Tracey Taylor

Memories fill Mulvany home, which is primed for a renewal

San Francisco Chronicle, June 6 2010

The home's library. Photo: Scott Hargis Photography

It is not surprising that Alamedans proved very curious to see inside 2927 Gibbons Drive when, on two recent weekends, estate sales were held there to sell the contents of the Italian villa-style home.

“We estimate 1,400 people came through the house,” said listing agent Anthony Riggins, who works for East Bay Sotheby’s International. “We practically had to put a security detail on the door.”

The intense interest can be explained by the home’s historical significance on the island and that it is the first time the property has come on the market since it was built by John J. Mulvany in 1928. It cost $28,000 to build, thought to be three times the amount a typical Mediterranean-style home would have cost at the time. Today, its asking price is $1.625 million.

Several of those previewing visitors scooped up, for a price, pieces of stately dining room furniture, wrought-iron bedsteads and elegant lounging chaises. For the prospective buyers who see the house this weekend at its first open house Sunday from 2 to 4:30 p.m., what is left is a period home bursting with original features and ripe for renovation.

What will make it particularly appealing to old home enthusiasts is the wealth of detail that remains intact - from ceiling frescoes to drapery hardware, from balustrades to solid walnut doors. And history buffs will revel in the story of the family that lived there for two generations.

“We have deliberately left every detail intact so that a potential buyer can see the integrity of the house and it will help them restore it,” said John Nelson, the trustee and executor in charge of selling the house for the former owner, Marion Holt, Mulvany’s daughter and a longtime Alameda volunteer who died in the home in 2009.

John Mulvany, who came to California from Ireland when he was just 6 weeks old, was instrumental in shaping Alameda as we now know it. A man who wore many hats, he created the Fernside neighborhood as a real estate developer. As a financier, he founded the first bank in Alameda in the early 1900s. Located on Park Street and known initially as the Encinal Bank, it merged with the Bank of Italy, which eventually became the Bank of America.

Mulvany moved in high Republican circles, and his Gibbons Drive home was the scene of regular Thursday dinners with some of the most well-known names in the GOP and elsewhere. Guests included Adm. Chester Nimitz and his wife; Chief Justice and former Gov. Earl Warren, who lived in Oakland’s Crocker Highlands neighborhood; Richard Nixon, who served as a California senator and congressman before he was president; as well as Ronald Reagan, who also served as governor, and his first wife, actress Jane Wyman.

The lone famous Democrat who, legend has it, also dined in the home was President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who came to the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of the Naval Station. Roosevelt was whisked through one of the home’s side entrances to avoid being spotted in his wheelchair, the legend says.

The home's living room. Photo: Scott Hargis Photography.

Mulvany died in the home’s cozy mahogany-paneled library in September 1964, as did his daughter, Holt, 45 years later, at her request. The library features the original concealed Prohibition-era cupboard, which still holds the scent of illicit liquor; there is also a secret panel in the room behind which Holt hid the family’s silver service.

Other features of note include the copper picture panels set into the living room’s coffered ceiling. This grand room has an expansive curved bay window that looks out over the property’s lawn on the front of the home’s triangular lot. The living room’s large fireplace was barely, if ever, used and is therefore in pristine condition. Nelson, who was a good friend of Holt’s, says this room was used only occasionally for formal entertaining, while the fireplace in the library was lit much more frequently.

All the home’s light fixtures, including an imposing chandelier in the main stairwell, as well as curtain rods, even the original velvet drapes, are still in good condition. An inner courtyard features a tiled fountain made by the Californian pottery firm Gladding, McBean LLC, which also manufactured the home’s terra-cotta roof tiles. A galleried balcony wraps around the second floor and overlooks the patio garden like something from a Shakespearean theater production.

The home has one more surprise in store in the basement: a huge space that encompasses what used to be the family’s party room, which boasted a floating hardwood floor, a stage and fireplace. The floor was removed several years ago to install a French drain, but the fireplace remains.

“The family would hold dance parties and talent shows using the stage in the lower-level reception room,” Nelson said. “There’s a photo showing them all dressed up in luau costumes. This space would make a wonderful media room today.”

After nearly a century of housing the same family, its walls are ready for someone else’s touch.

“This is an amazing house just waiting for the right owner to bring it sensitively back to life,” Nelson said.

