45 Berryessa Way

Having hit the market for $4.2 million three months ago, the listing for the iconic ‘Flintstone House’ at 45 Berryessa Way has just been removed from the MLS without a reported sale.

Designed by William Nicholson and built in 1976, the experimental home was purchased for $800,000 in 1996 with an ailing foundation, after which it was restored, repainted and remodeled inside, including the futuristic kitchen designed by Eugene Tsui.

According to the latest listing agent, the property had most recently been priced for somebody who really wanted the quirky 2,730-square-foot home rather than a developer or individual looking for a nearly 2-acre lot upon which to build a much larger Hillsborough home. No official word on whether or not that strategy and concern for the home will remain in place next year.

UPDATE: And after 36 hours off the MLS, the iconic Flintstone House has just been relisted without a change in the asking price.

29 thoughts on “No Sale for Iconic Flintstone House (UPDATED)”
    1. When you go to places like that, with vantage points like that, it’s often better than it seems from the roadway. It’s a ravine after all. The eye is going to be drawn past 280 to the west.

      1. No surprise that your taste is so conventional and conservative (as evidenced by your comments) that you can’t appreciate anything adventurous or light-hearted like this. Still dying, along with all of Socketsite, to see samples of your own alleged work.

        1. Thanks Frank. I didn’t realize you thought my “taste” was so conventional and conservative, having NEVER seen any of it. The term “taste” is typically a word not associated with architecture, but rather fashion and interior decorating, of which I am a creator of neither.

          I like and prefer solid, modern, timeless, function defining form, not weird, quirky, trendy, silly and pretentious. I’m not aware that ALL of SS wants to see my work (it’s not alleged, it’s real) but you won’t because my clients all prefer not to be published and have their work shown to the masses.

          thank you.

          1. Houses with curves and nooks and little regard to how the outside looks seem like the epitome of “function defining form”. In general, there’s nothing pretentious about this type of architecture at all. In this particular case, however, the kitchen interior is.

          2. In your first paragraph you deny arch as “taste”, but start the second with “like and prefer”, implying taste.

          3. Right, because all contractors and designers never show a portfolio, and none of them have websites. I’m going to venture a guess that you don’t get much in the way of client references, given your communications style and personality.

    1. Ugly is in the eye of the beholder. I wouldn’t really want to live there but I do believe that it qualifies as art. Good art. I like the idea that someone bothered to design this and that some other people were willing to pay to live there.
      That said, “quirky” imposes some severe limits on marketability, particularly when the dominant residential design paradigm is an engineering lab.

  1. Great home to live among nature.

    That stretch of 280 never backs up, so at best it’s a little just white noise.

    Wonderful home not going to be undercut by tasteless peasants.

    Priced a bit high though.

  2. Glad to see it off the market and hope that its design is preserved – not redeveloped in an attempt to relist. I thought it looked better when it was painted white years ago. You were drawn to the structure rather than colors. Its nice to see something unique.

  3. I’d take up all the tile on the inside and leave the floors as polished concrete. For the perfect cave look….

  4. I’ve been up to the house next door. Constant noise from the highway barely 200 yards away, and one can also smell exhaust and soot from the nonstop traffic 24/7. At this price point one could access a much more desirable property in Hillsborough.

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