2140 Jefferson

Speaking of big homes that private equity “bought,” according to a plugged-in tipster 2140 Jefferson was home to Peter Thiel of PayPal and Clarium Capital notoriety. The twist, he was but a lowly renter of the $8,180,000 (asking) 7,000 square foot Marina home.

46 thoughts on “2140 Jefferson: Apparently “Lease To Own” Wasn’t An Option For Thiel”
  1. Beautiful home. I love the location as well, although I’d hesitate to call it “on the shores of the Palace of Fine Arts lagoon”.
    Unfortunately there aren’t good kitchen pictures, however this might be the first luxury home in a long time to have a functional kitchen work triangle (assuming the fridge is to the right and not on the other side of some island).
    anybody know: are those drapery panels hung in the “penthouse” and if so, what’s above it? just a ceiling, or are there skylights or something?
    beautiful house.

  2. I looked at buying it years ago. It’s huge and sprawling. As I recall, it’s two houses that they joined, so it just seems to go on forever. 4 people could be in the place at the same time and would never know the others were there.
    It’s real pretty inside, but parts of it feel like a McMansion, sort of fakey and new. It also is not on a real street, because Jefferson ends one block before. As I recall, entrance is via the Palace of fine arts parking lot, then you walk along an overgrown edge of the PAFA park to get to it, which seemed a little odd, and a good place for a mugger.
    I don’t recall the panels being there (or I never reached that part – it’s Ginormous) so I can’t say what’s above them.
    $1150 psft seems excessive, but it’s certainly a one of a kind property, right on the edge of the Palace park so who knows.

  3. I walk by this home all the time on my way to Crissy Field, and I’ll echo Tipster’s comment about the entrance – it’s almost like an alley, right off the entrance to the Exploratorium. Although I’d be stunned to hear about a mugging in this neck of the woods.

  4. This home was previously marketed at $9M. See name link.
    I had a semi-private showing of this home last week and I must say that I was very disappointed. Didn’t even bother to send it as a tip to the editor. The view of the home in this pic is great but the lawn is not part of the property and is very public. This home has virtually no outside space other than the penthouse roof deck, which is clearly the highlight of the home. The home is wide, but not deep so the rooms are not ‘grand’. I don’t know the lot dimensions but it could be 300×25. Not a good proportion and makes the rooms very choppy.
    The drapes in the pent room are actually perforated metal that gives the room an interesting dimension but also feels a little tacky and further reduces what feels like only 8ft ceilings. Everything about the home felt a bit awkward to me. There is clearly a buyer for this type of home and I’m sure one will emerge over time, but I highly doubt that this home will sell for over $7M and even that price feels high to me.

  5. @OneEyedMan. Thanks for the info.
    Shocking. Why is it that the rich folks are almost always “Conservatives” / Liberal h8ting Republicans ?? Is it that Tax thing that Bush gave them, that is being taken away by Obama in 2010 that is upsetting them sooo much ?
    I cancelled my Paypal account just now.

  6. Uh—About two years ago–Theil pretty famously said he was selling all his real estate to rent.
    As opposed to all the nutjobs on this website that were talking about how prices would go up forever….

  7. The drapes in the pent room are actually perforated metal
    If the buyer’s got $8M to throw down I think they’ll be able to afford new interior decorating here & there.
    Why is it that the rich folks are almost always “Conservatives”
    To ask the question is to answer it. Not that the premise is true, but if you’re a self-made man, you’re living proof that low-government big-bootstrap capitalism works. And if you’ve got inherited money, then you can be a self-centered SOB by birthright.

  8. but if you’re a self-made man, you’re living proof that low-government big-bootstrap capitalism works.
    Not really. Depending on when you made your riches, you’re likely to be living proof that the considerably higher tax rates that were prevalent in previous decades do not seriously dampen innovation, ambition, or the creation of wealth. Everyone in the top tax bracket didn’t quit his job and become a garbageman when the rate was 50-70% (and well into the 90s previously).

  9. @ Troy – Yes, except for that public school education, the federally subsidized loans that paid for my multiple degrees, I would be totally self made. . .

  10. Well, I thought he had something at the Four Seasons residences, but cannot confirm. I do know that most of his Clarium Capital operations were moving to NYC. Perhaps he has merely downsized his SF footprint in order to spend more time on the East Coast.

  11. OK, it’s 3pm and this is the 3rd time I’ve checked SS since early this morning and this is STILL the only (old/non)story? Must be a slooow news day….
    [Editor’s Note: Slow week actually, but we’ve got high hopes for the next. Reagardless, thank you for plugging in thrice.]

  12. EBAY stock down nearly 1% on the news that a paypal account has been cancelled!!!
    Hope you plan on cancelling your Facebook account too. PT is the primary funding source there and sits on their board, but has long abandon association with Ebay/Paypal, so your cancellation is irrelevant.
    We’ll try not to let George Soros know that all rich folks are conservatives… it goes both ways.

