Yahoo Finance This $38 Million Mansion Is the Most Expensive Home on the Market in San Francisco
When timber industry scion and executive George “Fritz” Jewett and his wife Lucy moved their young family from Idaho to the Bay Area in 1965, they first settled in the woodsy Marin County community of Ross. Two decades later, the by-then empty nesters custom built a spacious home at 2990 Broadway in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights. Following the late 2023 death of Lucy at the age of 94 (Fritz passed in 2008), the home has come up for sale at $38 million, making it Fog City’s most expensive residence currently available on the open market.
The three-story spread, perched on a sloping parcel at the end of a stretch of rarefied residential pavement commonly referred to in real estate circles as Billionaires Row, spans about 10,000 square feet with spine-stiffening views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz over the domed roof of the Palace of Fine Arts. The home’s four bedrooms are serviced by a total of six bathrooms, plus a trio of powder rooms, including one tucked down in the six-plus-car subterranean garage that also includes a car washing area. Stacey Caen and Joe Lucier of Sotheby’s International Realty–San Francisco Brokerage hold the listing.
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The house was designed to accommodate gracious entertaining, and indeed, the Jewetts not only frequently hosted the cream of the city’s beau monde, they also wined and dined politicians and dignitaries from around the world, as recounted in The Wall Street Journal, the first to report the listing, including George H.W. Bush, Nancy Pelosi, and English royal consort Prince Philip. In addition to their penchant for parties, the couple is well remembered as deep-pocketed philanthropists and dedicated patrons of the arts. Fritz was an avid sailor and yachtsman—they were both inducted into the American’s Cup Hall of Fame in 2005—while she sat on the board of the San Francisco Ballet beginning back in 1969.
The curvaceous, pared-back exterior eschews fussy ornamentation in favor of the rhythmic repetition of wide, semicircular bay windows, a post-modern take on the curving bay windows that adorn countless Victorian-era buildings and are a hallmark of San Francisco architecture.
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Just inside the gated courtyard entrance, an intimately proportioned octagonal entry vestibule is followed by a grand gallery that overlooks the courtyard garden through towering arched windows. Beyond that, a circular hall showcases a curved staircase with Lucite banisters and a compass-inspired marble floor. A well-stocked wet bar is conveniently placed between a petite sitting room, a spacious step-down fireside living room, and a 500-square-foot corner dining room that features not just one but two rounded bays. The nearby kitchen, configured around a center island, is custom fitted into another rounded bay next to a small breakfast room with a morning bar.
There are just two bedrooms on the upper level, a roomy guest suite with a private bath, and a major homeowner’s retreat that comprises two lavish bathrooms and a pair of custom-fitted dressing rooms. Elsewhere on the upper level, and accessible from a staircase in a small, double-height office off the entry vestibule, are a library and solarium capped by a glass roof. There are an additional pair of modestly sized ensuite bedrooms on the lower level, plus a small sitting room and redwood-paneled spa lounge with a jetted tub, wet bar and bath.
The current record for the most expensive house ever sold is the $43.5 million a mysterious buyer paid for a circa 1931 mansion originally built for an heir to the Hills Bros. Coffee fortune (and just down the street from the Jewetts’ former home). The longtime residence of Dianne Feinstein and Richard Blumenthal, where he was brutally attacked several years ago, is situated just below the Jewett mansion, while Alexis and Trevor Traina paid $35 million back in 2013 for a Tudor mansion a few doors down that was once owned by flamboyant attorney Marvin Belli.
Click here for more photos of 2990 Broadway.
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