Spectacular Pac Heights Queen Anne sells for $7 million

When 1701 Franklin Street—a gorgeous Queen Anne Victorian dating to 1895 and recorded in the annals of San Francisco history as the Edward Coleman house (named for the Grass Valley mining magnate who commissioned it)—listed in mid-January for a few dollars less than $7 million, it seemed like a steal.

True, by any objective measure that’s an astounding sum of money. And yet, for an 11-bed, five-and-a-half-bath, 7,125-square-foot Victorian masterpiece like this it comes off as an unambitious sum, even without factoring in the premium of being located in the middle of Pacific Heights.

But on Tuesday, 1701 Franklin departed the market for almost precisely it’s asking price, selling for $7 million even, no fuss, no muss. Apparently all of the well-preserved W.H. Lille architecture in the world wasn’t enough to prompt a bidding war.

The home even comes with an entirely separate lot next door. Maybe the old queen’s historic status—and the difficulty of making any significant changes to the property that comes with it—was a factor in deciding the final price.

Or maybe this really is the ceiling for how much deep-pocketed buyers want to spend on a house like this, preferring to reserve their $8 million-plus checks for new construction. Realtor Robert Callan tells Curbed SF the last time this place sold was in 2000 for $3 million, the equivalent of $4.4 million today.

In any case, the old Victorian is still a work of art fit to be framed; here’s hoping the new buyer continues to keep it in fine form.

• Gorgeous Pac Heights Queen Anne [Curbed SF]
• Pacific Heights [Curbed SF]