Sam Altman already had the Russian Hill mansion with the “Batcave” tunnel and leaky infinity pool. Now he owns everything around it as well.
Last month, the billionaire closed on a deal for three properties adjacent to his San Francisco residence on Lombard, about a block from the street’s famously squiggly section.
Acting through an affiliate managed by his cousin Jennifer Serralta, the OpenAI boss purchased a five-and-a-half-bath home at 855 Chestnut and adjoining lots at 952 and 954 Lombard from the estate of a recently deceased San Francisco couple who had bought the “garden estate” (because of its fenced-in park-like quality) for $4 million in 1994.
Property records indicate a sale price of $14 million for all three properties. However, a source familiar with the deal tagged the price recorded by the MLS real estate database at around $38 million. The transaction was first reported by The Real Deal.
Altman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
He’s not the first tech mogul to amass property in the middle of San Francisco. Mark Zuckerberg in 2012 famously purchased a $10 million home near Dolores Park in the Mission and spent millions on upgrades and renovations, then sold the house for $31 million in 2022. The Meta CEO also owns a 10-acre compound on the western shore of Lake Tahoe and a sprawling $100 million complex on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
Altman bought his home at 950 Lombard St. for $27 million in March 2020; at the time, it was the most expensive residential listing in the city. Over the following year, entities tied to Altman spent $43 million for property on Hawaii’s Big Island and $15.7 million on a working ranch in Napa.
But the San Francisco residence has been a thorn in his side. After Altman closed on the home, he found several construction defects and subsequently sued a developer for misleading him during the sale process.
The lawsuit claimed that repair costs to the property exceeded $4 million. A permit filed with the city in February 2024 lists a $250,000 cost for exploratory demolition work related to a leak.
Meanwhile, since publicly releasing ChatGPT in 2022, OpenAI has been on a commercial leasing spree in Mission Bay, subleasing half of Uber’s headquarters in 2023 and the former Old Navy headquarters last year.
This week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Altman’s cryptocurrency startup World is close to leasing 60,000 square feet at a new building in Mission Rock close to OpenAI’s growing corporate campus.