As evidenced by 20 of the 50 listing photos, 1023 Vallejo’s got views. And based on the other 30, its insides can compare.
Designed by Julia Morgan for a Mrs. Livermore in 1917, renovated by Hal Riney in 2005.
∙ Listing: 1023 Vallejo Street (4/5) – $4,900,000 [Virtual Tour] [MLS]
Dated finishes aside, this is a good demonstration of the differences between a “home” and a “house”.
A+ location and the decks add a lot of useable room, but nearly $2000 psft?
My favorite location in SF… I would almost kill to be able to afford this place!
Again, please stop with the Truman Show music. Please. And what is with the over exposed pictures? Did someone get a new DSLR? My goodness. Please tone the whole thing down a notch.
What’s odd is that they had a really nice placeholder website they they decided not to use in favor of the horrible obeo website. Check out: http://www.1023vallejo.com/ for a much nicer presentation, including a better d/l of the floorplans that reveal this as a very small home with small spaces. Perhaps the real value here is the 4 car parking that is a significant premium in that part of town. I think the price is a stretch but you gotta love those VUS!
They probably did not use the other website because they called SF landmarks “notorious” when they meant notable, and because the cloyingly misused the phrase “en suite”.
This is a great neighborhood, but the period houses have always been full of low ceilings, small rooms, and other stigmata of the early Maybeck, Morgan period.
There was a time when the townhouses on Russian Hill Place were $350,000.
I think it’s just great. I don’t think it’s too small or too dated and if I were in that price range (I’m not!) I’d definitely want it.
Yes, it seems like a lot PSF, but it’s beautiful and personally I think it’s just the right size for today’s smaller families.
Yeah, the photographer used the classic technique of grafting in a different exposure into the windows. Usually it looks natural, but here it just looks weird. (Hint – don’t use this technique with midday sun. Try dawn or dusk exterior conditions)
Speaking of dusk and exposures, the photographer also went to 11 on the HDR processing of those dusk view shots. Too much of a good thing is … too much.
Is it just me or does that eat-in kitchen look cramped ? And where’s Ex-SFer with his work triangle analysis ?
Yeah, right, that’s an eat in kitchen! I can just hear these fond memories being made there…
“Now that we’re all sitting down at the kitchen table, mom, can you duck while I open the refrigerator door! And dad! I realize that you are sitting at the head of the table, but lean forward or your hair will catch on fire from the stove faster than Michael Jackson’s hair at a Pepsi commercial.”
ROFL.
I hadn’t had time to see it yet due to there being so many pictures.
To oblige:
this work trianlge is terrible. (smile)
actually, although I very much dislike this work triangle, it is nowhere near as bad as other recent examples, and is workable. The table is the bigger problem.
The Fridge is angled in an odd way relative to the stove and sink, and the sink is down that galley… BUT the actual fridge to sink to stove triangle might not be that bad depending on distance (I can’t tell the distance due to the photography).
it remains to be seen if that table is a help or in the way. My guess is that it’s fine so long as nobody sits at the kitchen table.
which defeats the idea of an “eat in” kitchen. which defeats the idea of having a table in there.
This is basically a relatively small galley kitchen with a pseudo-eat in/fridge area attached to it. somewhat surprising for a $5M home. I feel that this space could have been done much better.
but there are MUCH worse triangles around!
I think I’d probably want to knock out the wall between the kitchen and the so-called living room cave, which is the worst room in the house.
It looks like the master was probably the living room at one point, with the kitchen downstairs?
I still want this house. Our kitchen isn’t any better than this one, and the kids do have to duck out of the way if I want to get a glass out of the cupboard when we’re eating.
You’re going to knock out a wall in a Julia Morgan Home?!
Hmmm…. I have this original Picasso painting, and I think it would look better if I repainted this…red….thingy over here to more of a brown. Ahhh, that looks much better.
My painting looks much better for “today’s smaller families”.
tipster, I get what you’re saying but I highly doubt this is the original floor plan.
Houses didn’t have that many bathrooms back then, for one thing.
Just spectacular. World class.
