribute to San Francisco architecture of yore, if you can see the resemblance peeking through this clearly contemporary structure.

A two-bed, two-bath, tenth-story condo in the building (dubbed simply Blanc) listed this week for more than $1.19 million, an appreciable appreciation from its first and only previous sale in 2014 for $966,000.

Inside you’re looking at pure, contemporary condo interiors, to the point that the Tenderloin landscape out the windows is a bit startling—you were probably expecting South Beach instead.

Saitowitz, who turns 68 this year, originally hails from South Africa. He’s a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley on top of his gig as design principal at SF-based Natoma Architects.

SFMOMA, which houses many of Saitowitz’s original sketches, notes that his designs since coming to the Bay Area in the ’70s “pushed the boundaries of what is architecturally possible in [...] a city most widely known for its faithfulness to Victorian styles.”

And yet, he often turns in unique, deconstructed takes on Victorian architecture. Critic Alexander Gorlin called his Yerba Buena Lofts “the new Victorian House” in 2004, for example.

While some might presume Saitowitz’s Tendernob Blanc to resemble a big, gleaming white monolith studded with windows, it’s more complicated upon closer inspection. The use of white brick instead of a more modern material, according to Saitowitz, was used to “complement the lacy ornament of the neighboring context.”

“The crisp, edged gridded frame [continues] the dimensions, mass, detail, and color of the surrounding buildings,” Saitowitz adds, characterizing Blanc as a “respectful neighbor, even if the newest on the block.”

You can see a bit more of the “Manhattan-style” interiors here. Open houses are set for the weekend.

• 1080 Sutter Street [Redfin]
• Saitowitz [UC Berkeley]
• Saitowitz Bio [SFMOMA]
• Saitowitz Works [SFMOMA]
• Yerba Buena Lofts [Natoma]
• Blanc [Natoma]