  13. Everyone in the top tax bracket didn’t quit his job and become a garbageman when the rate was 50-70% (and well into the 90s previously).
    Since this is a slow week, I’ll continue. . .
    I’m a left-libertarian so I see both viewpoints. I believe in a awesome access to everything that is required to become and remain a productive member of society (whithout regard of ability to pay), and I also believe to screw something up requires a government.
    Charitably (pun NOT intended), a conservative rich person would like to determine how much to give and to whom via what means, instead of having it forcibly taken from him at gunpoint.
    I’m more a Euro-socialist in that I don’t think private charity can match the effectiveness of well-run public efforts, but, alas, well-run government is a tough thing to achieve. Plus, to go sorta on topic I also believe that all taxes come out of rents (and land values), so all low taxes do in the end is jack up land values. cf. Henry George, 19th century he-man of SF.

  14. I have a friend — who is also with a big asset management firm here in SF — who has been renting a huge house in Sea Cliff for about $12k/month for several years. People used to tell him he was crazy. Build equity, throwing away his money, you’re an idiot, etc. Whatever. He doesn’t hear that much these days. He lives in an enormous home and doesn’t have any equity at risk, among several other benefits. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not a metaphysical certainty that housing will rise in value.
    Most of Clarium’s operations have been relocated to NYC.

  15. i can’t believe he funded the acorn sting. what a douchebag! i hope he gets in trouble for the illegal wire tapping charges too.

  16. ^ Credit where credit is due eddy: you said it wouldn’t sell even for 7 (when it was listed for 8.2) and it didn’t. You’re almost always right on these things.

  17. Thanks. 6.5 seems like a fair price. I’m sure the buyer feels they got a good deal. I subsequently have learned more about the prior owner situation and its sort of a sad story. It might have gone for less had this buyer not emerged.

  18. “Can you understand why that might be difficult to believe?”
    The only thing that makes that difficult to believe is your erroneous assumption that all bears are penniless losers living in rent controlled apartments.

  19. I don’t assume that at all, Tipster. Hey. Wait a minute.
    No. Not where I’m coming from, there. I’m glad you have found a sense of solidarity tho, Diemos. I guess.

  20. Shouldn’t be difficult to believe at all. Loans of any amount were effortless to get.
    I was told by a mortgage broker that, with my credit score, income and assets, no one would turn me down for whatever amount I wanted. If I felt I could make the payments, they wouldn’t argue. If I wanted a home I could have it. The broker said there were probably only about 50 homes in the bay area that I couldn’t have.
    This one would have been well within the limits. But it was tacky and too large.

  21. So you say among a great deal of other things, very many only pet theories of yours. I feel as you’ve talked about having been potentially interested in properties before. This one seemed like a departure.

  22. since you brought it up tipster, let me ask you-if you can afford to buy why do you continue to rent? is it b/c you have such a great unit? a great rent?

  23. I would not want to spend that much money on something that sits on fill, personally. Even if I could afford it, which I cannot.

  24. [kid char],
    Just because I can afford to buy some stock that I feel is overvalued, I don’t buy it. If you walked into Macdonalds and the price of a hamburger was $50, you could afford to buy it, but would you really buy it? I wouldn’t and I didn’t get to where I am by spending money just because I could afford to.
    You can rent places every bit as nice as you can buy. If buying makes sense, I’d do it, but when buying made sense, I had other uses for the money (which paid way better than any real estate investment would have) or I wasn’t in a situation where I was going to stay long term. The requirement to pay a realtor $100,000 every time you need to make a change can force you to stay in some situations that are just wrong. I lost out on some good deals to be sure, but in the balance, I’ve made more (using the funds for other purposes) than I lost out on and I’ve lived in places every bit as nice as I could buy. So no regrets.

  25. I thought you lived at the Bridgeview and looked at condos to buy back when you were supposedly in the market. Now you’re telling us you were looking at 4M places. I’ll chalk this one up next to the hundreds of unproven untoward credits exchanged, if you don’t mind.

  26. “if you can afford to buy why do you continue to rent?”
    Boy, that is really a silly question. But it reflects a mindset that realtors both foster and prey on every day — that owning is always better than renting, no matter how high the added costs of owning vs. renting a similar place. The current crash really put the lie to that fallacy, but it is amazing that some people still seem to buy into it despite the lessons of the last two-plus years.

  27. You might have made the same point without the realtor bash. LOL. I challenge you to prove that the mindset has anything to do with realtors. It’s a mindset as American as apple piel. “Get your own piece of land.” Prey on — LOL.

  28. I’ve never stated that I lived at the bridgeview. And I accurately described this place in the eighth post of the thread. So I think you’re a little off, [anonn].

  29. Danger: sarcasm alert:
    Yes, anonn, one day I was in the area and just wandered up to this property, carefully noting the way to get to it and observing the foliage around the entrance. I turned the handle, and to my great surprise, the door was unlocked! I wandered in, noting the size of the rooms and the style in which they were decorated, and then carefully escaped before anyone noticed. The above is an entirely plausible explanation: my explanation that I visited a prior open house is just so unbelievable as to defy reasonable belief.
    End of sarcasm.
    Take your meds, anonn. You’ve gone off your rocker.

  30. I meant that you happened by an open house. How perfectly like you to infer something nefarious. Don’t go changin.

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