(Re)built by temple carpenter Len Brackett in 1991, 542 Valley was listed for $2,995,000 in September 2008, reduced a few times, and then withdrawn from the market in 2009.
Back on the market in 2010 and asking $2,195,000. And now, the Japanese styled Noe Valley home with contemporary flair somehow feels even more Japanesey (with absolutely no disrespect for the house implied nor intended).
∙ Listing: 542 Valley (4/3.5) – $2,195,000 [MLS]
∙ A Contemporary Japanese Estate In Noe (And No, It’s Not Ellison’s) [SocketSite]
∙ East Wind (Higashi Kaze), Inc. [eastwindinc.com]
the real estate price deflation is leaving everything feeling more japanese, perhaps? or does this have some japanese alpha that i’m missing?
Is that a chicken perched on the rail of the deck in photo 17/30 ? Someone might cry fowl for including an animal in the listing.
Beautiful design and craftwork in this home.
Lovely. It was a shock to come to the last few pics and find the views of the city. I was feeling calm in the house and garden till then. Very zen and very nice.
As nice as this is, and well crafted, it’s going to be a tough sell. When you apply such a personal and “style specific” approach to a remodel it really narrows down the buyer that this will appeal to.
I’m sure it will eventually sell, but it’s going to take time.
I love this house. I would’ve bought it years ago had it been for sale… The only drawbacks are the weather in that location is pretty bad, and you can’t walk anywhere, but it’s kind of a little oasis isn’t it?
all good, except this picture staring into the toilet room….from this angle looks little too much like a turkish prison…not that I would know.
@denis:..wait! you can’t walk anywhere? Sure you can.
I live near by. It’s a beautiful neighborhood. Weather is not “bad”..can be foggy at times, and other times lots of sun. Very quiet and wooded.
As for walking, sure you can. I walk all the time to 24th St. for shopping and eating, walk to Church st. to catch the J streetcar and some great restaurants, and walk a lot to Glen Park..Bart is not far away, plus some great little cafes there as well.
The walk score for this area is pretty high.
Len Brackett is one of my heroes. Building the Japanese House Today was one of the “house porn” books I used to carry around with me when I was studying light construction.
Milkshake, that was the worst pun I’ve read all day 🙂
This house is exceptionally cool and is now priced right on a median dollars per foot mark for Noe, but most folks will want a more traditional utilization of such a large lot.
it’s not a real Japanese house if it doesn’t have a Toto washlet, no matter how many tatamis they sprinkle in the living room
As nice as this is, and well crafted, it’s going to be a tough sell. When you apply such a personal and “style specific” approach to a remodel it really narrows down the buyer that this will appeal to.
I thought of that while I was looking through the pictures, but I decided that most of the personality was in the furniture that I would never own. I mean, Laura Ashley it ain’t, but it doesn’t have to be tied to the shogunate either.
I actually used to live exactly one block from this place. The hill it’s on is painfully steep and the fog and wind have a tendency to crest over the hill saturating everything with bitter cold…. It’s also 10 blocks to 24th, which is a little challenging for an afternoon stroll. My Noe (ish) memories are not that fond. That said, I still love this house and had it been for sale 10 years ago, I’d absolutely be living there!
I love the house, aside from the retaining wall with the other house on the up-slope. Earthquake or slide wouldn’t be pretty. Overall, well done.
I went through this house when it was on the market a couple of years ago. I really like the concrete walls and flooring. Nice design and flow to the home. A couple of problems I felt were (1) the kitchen counters seemed to be designed for a tall person (2) the bathtub, pic 14, is concrete, extremely deep and looks very uncomfortable. (3) the shower, pic 26 simply sprays everything in the bathroom — think of drying down toilet after every shower.
Anyhow, really cool, but not for everyone…
Did the builder make a couch out of the foundation/retaining wall shown in MLS pic #35?…If so, that’s pretty frickin’ clever.
“(2) the bathtub, pic 14, is concrete, extremely deep and looks very uncomfortable.”
I’m sure that the builder here was striving for authenticity. Japanese tubs are for soaking, never washing (you wash up and rinse before getting in). And the most authentic materials are stone or wood.
“Did the builder make a couch out of the foundation/retaining wall shown in MLS pic #35?”
Looks like it. Very cool though now that I look at the photo again those ceilings look quite low. I wonder this room is included in the footage as it seems more appropriate for storage space. Speaking if which, where is the storage space in this house?
I hope they find a buyer this go-round as the sales effort seems earnest.
It may be “very special”, but in reality as I said earlier the entire design expression inside and out is pretty well fixed. A buyer has to love a lot of wood walls and ceilings. A buyer has to love the integral color on some of the walls. You can’t just paint that away. You have to love the uncomfortable concrete tub (or replace it with a more pleasant one)..besides, the bath vanity lighting (once again) is harsh and inappropriate.
While this may appeal to some unique one of a kind buyer out there, most people are not going to want to move into a completely “frozen in style and time” japanese house in SF.
I can’t speak about this particular tub, but why is it uncomfortable? I like the deep Japanese style tubs (when I was in Japan, most were taller than they were wide). As a tall person, I really enjoyed that. I find typical American style tubs with a shower overhead uncomfortable. If I ever get to build my own place, I’ll opt for a show stall and a tall soaking tub.
Yes, jacuzzi style tubs are also more comfortable, but they look kind of unattractive.
The listing for 542 Valley has once again been withdrawn from the market, this time with 82 days on the market without a reported sale.
Redfin is showing that 542 Valley was lost to foreclosure on 10/06/2010 with a balance of $1,648,285.
Impressive for what was originally thought to be a $3M Noe Valley house being foreclosed on under $1.65M. Someone had quite an inflated sense of value here, likely because this house was a bit too customized.
I am very sentimental about this house since it
belonged to my friend. I didn’t know the house was
foreclosed in the end. Yes, The house was so customized and wasn’t really comfortable but when I think of my friend who even couldn’t sell the house and left, it broke my heart endlessly.
It is another American story called Foreclosure.
I’m worrying about my friend who used to own the
house.