Who bought this $56 million mansion in Pac Heights

We love a juicy real estate story here in San Francisco, don’t we? Here’s one, via the Chron:

The house, built in 1921, is at 2898 Vallejo Street. Coincidentally, I used to live on Vallejo Street, but not this part of Vallejo Street, I lived on the grimy, North Beach-y part of Vallejo Street, in a one-bedrooom apartment that I paid $1260 a month for and stole cable from the neighbor and the living room window had a panoramic view of downtown like a movie set. I used to watch the lights on top of the Transamerica Pyramid go around and around. But that’s not part of this story.

From the invaluable Socketsite, we learn that “Frank and Frances Alioto purchased the 9,500 square foot Pacific Heights house at 2898 Vallejo Street in 1973 for $225,000 following its use in the filming of The Towering Inferno, serving as the mansion for Richard Chamberlain’s character Roger Simmons, the cheapskate electrical engineer who cut corners and was to blame for the tower’s fire.”

Lot to unpack here! First of all, $225,000, adjusted for inflation, would be about $1.6 million today, not $56 million. $1.6 million today is this 2-bed, 2-bath condo on Guerrero, which is nice, but is definitely not a $56 million mansion in Pac Heights:

Anyway, the Alioto name has a long and storied history in San Francisco, as you may know. The family operated a number of successful seafood-related businesses at Fisherman’s Wharf and Frank and Frances’ estate sold the house after Frances’ death in 2012. It sold for $11.7 million in 2013, which is a nice profit!

Second, the Towering Inferno was set in SF! If you don’t recall, it was one of a stretch of 70’s disaster flicks in which people were trapped in a rapidly decaying structure and had to save themselves. There was a ship one, too - oh yeah, The Poseidon Adventure! The movie was largely shot in LA, of course, but apparently a few scenes were shot at 2898. Here are a couple of stills from the “Historic Film Locations” Facebook page:

It was most recently owned by Daniel Alegre, a former Google exec and chief executive of TelevisaUnivision. If he’s the one who bought it for 11 mil, he’s making a tidy $45 million profit! Not bad for 13 years.

Now, on to the buyer. Who plunked down $56 million for a place with no corner stores in walking distance? The Chron article says it was purchased by the mysterious “Granola Properties LLC.” Hmmm. Their SEC filing lists an address:

Guess who else shares an address and suite number with Granola Properties LLC?
“Iconiq Capital LLC,” which “primarily serves ultra-high-net-worth clients working in technology, high finance, and entertainment. The firm operates in-house venture capital, growth equity, and charitable giving funds for its clients.” Ahhh I see, it’s a front for rich people. Despite having an annoyingly spelled name, they’re important enough to have a Wikipedia entry.

So what we can divine is that an “ultra-high-net-worth clients working in technology, high finance, and entertainment” paid Hypnotiq or Iconiq or whatever to set up a shell company to buy the house so he or she could stay anonymous! Not very neighborly in case you have to stop by 2878 Vallejo next door for a cup of sugar or $10 million in Meta stock or something.

Helpfully, Wiki has a partial client list we can peruse! So we’re looking for (1) someone who conceptually would want to live in San Francisco, (2) in a huge fucking house, (3) that you can’t walk to anything easily from, (4) who likes granola. Let’s take a look:

OK so basically all the heavy hitters in tech. Dorsey probably likes granola, but doesn’t he already have a fat pad in Seacliff? Oh, hang on: “Chamath Palihapitiya has featured Granola, an app designed to organize meetings with AI, in his newsletter. The app is described as one that might make users enjoy meetings, and it is gaining traction in Silicon Valley.” So there’s a possibility!

I don’t know. Any one of these rich fucks could be it, or someone who’s not on the list. I miss when sugar barons or railroad tycoons got the big mansions in Pac Heights, not these losers. Anyway, enjoy your house.