Very warm and cozy. Two thumbs up! Love the kitchen! A bit dated but not in a bad way.
I worked on this and remember fighting tooth and nail just to get Hal to agree to refinish the redwood interior. If you ever met Hal, you’ll understand. This is the second Riney residence for sale in the last few months – I wonder which will be next.
The description was fine except for the odd decision to use abbreviations for just “home” and “room.”
If you read it with the rm’s and hm’s, it sounds like the realtor is Inspector Clouseau.
Julia Morgan was a competent but not exceptional architect. All that wood needs a good coat of white paint. Except for the pleasant shingled exterior and obvious views, I don’t see what the big deal about this is.
Bizarre floor plan! This can’t be the original. It’s all corridors and stairs. The elevator, which doesn’t even go to the second and third floors, eats up a huge amount of space it you factor in the access to it. Not sensible in a house with limited square footage to begin with.
My guess is that the “Master En-Suite” was the original living room. The Master Bath and Elevator (with hallway access) were a single room (a library or sitting room). The “Formal Living Room” was the dining room and the “Home Office” was staff quarters.
It’s still charming in its way, but I would have liked it in its original configuration soooo much better.
off-topic:
Anyone know what that telescope-on-tripod is in the master “en-suite”?
Looks like something from restoration hardware?
^^It’s a telescope on a tripod.
well, there seems to be NO closet space in the Master… that being said;
Please Dear (insert name of higher power here)
let me win the lottery….
~Curious – It may be a sextant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextant
What a horrible website.
Oooooh, Barbra Callan. It figures.
somewhat surprising for a $5M home
~$1M for the house. $4M for the site. Right at the end of Vallejo street. I’d rather have a E/SE/S view than a N view from there anyway, as the poster above said that’s my favorite location in the city, close to my favorite house.
The thing on the tripod in the master…..
Haha… the listing allows you to zoom in on the photos…. and it doesn’t look like a telescope. It looks like a pair of binoculars on a tripod. Maybe a sextant is part of the contraption if they want to focus on stars. I suppose they have the magazine “People” next to it so they can focus on other, less heavenly, stars that may pass by.
It’s a pleasant place with a nice little garden, but too expensive. Why can’t these realtors have prices a little more down to earth? I mean if it’s worth $5 mill, then that’s another story. But I don’t think it is.
But I don’t think it is.
How many sites on Russian Hill have such a great view of downtown? Note that it is on the edge of that little parkway-stairway that winds up the east face of Russian Hill, a very unique and tranquil homesite.
As mentioned above this is a world-class property, and while $5M may not be a bargain I can only kick myself for not structuring my life to be able to afford this now since this is the most-awesome pad I’ve seen on ss to date.
For 5 big I could eventually find an equally- attractive palace in the Berkeley Hills no doubt, but the SE verge of Russian Hill is some pretty rarified real estate in this city. Some AAPL or GOOG workerbee will snap this up soon enough.
I tend to avoid “me too” comments, because I don’t see the point, but in this case I will make an exception.
I think this is the best property I have ever seen on SocketSite, if I could afford it, I would buy it.
^^^”Julia Morgan was a competent but not exceptional architect.” (posted yesterday)
Is this a joke!? One must remember that when she designed this house it was not a home for the rich, but rather a very modest residence. If you want to see how versatile her body of work is, google Hearst Castle , Asilomar, Wynton Estate, and the Chapel of the Chimes, and the list goes on as she created over 700 buildings in her lifetime.
She not only designed her projects, but in some cases supervised their construction as well, and was also a licensed engineer who created very clever solutions that have allowed her structures to withstand numerous earthquakes.
Clearly a lot of commenters above don’t know good architecture when they see it….this is one of SF’s greatest homes. And Julia Morgans are rare on Russian Hill.
OK, my ears are bleeding from that horrible piano rendition. It sounds like an 8-year-old playing a sophisticated version of chopsticks.
The listing for 1023 Vallejo has been withdrawn from the MLS without a sale.
It’s baack …
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/1023-Vallejo-St-94133/home/1373903