Steel-frame Half Moon Bay house asks $2.55 million

The contemporary angles of the five bed, four bath house at 324 Kelly Avenue in Half Moon Bay hide a secret: Beneath the sleek, ultra-modern facade of this newly constructed house potential buyers will find a skeleton of gleaming steel.

Indeed, this place looks very similar to the steel-framed home of Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson, which is not a coincidence, since it uses the same modular steel technology from Canadian prefab home company BONE, although this one is not itself a prefab assembly.

“The only pre-fabricated item of the house is the structural steel, which was installed piece by piece on site,” Guille Castaneda, owner of Silicon Valley-based design firm NOMOS RED, said in an emailed statement to Curbed SF. “It took us 18 months to custom build.”

The result is what realtor Virginia Supnet calls a “European minimalist” aesthetic, complete with concrete floors and “entire walls of glass” to “enhance the minimalist aspect.”

NOMOS RED meanwhile boasts that the Kelly Avenue house will “introduce a new design and construction style” that will revamp Bay Area home design. A tall order for one house, but there’s no penalty for grand ambition.

Although the American predilection for wood-framed homes makes the idea of living swaddled in steel sound a bit intimidating, the ad for 324 Kelly proposes that the metallic frame will stand up better to the climate in its locale a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean.

But of course, this pretty chunk of metal will cost a pretty chunk of chance: The asking price is $2.55 million.

• 324 Kelly Avenue [Virginia Supnet]
• Stanford Professor’s Steel Home [Curbed SF]
• NOMOS RED