New York Times, March 4 2010

Slowly, signs of confidence are returning to the region’s housing market. The latest Case-Shiller index data shows that Bay Area home prices in December were up 4.8 percent from 12 months earlier. Real estate agents report seeing multiple offers again, including on foreclosed properties, which made up 36.6 percent of all homes sold in the area in January, according to MDA DataQuick.

Redfin, the real estate company, reported that there was competition for 92 percent of the offers it presented last month on Bay Area listings priced under $500,000.

But there are at least three significant bumps on the road to recovery. And they could be coming to a neighborhood near you.

San Francisco Chronicle, January 3 2010

Photo: Leger Wanaselja Architecture

Maybe it’s the gate made entirely from silver Volvo station wagon doors. Or the doorway awnings, which, in a former life, were hatchbacks on Porsches and Mazdas. Or the white picket fence - it’s made out of green and white road signs, as are railings for the home’s stairs and its light fixtures.

If you’ve cruised the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Dwight Way in Berkeley, you’ve seen this home. It’s hard to miss. At a minimum, this nine-unit condo development is an attention-grabber.

These repurposed street signs and car parts were intended to add levity and intrigue to the home’s visual landscape. They also helped to add buzz. As soon as the project was completed in February 2004, curious residents and architectural critics alike wanted a peek.

More than 500 people turned up to the property’s first open house, according to Cate Leger, a principal at Berkeley architecture firm Leger Wanaselja, which designed and built the condos.

It turns out the eye-catching sustainable elements visible from the street are just the tip of the iceberg. These units are green to their core, featuring everything from passive solar power systems to recycled glass terrazzo kitchen counters. This becomes clear when one takes a tour of the now for sale second-floor condo at 2474 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, currently priced at $520,000.

Vu Nguyen became the unit’s second owner when he bought the two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in 2006. Nguyen visited 114 open houses before finding this home - he kept count using a database. But here, he was smitten.

“Nothing compares,” Nguyen said. “I was immediately drawn to the 10-foot ceilings, all the natural light and the loft-like feel of the place,” adding that he preferred the open feel of the lower floor, including the fact that the second bedroom and bathroom are located there, allowing for clear separation and privacy for his roommate.

Ironically, given the building’s impeccable green credentials, Nguyen’s first impressions did not relate to sustainability. But it didn’t take long for him to appreciate the home’s attention to eco-friendly details - most notably a $30 monthly heating bill. Nguyen was also impressed by the quality of the condo’s finishes, particularly the solid construction interior doors.

The condo features polished concrete floors, off-white plaster walls and cream carpeting on the stairs. The kitchen, with its counters, doors and sills handcrafted from salvaged wood and recycled glass, takes up a corner of the living area. The back bedroom/office has personality, featuring slanted half walls and a deep, angular bay window. The full bathroom boasts salvaged glass shelves.

A large skylight is positioned at the top of the two-tone wood and steel staircase and provides lots of natural light as well as natural ventilation. A good-size, low-maintenance deck with views of the East Bay hills and the bay leads off the master bedroom, which also has a full in-suite bathroom.

Nguyen, who is moving so he can accommodate his parents in a larger home, has grown to love some of the home’s finer details, such as the gently tapered, smooth wooden post in his main living and kitchen area, which was fashioned from a tree on the site, and a small alcove with a hefty shelf made of reclaimed wood.

The gated units were built on an infill site, requiring the remodeling of a turn-of-the-century corner store and the new construction of a mixed-use building next door.

Leger said she and Karl Wanaselja, her husband and partner at Leger Wanaselja, had noble ambitions when they designed the residences. Their goal was to use time-tested methods to minimize energy use and to rely heavily on salvaged, recycled and low-toxic finishes. A total of 3 1/2 tons of street signs were used inside and outside the buildings. “We are very proud of this project,” she said. “It’s a great example of green architecture.”

Other measures that contribute to reducing the condo’s environmental impact include the use of blown-in cellulose insulation (made from old telephone books and newspapers) instead of fiberglass, and substituting 50 percent of the cement in the concrete with fly ash (a byproduct of coal burning).

The building won a slew of awards and was featured in Dwell magazine, which quipped, “With its overtly green approach, it seems a perfect architectural summation of [Berkeley's] values.”

New York Times, December 11, 2009

Hardly a week goes by without another report encouraging us to live in more densely populated neighborhoods. But close-quarter living comes at a price: neighbors. Jean-Paul Sartre’s definition of hell was other people; in this area, with its share of outsize personalities, hell may be other people who happen to live nearby.

