When serial startup founder Isaac Hall returned to San Francisco after a stint in New York, he wanted to find another home in the Mission, where he bought his first condo about a decade ago.
But his wish list also included a water view, not typically on offer in the Mission. His agent, Marie Carr, suggested he take a look at a sixth-floor condo at the newly completed 28-unit Belvedere building at 2525 Van Ness Ave.
The unit had no overhead lighting with Hall first moved in. Now, every single bulb is individually programmable, he said.
As soon as he saw the unobstructed views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace of Fine Arts from the private terrace, he fell in love. (There’s also a communal roof deck two flights up.)
Still, the inside of the nearly 2,000-square-foot three-bedroom, four-bathroom place left something to be desired. He didn’t like the brown cabinets and white walls. There were no window treatments or overhead lights. Overall, it was “pretty boring,” he recalled.
Hall had worked with interior designer Julia Goodwin on three previous projects and knew she could bring some color to the otherwise bland palette, but even he wasn’t prepared to see the results. “I knew a lot of the possibilities, but she really surprised me on this,” he said.
Hall already owned most of the art work on view in the unit, while other pieces, like those in the office, were purchased specifically for the home.
Repainting the entire unit, including the cabinets, and having a “rainbow-esque ombre pattern” hand-painted in the main entertaining space cost more than $100,000, according to Hall. That seemed reasonable to him, given that the mural alone took nearly two weeks of painstaking work and the cabinets required multiple rounds of sanding and painting.
He wasn’t sure at first about the white furniture Goodwin chose to go with it, but now he can see how it pops against the colorful backdrop.
Out of all their projects together, this one is “easily the most daring in its use of color and contrast,” Goodwin said, adding that Hall gave her pretty free rein.
Designer Goodwin picked the furniture in the unit specifically for the space and Hall is open to selling it, for an additional fee, mostly furnished.
The lighting and smart light switches, which automatically shift the tone from warm to cool as day turns to night, added another $100,000 to the total, but Hall noted it’s all well worth it.
Repainting the kitchen cabinets from “boring” brown was another major project. Rather than competing with the views, the bold color in the open concept space “actually heightens them,” Goodwin said.
“I’m a very visual person and very user-experience focused as well,” said Hall, whose most recent startup remains in “stealth mode” but he previously cofounded Recurly, a subscription billing platform. “I was quite particular about where the buttons are placed, what they control, how the lighting works, what the lighting even looks and feels like, and how to use the rooms. It all stems from that.”
Despite the customizations and the fact that he has lived in the home for only about a year, Hall said he’s ready to move on — if the price is right. He is asking $3,950,000 for the unit, as well as additional costs to include the art and furnishings.
If the condo doesn’t sell, rather than drop the price, he may take it as a sign to continue his time in SF. The book “The Surrender Experiment” changed his life, he said, and allowed him to be more open to adventure, ambiguity, and uncertainty. The 2015 best-selling memoir by medical software cofounder Michael A. Singer advises that success and inner peace come from giving oneself over to the flow of life, and not letting ego get in the way.
The floor to ceiling windows with bridge views and the ample closet space in the primary bedroom are major selling points.
The unit would be the first resale in the building since it was completed last year. Another similarly sized, though more neutrally decorated unit one floor below never sold when the building went on the market last year, and is currently asking $3.5 million.
“We are testing the resale market for new construction in Cow Hollow,” said Carr, an agent with Sotheby’s International. “This is not your average rental-type unit.”