Quirkily Colorful NoPa Queen Anne Gets a Price Cut to $1.899M
The crazily colorful Queen Anne that sits at 560 Lyon Street in NoPa is hard to miss. It has a bright blue and purple facade chock-full of decorative features, and a distinctive turret pops up from the top floor. The condo that takes up the bottom two floors doesn't, unfortunately, have access to the turret, but it does boast five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and some gorgeous interior detailing. The house went up for sale about a month ago asking $1.985 million, but apparently its ornate style isn't for everyone, because it just took a price cut down to $1.899 million.
Silicon Valley resident Hafid Alonso would like to create a big, notable landmark for the South Bay: a Silicon Valley sign reminiscent of the Hollywood sign. He would like the sign to be 200 feet long, with each letter standing 45 feet high. The letters would look like computer chips and would light up at night in various colors. Alonso envisions the sign going up in the hills near Milpitas, where it would be visible from various vantage points, but for the now the idea is in its very early stages. [San Francisco Magazine]Warriors Arena Opponents Bring Out the Big Guns Over Parking
Rendering via Manica Architecture/steelblueAfter emerging from an awkward design phase and finally beginning to take shape, the Warriors' proposed arena in Mission Bay is facing new opposition from an anonymous, privately funded nonprofit called the Mission Bay Alliance. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that it's unclear who's financing the campaign, but cites "organizers" who describe the group as "big-bucks donors to UCSF," the arena's neighbor. The alliance's opposition comes just a month before the release of the final environmental impact report for the project, which includes an 18,000-seat arena and two office towers. The alliance is reportedly consulting with some big names, including former UCSF senior vice chancellor Bruce Spaulding and, until recently, former mayor Willie Brown.
Examining Nepal's Architectural Legacy After the Earthquake
A sunset behind the temples of Durbar square in Kathmandu from 2010, which was heavily damaged during the quake last Saturday. Photo by Pietro Columba/Creative Commons.
As images of flattened buildings bounce across the Internet, the scale of the humanitarian tragedy left in the wake of the recent Nepal earthquake has begun to take hold. And while the loss of life, and efforts to aid survivors, are paramount, another loss has also begun to reverberate. Nepal's unique position, perched on the roof of the world and at the crossroads of great civilizations, has left the country with an unrivaled and singular architectural heritage with seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites spread out across the Kathmandu Valley, many of which were severely damaged in the quake. "It's just aesthetically stunning," says David Gellner, professor of social anthropology at the University of Oxford. "It's like going to Rome; history is built into every street corner. This kind of Hindu-Buddhist urban landscape was once much more pervasive. It stretched from Afghanistan to Bali, and now the Kathmandu Valley is where it is. It's like going back in a time machine to see what northern India was like in the first century AD."
How Postwar Icon Joseph Eichler Built a Suburb in the Middle of San Francisco
Photo: San Francisco Redevelopment Agency
Over the course of his career, famed midcentury developer Joseph Eichler built roughly 11,000 homes. By marrying the postwar vogue for tract houses with architect-designed plans, Eichler offered middle-class homebuyers the opportunity to own a well-made, still relatively low-cost home that felt, in a word, designed. With glass-walled rooms oriented around courtyards and atriums, gently sloping wood-plank ceilings, and radiant heating, Eichlers were compact little testaments to fresh air, modern conveniences, and accessible design (though, as a recent NPR story noted, to contemporaries accustomed to blander stuff, they looked "kind of weird.") Devised by the likes of Anshen and Allen and Claude Oakland in the Bay Area and Jones & Emmons in LA, among others, most of Eichler's models were single-story homes in suburbs like Walnut Creek, Concord, and San Rafael. But in 1950 the arrival of San Francisco's Redevelopment Agency laid the groundwork for a suburban-style experiment on a San Francisco hilltop.
When the newly built five-bedroom home at 2342 Washington Street went up for sale asking $10.95 million, we dubbed it the most underwhelming mansion in Pacific Heights. Its bland beige facade and boring white interiors didn't deter buyers, who were likely enticed by its location on a fantastic Pacific Heights block. The home sold yesterday for $11.5 million, which was $555,000 over asking. [Previously; Redfin]Luxury Rentals at 6 Mint Plaza to Go Up for Sale As Condos
Station House #1 at 6 Mint Plaza was once a San Francisco Fire Department firehouse, but in more recent years the building was redeveloped as luxury housing. Its initial developer had hoped to sell the units in the building as luxury condos around the time of their conversion to housing in 2007, but the market downturn changed all that and they became swanky rentals. Last year, the building hit the market, and its new owner finally decided to convert the units over to their original intended use as condos. The units have all been spruced up with upgrades to things like the kitchens and lighting and are now about to go up for sale. 
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Aidlin Darling Crafts a Handsome Modernist House in Mill Valley
All photos by Matthew Millman for SFC>asked with giving a California couple the ruggedly handsome housethey pined for—one that engaged with its natural surroundings and brought the outside in—two principals at local firm Aidlin Darling Design did what any adventurous architects would to get acclimated to their new job site: They got out their camping gear. Showcased in the April/May 2015 issue of SFC&G (San Francisco Cottages & Gardens) magazine, the "industrially inspired" 4,000-square-foot Mill Valley dwelling is a real beaut, composed largely of gorgeous poured-concrete and sided in tough-luxe corrugated-metal panels. Sleeping under the stars on the land for a night, explains SFC&G, helped the designers gain a sense of the effect of shifting winds and subtle light changes on the landscape over the course of a day.
49ers Legend Joe Montana Scores Marina Condo for $2.275M
NFL Hall of Famer and Mediterranean mega-enthusiast Joe Montana and his wife, Jennifer Montana, are the new owners of a bright two-bedroom condo in the Marina. The condo, which takes up the lower floor of a two-unit building, listed in February for $1.95 million. The Montanas went into contract March 1 and quickly closed a few days later, according to the MLS and property records. Their $2.275 million bought a bright unit with two bathrooms, parquet wood floors, arched windows and doorways, and 1,873 square feet of space, as the LA Timesreported. The kitchen looks recently renovated, and there's a nice-looking built-in bench in the hallway (for quickie time-outs, we presume?).
Mediterranean Marina Duplex Wants to Be Reunited for $5.3M
There's no missing the grand white duplex that sits at 1627-1629 Beach Street. Even in a neighborhood of big Mediterranean-style homes, this one stands out, with its tiled front steps, wrought-iron accents, and tall windows fronted by pillars. The duplex, which is up for sale for $5.3 million, currently holds two large units and an in-law. However, the property was also approved to be converted into a single-family home, an option that seems appealing for a buyer who wants to swoop up a huge place in a prime Marina location.
The Alameda County town of Pleasanton was set to move forward with the biggest development in its history but is now having second thoughts because of the ongoing drought. The planned 1,300-home development would bring approximately 3,200 new people to town, and those new residents would consume an estimated 260 million gallons of water every year. The city council is now trying to delay the development. [CBS Bay Area]Bernal Flippers Convinced Someone to Pay Top Dollar to Gaze Upon the 101
The little house at 853 Peralta Street sits a mere stone's throw away from the 101 freeway. It isn't at the heart of trendy Bernal Heights, but that didn't stop flippers from fixing up the once-simple house and selling it for $1.75 million. That price is more than double what the flippers paid last April, when they bought the home for $830,000. At that time, the home had the original fixtures from its 1977 construction, including a kitchen squished into one corner, a brick fireplace in another, and a red plank back deck. The house was given a makeover that left it with an open plan, a new kitchen, and a freshly landscaped backyard.
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