Circa 1925 co-op polishes its penthouse credentials

CURBED SF - MAY 11, 2017

BY ADAM BRINKLOW

The top-floor unit at 1940 Broadwayin Pacific Heights is on offer for a staggering $8.2 million, a sum liable to give house hunters a touch of vertigo even before they ascend to the penthouse level.

The ad for the three-bed, two-and-a-half bath, 2,900-square-foot condo frames it as a ticket to “one of San Francisco's most exclusive clubs: penthouse ownership.”

“It’s only a penthouse if it’s the only unit on the top floor,” realtor Joseph Lucier tells Curbed SF, insisting that while some people will try to pass off any tip-top home as a penthouse that this one is the real deal for sticklers.

Other ads for homes in the Art Deco building on Broadway date it as early as 1923 or as late as 1926, but the city pegs it as a 1925 building. The listing for the number seven unit credits its design to “noted architects George A. Bos and Frederick W. Quandt.”

Bos’ name adorns the gorgeous George A. Pos Apartments on Green Street in Russian Hill, a building so charming that it even earned the nickname “Paris Block” for the mini-hood surrounding around it.

But, oddly enough, despite being named for Bos, it was actually Grace Cathedral architect Lewis Hobart who designed that one. Go figure.

Quandt was a German architect who worked in Seattle before coming to San Francisco, famous in his day for the now-defunct William R. Davis & Brother Department Store on Mission Street, which the San Francisco Chronicle in 1923 called “a large three story Beaux-Arts design costing $1 million.”

But the building at 1940 Broadway is probably his most visible contribution to the city these days. Lucier notes the extra classy portico entrance, carved plaster ceiling in the lobby, and classic black and white marble floor.

Speaking of class, the penthouse itself has “annexed part of the living room” to serve as a library, but although the ad talks up its wood-paneled appeal there aren’t presently any photos of it, which seems like a loss. But we do get to scope out the picture-frame moldings.

HOAs come to $2,397/month. And this is a co-op, so interested buyers would have to be accepted by the board. In other words, tacky high bidders need not apply.