Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Tom Perkins Lives the Luxe Life on Belvedere Island

SELLER: Tom Perkins
LOCATION: Golden Gate Avenue
PRICE: $20,500,000
SIZE: 7,535 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms (as per assessor)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Today we're going to spread our celebrity real estate wings a little bit and discuss Bay Area bizness tycoon Tom Perkins, a filthy rich financier who recently put his big house in the super swank San Francisco suburb of Belvedere Island on the market with an asking price of $20,500,000.

For those not familiar with Mister Perkins let Your Mama give you the Reader's Digest version of his rather extensive and impressive rezoomay. After helping to steer Hewlett Packard into the personal computer bizness in the 1960s, Mister Perkins went on to make mountains of money as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who provided start up cash for companies such as AOL, Amazon.com, Netscape and Google. Some of the more quirky elements of his life story include being convicted of involuntary manslaugher in France due to a death that occurred in a yacht racing accident and his brief marriage to ridiculously prolific romance novelist Danielle Steel who may have inspired him to write his own tawdry novel in 2006 called, not surprisingly, Sex and the Single Zillionaire.

Mister Perkins also spent a rumored and reported $100,000,000+ to build Maltese Falcon, the largest privately owned sailing yacht on the planet that includes a staggering 11,000 square feet of interior space and requires a crew of at least twenty. However, only two short years after dropping the luxe and lavish boat into the water he has put the 289-foot feat of oceanic engineering up for sale at a figure some yacht brokers are whispering is somewhere around $150,000,000€, a grotesquely large number that Your Mama's bejeweled abacus tells us converts to $187,360,500 at today's rates. Nothing like having a little pocket change to indulge one's hobbies.

Anyhoo, we're not here to blather on about a boat but rather to wag our tongue at obscenely expensive real estate. Not only is Mister Perkin divesting himself of his big boat (so that he can get into sports submarines, whatever that is), he is also looking to unload his spectacular mansion on Belvedere Island with it's crazy intricate paneling and enviable views across the San Francisco Bay and towards the gorgeous Golden Gate Bridge.

Located on the choicest section of Belvedere Island's Golden Gate Avenue and just down the block from mining mogul Robert Friedland's $65,000,000 residential extravaganza, property records show Mister Perkins' palatial digs measure in at 7,535 square feet and include 7 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms. A closer look-see at listing information reveals that the bedroom breakdown is more complicated than it sounds. The main floor includes a good sized guest suite and private pooper, the second floor has two wings, one for the master suite with its dual bathrooms and commodious closet space and the other for three family bedrooms, two bathrooms and laundry facilities. The lower floor features the sixth bedroom and attached terlit and has been designated as a "maid's quarters," while a "chef's apartment" rides astride the three car garage.

Although the day-core is not our cup of tea, we find the living and dining rooms to be elegant in the way that only the houses of the very rich can be and we're absolutely breathless over the manly looking library with its hidden wet bar and we're faint with glee over the dee-voonly detailed linenfold paneling and intricately carved mantel in the living room. These rooms reveal the subtle hands of a skilled tradesman and the very expensive vision of a deft decorator, nice, gay or otherwise. However, what in heaven's name happened in the study with its upsetting cacophony of visually vexatious fabrics? And do not even get Your Mama started on that bedroom with its rose colored carpeting and disturbing balloon curtains surrounding the four poster bed. Lawhd have mercy children, that room has us pouring an early morning gin and tonic to get through to the next hour.

Other rooms and amenities on the meticulously renovated and maintained main floor, according to listing information, include a temperature controlled greenhouse (for the orchid lovers, natch), a powder room, and a kitchen with attached butler's pantry and laundry room. The lower floor features a large entertainment room, a second full kitchen, full service wet bar for all the boozy types to sidle up to, a temperature controlled wine cellar (almost all rich people require wine cellars nowadays), and access to the stone terrace which leads down the hillside to the swimming pool and pool house, a real rarity in this neck of the woods due to the damp and chilly climate. The almost one acre grounds include rose gardens, level lawns for drunken games of croquet, stone paths meandering up and down the sloping lot, flowers, vegetable gardens and fruit trees. A damn Garden of Eden, children.

Additional features that will please and impress potential buyers is the alarm system, the fire hoses designated for each of the three floors and the two safes, because let's be honest children, when your pockets are deep enough to fork over twenty million clams for a house, one safe is simply not enough to stash and secure the family jewels. Okaaay?

17 comments:

TwentyFiveFifty said...

My dad grew up down the street. It's a rather nice area. Amazing views.

The balloon things scare me though.

Anonymous said...

I agree Mama. The decorating is not my cup of tea either, however most of the rooms seem to be very tasteful, not to mention that one room of furniture probably costs more than my Mercedes. But that bedroom. I don't think I'll ever be the same. My eyes are bleeding. Jeezis! Speechless is all I can say. I'd be afraid I'd get tangled up in that mess everytime I snuck to the kitchen for a midnight snack. Just aweful.
I am going to join you and go and have a liquid lunch. Something to numb my senses.

Anonymous said...

Mama

Rumour is that Tom's a bit short on cash so divesting heavily, with more to come.

-Your Presidio Heights Princess

Anonymous said...

Carved linenfold panels are one of the great delights of interior design when placed in the right room. Having them layer upon layer is nothing short of ostentatious.............like having row over row of Rothkos. We know he has the bucks or he wouldn't live here...........but a good eye......that is something else entirely.

Anonymous said...

Yikes!....is that a plastic light switch cut into the panel to the right of the door? I rest my case.

Anonymous said...

The bed made me laugh out loud. It's as if four giant chintz jellyfish are ready to pounce on the poor person who has to sleep in it.

Anonymous said...

Dolly you are right. The bed makes me want to have placenta for dinner.

Anonymous said...

Good bones to bad you are going to have to use a gondola to get to it in a few years.

Anonymous said...

All this screams out why we need a 90% tax on all income over one million and a 85% capital gains tax. Obscene extravaganzas like this would disappear, thank heaven.

Anonymous said...

things were going just fine until i saw the bottom two pictures - awful. and if the cost is largely a function of the location and view, why no pics of the exterior? i can kind of see the bridge through the window, but i would think they would want to highlight that a bit...

Mike Cook said...

Mr. Perkins, please return my grandmother's living room.

Anonymous said...

And here I thought a prom dress generally ended up on the FLOOR of the bedroom. The two bottom photos aside, its a gorgeous place. What exactly are we looking at on those great room walls? I cant make out what composes the inner panels? anyone?

Anonymous said...

I should have read closer...I see the answer now. Ive battled a blasted kidney stone all week, and the diet of caffeine, codine, and nicotine that Ive kept myself on has clouded my reading abilities.

Anonymous said...

Unrelated to real estate or this property, but Mr Perkins has sold a 50% stake in the Maltese Falcon to an "unnamed investor" and has removed the boat from the market. I guess using the boat 50% of the time is better than not at all.

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed seeing this house. I agree about the unfortunate bedroom and study. The bedroom looks like a decor request from a girl. My friends' daughters often request fussy looks (any granddaughters visiting him often?). Really Odd, though, that this particular bedroom was selected to be featured.

The dining room appears a tad bland to me. With so much going on in the living room, I guess it had to be understated. The pleated linen panels are amazing. Can anyone briefly explain how this is achieved? It is fabulous.

Thanks, Mama. I hope you are settling in nicely after the stress of moving.

Esslingvier

Anonymous said...

See? All that money can't buy taste. I mean, technically, Mr. Perkins could have hired someone with taste, but alas, the decorator he chose-- well, the bedroom speaks for itself.

Anonymous said...

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