LOOKING FOR A HOME?

Looking for a Home? How About This Penthouse?

Real estate agent Gayla Mace can’t quite get over her latest listing, a 7,170-square-foot penthouse apartment in East Sac with two kitchens, two living rooms, six baths, five bedrooms (or maybe six; she’s not quite sure), eight balconies and views that go for miles. “There’s nothing like it,” says Mace, an agent with Lyon Real Estate who’s been in the business for 18 years. It is a most unusual property: It takes up the entire 10th floor of 4100 Folsom, a condo building that was constructed in the late 1960s to offer luxury city living in a residential neighborhood mostly composed of single-family homes.

The apartment was most recently occupied by Tom Raley, who founded the Raley’s grocery store chain. Decades ago, he scooped up four individual units and combined them into one massive, jawdropping, swanky urban palace. There are gleaming parquet wood floors, rococo light fixtures, gilded moldings, elaborately painted coffered ceilings and the like. There’s even an onyx toilet. The vibe is part over-the-top Vegas hotel lobby, part grand old-money San Francisco apartment.

The penthouse hit the market in early June. Priced at $2.8 million, or $390 per square foot, it’s a bargain compared to stately homes in the nearby Fabulous Forties, which currently go for $600–$700 a square foot. Mace is not sure who will end up buying it. “Probably a lawyer or a lobbyist,” she says. “Or maybe a doctor.” She admits the place could use a bit of updating, particularly the bathrooms and kitchens. But she thinks the buyer, whoever that may be, might want to keep the grand décor elements intact. “This is history,” she says. —MARYBETH BIZJAK