An extraordinary home in Atherton, California is not surprising. After all, it is the most expensive zip code in the country: home to “famous residents who want to keep a low profile,” as I once wrote. But it seems that ‘the Atherton’, a beautiful, sprawling country house, reflects the idyllic town after which it is named.
The house is located on Tuscaloosa Avenue, atop a 1.42-acre lot. It was newly built this year and has nine bedrooms and 15 bathrooms.
But it will make you $55 million.
“88 Tuscaloosa is truly the showpiece, the grande dame, or whatever you want to call it” of the opulent Northern California city, Butch Haze of Compass, one of the brokers, said Fortune.
Brian Kitts/Courtesy of Compass
It showcases a new lifestyle, he added: a home and a resort. It features artisanal, hand-painted doors, a Bocci chandelier and floor-to-ceiling windows.
If that doesn’t tell you much, it has a cinema with leather seats, an equipped gym and spa, a tennis court, a swimming pool and an accompanying pool house, as well as a lounge with a small bar and a pool table. In short, everything you could want, all naturally fenced by stunningly tall trees.
Brian Kitts/Courtesy of Compass
Not only that, it’s located near some of the best private schools, downtown, and an exclusive club that apparently everyone is a member of. And it’s not far from Silicon Valley and San Francisco.
“Everything is conducive to the lifestyle people expect in this price range,” said the other listing agent, Omar Maissen, also of Compass.
Brian Kitts/Courtesy of Compass
“Lifestyle” is definitely a defining term throughout California. In Southern California, the ultra-wealthy are digging deep for it. “Lower floors,” rather than basements, is what the wealthy prefer to call them, Ernie Carswell, a luxury real estate broker at Douglas Elliman, previously told me.
They’re home to billiard rooms, wine caves, bowling alleys, movie theaters, gyms, and spas—not much different from the fancy house we’re talking about.
These types of ‘iceberg houses’ also existed in London a long time ago. Perhaps Californians were inspired by outside architecture. A mansion built by a billionaire, or a ‘palace on the cliff of Versailles’, as the Wall Street Journal called it, was recently put up for sale in San Diego, with a price tag of $108 million.
The Atherton, in turn, has been on the market for about thirty days and has had about six viewings so far.
The seller is actually a developer; his company did everything from the design to the construction itself, which is not normally the way things are done. He is also a technology entrepreneur.
Brian Kitts/Courtesy of Compass
This was something of a passion project for him, Haze explained. But it’s not easy to build in California, let alone Atherton, where it is primarily zoned for single-family homes.
In fact, Atherton is home to a multi-millionaire basketball star and a billionaire venture capitalist, among other elites of course, who have opposed the multi-family changes on two separate occasions.
So the seller, who happens to be a developer, had some challenges along the way. Maybe that’s part of the reason it’s priced that way. But paying that price puts you in a wealthy club, as Haze noted.
And as luck would have it, supercar manufacturer Ferrari is borrowing the house this weekend for an event for its top clientele to showcase some sweet rides. A breathtaking house full of remarkable cars: what could be better?
Brian Kitts/Courtesy of Compass
The wider housing world has been turned upside down in the last few years, mainly due to high house prices and mortgage rates; sales have been depressed to say the least. But according to Haze, things could change and maybe this house will be a sign.
“Atherton seems to be a bellwether for what’s coming to the real estate market,” he said. “That has always been the case, where we first see the luxury market move into the higher segment and then everything follows. We have seen a lot of properties in Atherton on the market and moving in the last 30 days.”
