625 Duncan

Having been purchased by a young tech couple for a record setting $7 million nine months ago, and after which the couple quietly acquired the adjacent parcel to the west upon which they were planning to build an underground addition and private urban playground for their modern Noe Valley lair, the 6,000-square-foot home at 625 Duncan Street has just hit the market listed for $6.5 million.

As we first reported about the couple’s proposed project last year, “the west side of the existing home at 625 Duncan will be redesigned, opening it up to the landscaped lot to create a massive Noe Valley estate, the total cost for which should easily total eight figures.”

Noted in the listing today (which doesn’t include the adjacent undeveloped parcel at 645 Duncan upon which a 5,000 square-foot-home is approved to rise if the couple’s plans are scrapped), the house was recently “stripped out in some areas to allow for alterations.”

30 thoughts on “Record-Setting Noe Valley Home Suddenly Back On The Market”
    1. Agreed. The psychic trauma of having to live in such an obnoxious uber look-at-me structure took its toll. (I’m not in a bad mood,just observing).

      1. Unless one is Megatron?

        It looks like it is about to disassemble itself and walk down the street firing laser canons?

  1. So, does the current listing include the adjacent parcel? They bought for $7M and listed for $6.5M? Why not try for $7M? There must be an interesting story behind this. Anyone know?

    [Editor’s Note: As we reported above, the listing “doesn’t include the adjacent undeveloped parcel at 645 Duncan upon which a 5,000 square-foot-home has been approved to rise.”]

  2. Probably a sad story here – divorce, family tragedy, financial mess etc. I hope not, but it seems likely.

    1. My thought too – renovations themselves are notorious for their impact on relationship, so the very purchase and expansion plan itself might have led to this situation.

      Agreed that it’s *really* odd that they’d list below their purchase price.

  3. they bought for 7M and then began a remodel. the place is gutted, to the studs in spots. word has it that the family accepted a job offer east.

      1. why would a contractor not do the job? it looked to me as if the contractors are in place as is the structural engineer, et al. the plans to finish the job are there on site. clearly you have a bone to pick. but why make things up?

  4. Maybe the new buyers will actually behave like neighbors and embrace the community. These secretive, self-important paranoid wannabees acted like they were only billionaires on the block. Good riddance.

    1. I never understood why people want to hide away in a fortress and live in the city in a neighborhood that has a community/village vibe. Why not build a similar fortress in Menlo and put a gate around it? Just seems weird in Noe Valley when they crazy homes get dropped down as if they were UFOs from space that landed by mistake … smh.

      1. I don’t get what you mean by fortress. Sure it’s contemporary in design, but there are a ton of windows facing the street, it’s got an open stairway and glass front door. That’s a steep block of Duncan and the three houses on the other side are just garage doors. This house is big, but it’s not hiding away the occupants.

    2. Oh, I don’t know – nothing wrong with wanting privacy. And there are plenty of reasons to live in a city besides embracing your neighbors and being part of a community. I personally prefer to know my neighbors, but take no issue if they want to keep to themselves.

      1. What soured us on these buyers is that they had their “personal assistant” lie to our face about their identity. This personal assistant claimed she “only knew their first names,” only to find out later that this “personal assistant” was the mother of one of the owners.

        1. Ok. So…they wanted privacy. Is that story a little weird? Sure. But it is their right to keep to themselves if they want to.

  5. If I could afford a $7 million dollar home, I would also value my privacy and protect it regardless of the other billionaires on the block.

    There are so many jealous people who troll these pages and look to gossip. It’s no wonder they didn’t want to get to know you or have you know their identity.

  6. I understand what Pioneer is saying…

    Recently a great old historical Victorian (was once the home of the owner of Spring Valley Water, aka SF Water Dept. later on) was bought by a couple and they had extensive tree pruning done on their very large lot @ Market & 18th St. I needed to have 5 trees pruned in front of my house and liked what their tree people did so one day I walked across the street to ask who did their work. I entered a gate and walked up to the door and rang the bell, no answer. So I walked away, but before I left a woman came running out of a cottage in back in a mild panic asking me what I wanted and how I got in, as I was explaining the owners appeared and the anxious woman and them had a nervous conversation about the breach of someone coming into their yard and attributing the blame of the unlocked gate to workers who had been by earlier. They never answered my question re: tree trimmers, and were in a mild panic about a security breach (Heavens! a neighbor who lived across the street for 30 years had come in their yard!)…And they bought a property on a near boulevard, Upper Market. Really weird and distasteful people…miss all the old neighbors in this once friendly community.

    The more times a house flips and becomes more expensive, the more the new buyers become guarded and unfriendly. (And no, i am not a green eyed orange hair alien, just your average middle aged short white guy)

    1. Definitely not neighborly! Look, I agree – it is weird. But if someone wants to be left alone, I understand that as well. I think a lot of people who have money – especially those who are new to having money – are a bit uncomfortable with the attention that sometimes comes from owning an expensive house/car/whatever it may be. It can turn otherwise friendly, normal people into someone different. Just a thought.

  7. There are many reasons people with money are nervous. Jim Hormel, the world’s nicest most ordinary guy, will tell you that growing up in the 1930s in the aftermath of the Lindbergh kidnapping, he was never out of sight of a bodyguard until he was in college. Through my work I come into contact with many people of wealth, some long time wealth and some newly rich. Few of them have their address on their checks; none of them are anxious to have their address published; most of them receive mail at a business address elsewhere not at their residence. There are a number of high profile people in, for instance Pacific Heights, where a guard is sitting in a car on the street 24/7. This is unfortunate, and does not seem to me like a fun way to live. However, as the blogosphere now exposes names, addresses, and real estate sales prices, making it easy for friend and foe to locate the very wealthy, it is not surprising some find this difficult to handle.

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