Purchased as a half-finished project for $951,000 in cash on the courthouse steps in 2014, Maven Investments was planning to chop down the 75-foot-tall redwood tree behind the Corona Heights home at 3066 Market Street in order to provide a more “open aesthetic” and “family friendly” backyard for its flip.
Instead, neighbors rallied Supervisor Scott Wiener and the Sequoiadendron giganteum at 3066 Market was granted Landmark Tree status last year, putting an end to any plans for the removal of the tree, and the property was subsequently remodeled and returned to the market listed for $2.595 million this past April, both ironically and appropriately dubbed, “Sequoia House.”
Trimmed by $200,000 to $2.395 million in May, the sale of 3066 Market Street has now closed escrow with a reported contract price of $2.325 million or roughly $932 per remodeled square foot.
And once again with respect to how the Giant Sequoia, whose native range is well above sea level in the Sierra Nevada, came to be in the home’s backyard, a plugged-in reader’s uncle who worked for the Forest Service brought it from Yosemite in the 1940’s.
Great, this is like those stories you hear (or maybe it’s just the Simpsons) where the cats own the house.
A very cute little house.
This house is well over 2000 SF so it’s not that ‘little’.
The same Maven Investments?
Yupp!
Beautiful tree. IMO this would enhance the property’s value dramatically, it is very rare to get a tree like that in a city. Just trim the bottom branches if you need more sunlight.
Again, enough with the Victorian on the outside, Walnut Creek condo on the inside schtick.
I am sure developers will stop doing it when the public stops buying it.
I don’t know anything about this property, but I think the suggestion that there was some masterpiece of Victorian era interior architecture here before the renovation is probably misplaced. Just as likely they took a total dump and turned it into an attractive, useful space–just not one to your pleasing.
But maybe it was something special before, I don’t know.
It is one of the area’s earliest houses, simple for sure. Unfortunately, it had been gutted in the 1970s and remodeled very badly, probably without permits. It had no heat. It had suicide kitchen doors–walk out and drop 6 feet. The stove oven projected beyond the kitchen into the yard; just the oven door was inside. The previous owner had rabbits in the basement.
It is a huge improvement with nice finishes and paint choices–except the exterior stairs won’t last 5 years and the top addition really needs some trim to match the facade. But I agree with Not A Techie–enough with the Victorian on the outside, Walnut Creek on the inside. In this case, there was nothing left inside worth saving. And it took four long years!
Lets replace “Walnut Creek” with something else to produce a pronounceable acronym. For example with Hercules or Hayward you get “Victorian on the outside, Hercules on the inside” or “VOTO HOTI”. Much more fun.
Try VOPI: Victorian outside, Pleasanton inside.
The public doesn’t have much choice when flipvestors insert themselves in between any apples-to-apples resale that would occur between owners who actually live in the house.