As Curbed notes, the 39 condos of Chelsea Park (which claim a “charming English sensibility with today’s most contemporary building practices” and the obligatory “green features throughout”) should soon hit the market in December at 19th and Oakwood (a block from Dolores Park). From the Chelsea Park website:
Nestled in one of San Francisco’s most desirable and warmest neighborhoods, the dream homes of Chelsea Park provide the ultimate San Francisco living experience. Reminiscent of an English Mews style development with a nod to John Nash’s Regency Terrace Architecture, Chelsea Park delivers it all, including beautifully landscaped gardens; designed for privacy while still able to create an intimate feeling of community within this unique setting.
Floor plans, site drawings (for both the development and gardens), and a basic overview are all available online. And yes, we’ll drop our London Girl a line.
UPDATE: Expect the sales office to open in early December with overall pricing ranging from around $650,000 (for a phase II one bedroom) to $1,250,000 (for one of the larger townhomes). And if everything goes as planned, expect closings and move-ins for phase I (along Oakwood) starting at the end of December and for Phase II (along 19th Street) starting in mid-February.
∙ Chelsea Park San Francisco [chelseaparksf.com]
∙ Longer Lines For 18th St. Foodies? Chelsea Park Move-In Pending [Curbed]
∙ London Calling: A San Francisco To London Neighborhood Comparison [SocketSite]
killer location although i have no idea what a “charming English sensibility” means. toast makers on all the ranges? it will be interesting to where they price these and how exactly they will be laid out and finished.
[Editor’s Note: Expect pricing from the $650’s for the smallest one-bedroom to $1.25M for the largest townhome.]
I want to like this place and check it out, but
after studying the Site Plan, to get to the “mews like” setting with “charming English sensibility”, do you have to walk through the “Santa Monica” style parking garage on 19th, or can you also use the “traditional San Francisco side access to the trash cans” off Oakwood?
I have looked at or visited a lot of really charming rear lot buildings in SF over the years, but often the access to them sucks. So much so, you would be embarassed to have friends over. Literally damp, dark, (well, one IKEA fixture is better than cursing the darkness) past the trash bins, kitty litter boxes, and broken moped down the side tunnel previously only known to the trash and ice men when the building was first built.
It’s been donkey’s years since I’ve heard anyone use the word ‘mews’. Definitely reminiscent of the old country. Of course, it remains to be seen what exactly will be ‘English’ about this development.
Why London? This is something I would expect to see in suburban Atlanta. Why could they not try to play off our own local history and context? So is the point now that I am moving to San Francisco so I can live in a stucco box that “feels” like London? Bizarre.
There are a couple of ideas buried in the reference to London. English gardens, rows of trees, traditional architectural elements, density with a human scale. People live in San Francisco because of the many delightful options for living. Surely Victorians and Edwardians have some level of British design and sophistication to them, even if they have been reinterpreted locally. Having some at grade elements to some of the units helps bring things down to the pedestrian level. The suburban Atlanta reference seems off, especially with the attention to the street level interface.
looking at those floor plans on their website – I can tell you that many of those “bedrooms” in the 2- and 3-bd units are NOT bedrooms — certainly not legally anyway. Legally, according to the building and housing code, a bedroom must have a window that opens to the outside. Some of those “bedrooms” look like they have no windows and open only onto an internal corridor. They may have gotten it past the Building Dept by calling those rooms “dens” or “offices” or something like that, but woe to person who lives in a windowless “bedroom.”
Regarding the bedrooms that seem a little close for comfort: I agree and I feel the same is true of 1 South Park.
The new paradigm seems to be that you will be so tired from working to make payments on a one million dollar totally conventional mortgage that you will sleep through the noise of people in the common areas 5 feet from your bed.
Nothing like the sight of dreadlocks to scare the hell out of any sane potential homebuyer!
I think this is another positive piece of infill development, while some conponents are small in different parts. Look around what do you expect in the middle of the city?
If I’m not mistaken, a mews in Britain is actually what we would call an alley, originally housing stables and servants quarters. They are often a delightful contrast to the main streets of impressive Georgian and Victorian blocks, full of interesting adaptive reuse, color, tiny gardens, and a wonderful pedestrian scale.
While I really like this development (at least in plan), it annoys me as it does others that they’ve tried to go all British on us by naming the unit types “kensington” etc and using the term Mews for the development. Because unlike a real Mews, I as a city resident can’t walk through there. It just seems like a very odd marketing driven approach for what is a very interesting development on its own, without some fake veneer of Britishness.
I agree with others that the “English mews” thing is cheesy and somewhat insulting. I am considering spending $1.3 million in a nice neighborhood in a world class city. I’m not looking for some theme park experience. I’ve never been to Atlanta, but it does seem like a suburban marketing tactic.
Another potential problem spot is the width of the path between the townhome rows. Are my front windows going to be looking directly into the front windows of my neighbor accross the mew?
That said, my curiosity is piqued.
“It just seems like a very odd marketing driven approach for what is a very interesting development on its own, without some fake veneer of Britishness.”
I guess it makes a change from the fake veneer of Italianness that afflicts so many tract developments!
Great location? Kind of–but also a bit gritty at those prices for what look like really small apartments, wouldn’t you say?
I live in a building that looks directly onto this development. The two condo buildings have just enough parking spots for their own tenants. This means that the 12 townhomes on the “mews” have no parking, and as the first commenter noted, it seems they’ll have to walk through one or the other condo building to get to their places. Not very convenient indeed.
And as someone who has to park on the street, I’m not too happy that twelve townhomes’ worth of cars will now also be looking for parking in a neighborhood that already has too little parking.
London sucks ass. Why would I want to live there?