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Interior designer Arthur McLaughlin spent the past decade restoring and updating the Russian Hill home at 1154 Chestnut Street which was purchased in a neglected state for $1,500,000 in 2003.
While never officially listed as inventory, two weeks ago the 3,854-square-foot French Mansard manse quietly sold for $4,400,000 and Arthur is on to his next project in Nob Hill.

15 thoughts on “A Designer’s Russian Hill Digs And Discreet $4.4M Sale”
  1. Ditto what marinaboy said. Pictures would be fantastic. This place looks grand from the outside and I can only imagine how it looks on the inside (hopefully not completely gutted and replaced with whitewash IKEA-style materials).

  2. Honestly, there really isn’t much to this article. It begs a lot of questions without conveying much information.

  3. I don’t understand why this home is only $400,000 [more expensive] than the one on 26th street in Noe Valley. Surely this home is much more valuable, no? Anyway, if I have a spare 4 million plus change I know which house I would buy…

  4. While I understand Willow’s above comment, clearly the market has shown the Noe Valley home to be more expensive, most likely due to the shorter commute time into Silicon Valley. Russian Hill is twenty+ minutes north.

  5. Jackson’s comment is why one author for the WSJ called San Francisco a “faux” city. Long ago (20 years)the author of “Edge City” predicted that San Francisco would become an expensive boutique housing market for childless professionals interested in a historic urban residential “atmosphere”, who would commute long distances to high paying jobs outside the “city”.
    I would say the predictions have come true. Stanford has a lot more to do with the success of the Bay Area than the free weekend hipster atmosphere of Dolores Park.

  6. I was in this house recently. It is beautiful but much smaller on the inside than one might expect from the outside plus there are no views. This maybe plain why it “only” sold for $4.4million

  7. @GoogleBus
    Of course, those predictions for SF turned out to be wrong.
    According to the US Census data for where people lived and worked for 1990 and for the average during 2006-2010, for San Francisco:
    1990
    307k SF residents that worked in SF
    81k SF residents that commuted to work outside SF
    230k non-SF residents that commuted to SF to work
    2006-2010 average
    331k SF residents that worked in SF
    96k SF residents that commuted to work outside SF
    260k non-SF residents that commuted to SF to work
    The net change over nearly 20 years:
    24k SF residents that worked in SF
    15k SF residents that commuted to work outside SF
    30k non-SF residents that commuted to SF to work
    SF is not hollowing out. It is gradually filling in.

  8. @Jake, care to look at the jobs created during that same 20 year period in the South Bay / Peninsula?
    I agree, more people are living in San Francisco, but the fact that homes located close to freeways so someone can drive 40 miles south to work are desirable, speaks for itself.
    San Francisco was not the cause of the most recent boom. It is enjoying being next to the area where the boom was created however, and has become a destination for trophy homes to those who have the ability to afford them.

  9. @GoogleBus
    What jobs?
    According to the same US Census data source as above, for San Mateo + Santa Clara Counties total employment in 1990 was 1284k while the 2006-2010 average was 1275k. All this data is for jobs located in the counties.
    As I’ve stated previously on socketsite, I agree that there has been a shift of property value from the northern area (North Beach through Pac Heights/Marina) south to Noe, Bernal, et al. because of proximity to jobs in the valley. I believe it was due mostly to the 1989 earthquake and subsequent removal of the Embarcadero Freeway and Central Freeway north of Market.
    There has been an increase in the number of people commuting from SF to SM+SC from 41k in 1990 to 62k ave in 2006-2010. But not because there was some great growth in the jobs in the valley.
    Afterall, Apple is building a new HQ in an old HP campus. Facebook and Google build on the rubble of SUN and SGI and ….
    And Twitter and Instagram were created in small offices at South Park.

  10. Interesting analysis Jake. I am wondering though if you picked different years to compare if there would be different results…

  11. According to the 2000 Census County-To-County Worker Flow (namelink), there were 69k SF commuters to SM+SC.
    Another way to look at it is the percentage of employed SF residents that commute to SM+SC:
    11% 1990
    16% 2000
    14% 2006-2010
    For all the 1990-2010 data sets, more San Franciscans commute to San Mateo County than to Alameda + Contra Costa + Marin.

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