A former Presbyterian church, the home not only packs a one-of-a-kind design but loads of cultural history. The five-bedroom, four-bathroom property, spanning two structures, offers a generous 4,300 square feet of living space and has just hit the market for $4.4 million.
Originally built in 1906, the sweeping 22-foot ceilings became key for the structure’s future life. When the congregation outgrew the building, a second was erected next door and worship services were held there until 1959. Another church briefly met there, as did an Alcoholics Anonymous group.
The most surprising-yet-perfect fit was the building’s third act that began in the mid-1960s, when it became a music studio. Aptly dubbed “the Church” by recording artists, dozens of famous tracks reverberated inside its walls over the decades. Legends including Jefferson Starship, Van Morrison, Huey Lewis and the News, Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, Steve Miller, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, and countless other prolific artists either recorded or rehearsed in the sacred space.
Beyond music, another world-altering movement began on the grounds. Known as “The Rectory,” the two-story cottage next to the main building isn’t just “a magical setting, offering two bedrooms and one bath,” wrote Sotheby’s spokesperson Rachel Colletta in an email to SFGATE. “It also holds a unique place in cycling lore as an early hub in the birth of the mountain bike, when Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly lived there while working as roadies for bands recording at the studio.”
Fisher and Kelly used the space as a workshop, where they dreamed up and created one of the first known mountain bikes. In 1979, after scrounging up $200, the two launched a company — named simply MountainBikes — to sell their creations a few hundred feet away on the corner of San Anselmo Avenue and Center Boulevard.