Bernard Maybeck home sells for $11 million

Landmark house listed for $16 million last year

By Adam Brinklow Jan 2, 2018, 8:34am PST

History has turned another page and 2017 is now receding into the past, but the year didn’t slip away without at least one landmark San Francisco moment.

Said landmark in this case being the Roos House, a spectacular red and black Presidio Heights Tudor house, located at 3500 Jackson, designed by Palace of Fine Arts architect Bernard Maybeck. It also made our top 25 list of 2017.

The tremendous and tremendously well-preserved 1909 home listed in July of 2017 for $16 million, an ambitious but seemingly not unrealistic figure given the seven bed, six and a half bath, 10,300-plus foot manse’s gorgeous design and long historical pedigree.

But ambition fell a bit short in the end. By October several million dollars had already tumbled off the asking price. The lower, $13.5 million asking price didn’t prove sufficiently enticing for the money set either, and in the end the lauded landmark closed a deal for a comparably more muted $11 million last Friday.

Of course, markdowns aside, $11 million is still $11 million, and presumably a landmark payday for former owner Dr. Jane Schaefer Roos, who inherited the home from her in-laws four decades ago. This is the first time the Roos House has left the purview of the Roos family.

Despite age and some earthquake damage in 1989, the house’s 2008 application to the National Register of Historic Places (which officially added the Roos House to the rolls the following year) testifies that little has changed about the home in more than a century:

Since its construction, the property has undergone very few alterations, all of which were designed by the original architect, Bernard Maybeck.

Alterations occurred in 1913, when a balcony on the first story at the rear of the house was enclosed to become the sitting room off the living room alcove. A garage, constructed in 1916, was later demolished in 1982 and rebuilt in the same style and materials as the house.

A dressing room was added to the second floor in 1919. In 1926, the “Morning Room” was added onto the second story at the rear of the house. In 1926, the “Morning Room” was added onto the second story at the rear of the house.

Make a note: Authenticity is still among the many things $11 million buys in San Francisco these days.