San Francisco’s most and least expensive homes this week

Presidio Heights goes from dog to dollars, while Diamond Heights prefers to keep in the rough

By Adam Brinklow Nov 17, 2017, 11:45am PST

A lot can happen in a week on San Francisco’s molten-hot housing market. To keep caught up, every Friday Curbed SF examines the High & the Low, a look at the single most and least expensive publicly listed homes sold in San Francisco over the last seven days. This is who broke the ceiling and who laid the foundation this week:

When the seven-bed, five-and-a-half bath, roughly 5,000-square-foot mastodon mansion at 3840 Clay in Presidio Heights came onto the market in October, Curbed SF noted the “reemergence of wallpaper” in a modern remodel, noting the appeal of the “floral print [...] to animalic vibes.”

Others agreed, as Decor magazine praised this place’s print palette as well, talking up the “emerald green” and “golden floral” de Gournay, even putting the headline “Color Rhapsody” on the write-up.

Prior to a 2008 overhaul, 3840 Clay “was the dog of the neighborhood,” according to architect Robert Stiles. “Even though someone lived here it looked abandoned.”

Looking back, the Edwardian exterior was not quite so derelict as Stiles recalls, but time had definitely put a hurting on the place. In 2007, right after its $4 million sale in its former state, SocketSite noted:

In 1999 the architect opened up most of the walls and ceilings and put them back in a very temporary fashion—think no taping, plastering or painting anywhere. Indeed, there isn’t even a kitchen, the back fence is propped up by a drainpipe and the garden currently sports a derelict car collection.

Yikes.

The former owners, Anne and Mason Morfit, hoped to translate all of that wallpaper into paper of a different grade, asking $9.9 million in September.

That asking price came down $1 million one month later, and this week it wrapped up a sale for even a little bit less, closing at $8.85 million.

On the other end of the sale scale, sometimes value in San Francisco is more than meets the eye. In the case of Diamond Heights Village at 95 Red Rock Way, what we here is one of Diamond Heights’ ordinary-appearing buildings, at least from the curb.

Studio #110M listed for $420,000 four weeks ago, and that price is pretty enough all on its own.

De Gournay is all well and good, but the bottom line is a roof overhead. And in this case, the apartment seems handsome enough once through the doors. Although not nearly as attractive as the going price last time is traded hands in 1989 for the sum of $75,000.

Granted, that’s more than $152,000 after inflation, but even so that means this Red Rock redoubt has nearly tripled its money after a $445,000 sale this week.