SLAP SHOT For the past two years Scott McNealy, chairman of Sun Microsystems and ice-hockey enthusiast, has transformed his Palo Alto estate’s sunken tennis court into a hockey rink, covered by an off-white dome. Residents across the way in Portola Valley were not too happy last year when what one described to the weekly Almanac newspaper as a “nuclear blast” and another called a “gigantic white whale” slouched into view.

Initially Mr. McNealy did not have a permit for the dome, but this year he was granted a 45-day trial permit if he agreed to mitigation measures. At issue: the dome’s reflective material and the need to screen the rink with a tall fence. Landscaping would be welcome, said Curtis Williams, the Palo Alto planning department’s director, who will review the temporary permit when it expires next week. Will it be a short hockey season?

HOME LAUNDERING Given its secluded location on top of a hilly street, the mansion built on 11 acres in 1991 at 100 Obertz Lane most likely has escaped the notice of most Novato residents. If they are aware of it, they may wish its associations were more salubrious.

The original owner of the 19,000-square-foot home, Michael Shipsey, was convicted on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud and theft from an employee pension fund, all linked to his diversion of loan proceeds from an unrelated project to build the Novato palace.

In 1998 Pavlo Lazarenko, the former Ukrainian prime minister, bought the nine-bedroom, nine-bathroom property for $6.675 million. Last month, he was sentenced to 97 months in prison and fined $9 million for his role in laundering $30 million in extorted funds, some of which he used to buy the house.

Should it appear on the market again, its grand ballroom and multiple swimming pools — not to mention its intriguing back story — will generate buzz.

ONE MAN’S TRASH It was decision time at San Mateo Superior Court this week. In fact, it was the latest in a long line of decisions in a case that has pitted Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, against neighbors and architectural preservationists who seek to prevent him from demolishing the 17,000-square-foot Woodside home he bought in 1984.

The Jackling House, built in 1926 for the copper baron Daniel Jackling, was designed by George Washington Smith, the founding father of the Spanish Colonial style. Since Mr. Jobs moved out, it has become neglected. The National Trust for Historic Preservationsupports relocating the home.

Lawsuits and appeals have been bandied back and forth for nine years. The court ruling this week was anticlimactic: the judge wants more documentation of the various claims.

New York Times, November 13 2009

If you live in the Bay Area, you hardly need reminding that you pay more for your home than most people. The region has the dubious honor of ranking No. 1 nationally in median home value, median monthly mortgage costs and median gross rent.

PRICE The median price paid for a Bay Area home is $365,000, compared with $177,900 nationally. That regional median price peaked at $665,000 in June 2007.

The Urban Land Institute’s new Bay Area Burden report offers more of the figures behind the general sense of being overstretched: almost 20 percent of all Bay Area homeowners spend more than half of their income on housing — far exceeding the national average of 12 percent.

On average, these households spend more than $28,000 annually on housing — about 39 percent of the area median income, the report said. Three-fifths of local residents live in communities unaffordable to households earning less than $80,000 a year.

SALES New sales figures show an increase in the area’s two biggest urban concentrations, at a time of year when one would expect a dip. The number of existing single family homes sold in San Jose in the month ended Oct. 15 was 764, up 12 percent from that period in 2008, according to MDA DataQuick. In San Francisco, there was an 18.5 percent jump with 282 sales.

Even in Oakland, where one expects less buoyancy, existing home sales slipped just 3.5 percent, to 276 from 286, according to DataQuick’s analysis.

Low interest rates as well as lower prices help explain the strong numbers.

In more hard-hit communities, government assistance has helped increase home sales, particularly among first-time buyers. Lending on about half of all homes bought in Martinez (51.2 percent), Brentwood (50.6 percent) and Antioch (50.3 percent) is insured by the Federal Housing Administration. In Oakley, it is 65 percent.

FORECLOSURES The foreclosure statistics tell another story, and the most notable trend is a discernible increase in the number of distressed homes at the higher end of the market. In San Francisco, where the median home price is $650,000 (compared with $365,000 for the Bay Area as a whole), there has been a significant rise in the number of default notices: 180 in the month ended Oct. 15, compared with 34 in the same period last year. Mountain View, Palo Alto and Danville have also had sharp rises in defaults.

A major cause is the resetting of “exotic” mortgages, those with low upfront interest rates. Plunging home values, and reduced availability of the jumbo mortgages, which make refinancing possible, have left many high-end homeowners facing significant monthly payment increases.