Metallica guitarist knocks $3M off Sea Cliff mansion

Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett’s sprawling four-bed, four-and-a-half-bath hideout at 308 Sea Cliff, listed again last week, this time asking $13 million for the circa 1922 abode. It last sold for a frantic $5.7 million in 2005. (About $7.3 million after inflation.)

That’s quite an appreciation in 12 years but, sad but true, it’s also $3 million less than the beyond magnetic property asked a year ago after a sequence of price cuts. Still, when you have at least even odds on an eight-figure home sale in the near future probably nothing else matters.

Note that this place isn’t to be confused with neighboring 320 Sea Cliff, also owned by Hammett, which asked $16 million last year. That home was also subjected to several price cuts over the last 12 months.

Yes, such is the eight-time Grammy winner’s success that his pied-a-tierre from his Sea Cliff mansion is yet another Sea Cliff mansion on the same block, possibly resulting in whiplash for anyone trying to keep the two properties straight.

Note that the name on the deed for that 2005 buy was not Hammett himself but rather longtime Metallica lawyer Howard E. King, who comes up in headlines almost as often as the band does in their various litigations seeking justice for all.

Whereas some of Hammett’s voluminous collection of horror memorabilia still appears in the staging for the house next door, 308 Sea Cliff features a much more subdued look, although a few trademark touches of Hammett’s blackened tastes—including a reproduction of Edvard Munch’s Madonna—pop up now and then.

Admire the View.

• 308 Sea Cliff [Pac Union]
• Bonkers Sea Cliff Mansion [Curbed SF]
• Guitarist’s Sea Cliff Mansion [Curbed SF]