Published June 23, 2025
Bay Area behemoths and their wild features.
We know there’s a lot going on out there right now. Protests popping off, school is out for summer, it’s getting hot and wild out there.
Today we bring you a distraction article. Sort of like watching any form of the Real Housewives franchise. When your brain craves fluff, like a fascinating, bizarre, borderline infuriating yet somehow enjoyable…. escape from our own reality in the form of entertainment. Yes, today we’re looking at the overtop exorbitant homes of the Bay Areas super wealthy. How come there never was a real Housewives of San Francisco? They could throw tantrums about the wind and drink 24-dollar organic matcha lattes.
So, these Uber rich person homes and the amazing features they contain, let’s get into it.
Okay, at 2840 Broadway there is a house nicknamed Lauren’s Lair. In 2023 it was sold as the most expensive house ever sold in San Francisco at the little old price of 71 million dollars. Architectural Digest magazine featured this Presidio Estate as the Most Beautiful home in America. This house was built in 1916, and is 17, 286 square feet.
Who owns it now, and keeps its 7 bathrooms stocked with toilet paper? None other than Lauren Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs widow. Yeah, that tracks.
Did you know that stretch of Broadway in the Presidio is called billionaire row?
So, not shockingly, another most expensive house in the city is less than a block away at 2799 Broadway. It boasts 11, 735 square feet and sold for 22.5 million a couple years back. It’s much newer, built in 2004 out of steel and concrete and this guy has all the fixings. It has 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms and is fully equipped with all smart home technology. You can scope Alcatraz, or the Golden Gate Bridge from the roof top spa. It also has a full library, gym, wine cellar, pub style billiard room and all with radiant heating. There is a 4-car garage, and a freaking elevator.
How we doing, feeling lightly annoyed and somewhat fascinated? Good. Let’s get ourselves more out of sorts while looking at how the rich, live in homes we can only dream of.
Moving right along.
The Presidio is where the old monied elite run elbows with new money tech moguls, and it shows. These houses are the biggest, most expensive, decked houses mansions in the city.
2990 Broadway sold for 38 million dollars last year. It’s got only 4 bedrooms but 10 bathrooms, doesn’t that seem like a weird ratio? There is a grand entry hall with a powder room and 3 walk in closets. A spiral staircase winds you up to a massive skylight atrium with black and white inland marble floors. The marble has a compass design, as a nod to San Francisco’s maritime stuff.
This house has 13-foot ceilings, marble wood burning fireplaces and multiple wall out balconies facing the Golden gate, or the palace of fine arts. Off of the kitchen, there’s a wood paneled butlers bar. The first lower level has a 6-car garage and a car wash. It has a spa and a sauna and a full two-bedroom guest apartment.
Whoa Nelly! Whoa now. Wheew.
Okay so let’s spice it up and scootch away from the fancy towards the direction of the weird.
In Alamo square there is an old mansion called the William Westerfeld House. The house was built in 1889 and has had a number of owners. One set of owners were Russian Czars who built an entirely gigantic ballroom into it, and ran an underground nightclub. The house is a landmark because of its famously sorted history, this Russian Czarist nightclub running crew called themselves the Calliope Company and they were renowned for time spent prominently with satanists and members of the Manson family. Oooo, spooky.
Over at 2080 Washington St. is a French Baroque Chateau called the Spreckels Mansion. The Spreckles made their money from both railroads and sugar factories. They had 8 preexisting Victorians disassembled and moved elsewhere to open up their view of the Golden Gate. Adolph Spreckles was really sick and bedridden, and his wife paid the city to redo the street design so that cars would drive very slowly and it would be quieter for her bedridden husband. The houses exterior was made of limestone, which isn’t holding up in the moisture of the cities fog and is slowly crumbling. You can’t tell from the street because it’s surrounded by a epic privacy hedge. This privacy hedge is so big, the family had to buy out 25 city parking permits, which super bummed out all the neighbors. How do you even buy out city parking permits? This house and it’s owners really ran that block. Now it is owned and lived in by Daniel Steele, who is a very famous romance novelist.
Have you ever heard of the Austin, Texas based weird homes tour? Well, when they came to San Francisco they featured a Balboa Park mansion Called the Gregangelo house. It was featured on Netflix show Amazing Interiors, and it’s been on HGTV. It is the private residence of an artist with a real maximalist vibe. The Bold Italic called it a surreal space that looks like a love child between Cleopatra and Salvador Dali. The homeowner artist, Herarra has built a variety of bizarre experiences into the house, like a sphinx garden tour, haunted dollhouse, kaleidoscope rabbit hole, and enchanted fairy garden. Okay, what? This spot is definitely home/circus.
Rich people run the gamut from highly classy to bizarre and tasteless just like everyone else, only their stuff cost more. It’s fun to detour sometimes into a world of the elite monied few, who live in huge spaces and own a lot of expensive stuff.
This concludes our vacation from reality, now back to our regularly programmed summer madness.
Today we bring you a distraction article. Sort of like watching any form of the Real Housewives franchise. When your brain craves fluff, like a fascinating, bizarre, borderline infuriating yet somehow enjoyable…. escape from our own reality in the form of entertainment. Yes, today we’re looking at the overtop exorbitant homes of the Bay Areas super wealthy. How come there never was a real Housewives of San Francisco? They could throw tantrums about the wind and drink 24-dollar organic matcha lattes.
So, these Uber rich person homes and the amazing features they contain, let’s get into it.
Who owns it now, and keeps its 7 bathrooms stocked with toilet paper? None other than Lauren Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs widow. Yeah, that tracks.
Did you know that stretch of Broadway in the Presidio is called billionaire row?
How we doing, feeling lightly annoyed and somewhat fascinated? Good. Let’s get ourselves more out of sorts while looking at how the rich, live in homes we can only dream of.
Moving right along.
The Presidio is where the old monied elite run elbows with new money tech moguls, and it shows. These houses are the biggest, most expensive, decked houses mansions in the city.
This house has 13-foot ceilings, marble wood burning fireplaces and multiple wall out balconies facing the Golden gate, or the palace of fine arts. Off of the kitchen, there’s a wood paneled butlers bar. The first lower level has a 6-car garage and a car wash. It has a spa and a sauna and a full two-bedroom guest apartment.
Whoa Nelly! Whoa now. Wheew.
Okay so let’s spice it up and scootch away from the fancy towards the direction of the weird.
Over at 2080 Washington St. is a French Baroque Chateau called the Spreckels Mansion. The Spreckles made their money from both railroads and sugar factories. They had 8 preexisting Victorians disassembled and moved elsewhere to open up their view of the Golden Gate. Adolph Spreckles was really sick and bedridden, and his wife paid the city to redo the street design so that cars would drive very slowly and it would be quieter for her bedridden husband. The houses exterior was made of limestone, which isn’t holding up in the moisture of the cities fog and is slowly crumbling. You can’t tell from the street because it’s surrounded by a epic privacy hedge. This privacy hedge is so big, the family had to buy out 25 city parking permits, which super bummed out all the neighbors. How do you even buy out city parking permits? This house and it’s owners really ran that block. Now it is owned and lived in by Daniel Steele, who is a very famous romance novelist.
Rich people run the gamut from highly classy to bizarre and tasteless just like everyone else, only their stuff cost more. It’s fun to detour sometimes into a world of the elite monied few, who live in huge spaces and own a lot of expensive stuff.
This concludes our vacation from reality, now back to our regularly programmed summer madness.
