Perhaps the most striking aspect of the luxurious penthouse at 631 O’Farrell Street is the glass-enclosed solarium that offers sweeping views of the city, including the top of the Golden Gate Bridge.
But let your eyes drift downward from the horizon at the 3,500-square-feet residence in The Hamilton, and a dramatically different scene unfolds. The unit is in the heart of the Tenderloin, notorious for substandard street conditions and poverty. But despite this, the condo, which was listed for sale at $3.25 million, took less than a month to get an offer. It went under contract last week, according to listing agents at Vanguard.
The asking price is a reduction from the $3.56 million the unit last sold for, in 2018. The contract price was not disclosed.
Vanguard’s Massimo LoPorto admits that the neighborhood is “grimy and a little bit rough.” But that didn’t slow a parade of prospective buyers — tech workers, interior designers, and an artist, among others — who seemed unbothered by the street conditions. Some live nearby in luxe apartments on Market Street, so they are acquainted with the area.
“Most people who have come to see it are familiar with the neighborhood, so it wasn’t a big turnoff,” LoPorto said. “I tell people that it’s not necessarily unsafe, and you’re close to a lot of really great things: theater, shopping, museums.”
The three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom unit has a library, two wood-burning fireplaces, floor-to-ceiling windows, and two soaking tubs with expansive views.
Built as a hotel in the 1930s, The Hamilton catered to actors and opera singers because of its proximity to the arts district, according to its HOA website. For its Art Deco style and lavish amenities, it became known as the “dame of O’Farrell Street” before being converted to a condo building in the 1960s.
The penthouse was the brainchild of a “wealthy heiress” named Marcia McDonald who wished to create her “fantasy apartment” by combining four top-floor units, according to the HOA site. She failed to finish the renovation before her death, though it was completed several years later “according to her original vision.”
It usually takes three days for Vanguard to stage a property of a similar size, but the penthouse took two weeks, in part because of the challenge of getting furniture through the building’s narrow hallways, according to LaPorto. The effect, however, is “amazing,” he said, gesturing to the unit’s ornate details and high ceilings.
While public drug dealing (and use) are not uncommon sights on the street, the neighborhood seems to have improved in recent months, business owners say.
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“It’s always up and down and up and down,” said Don Chunn, who owns a tiny odds-and-ends shop called Love Connection near The Hamilton. “But now it seems to be coming back up.”
Still, the new owners of the penthouse are “comfortable living in an urban environment,” LoPorto said. “There’s no changing the Tenderloin. It is what it is.”