Classic San Francisco Queen Anne hits market for first time in 20 years

Classic San Francisco Queen Anne hits market for first time in 20 years

San Francisco mansions don't get much more classic than this 1889 Queen Anne Victorian.

It's so classic that it's been used in Pottery Barn and Design Within Reach catalogs, according to the listing. And Hollywood's all-American couple Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid bought it as newlyweds in 1991; their son, Jack, was born nine months later. (They divorced in 2000.)

Ryan and Quaid were the last owners to sell the house. The person who bought it from them in 1995 died recently, making it available for the first time in nearly 20 years. "Our city is very unique in that old properties don't trade very often," listing agent Malin Giddings told Zillow Blog, from which Yahoo Homes first learned of the listing.

An art-glass skylight, one of the home's eccentricities, juts into the top floor.
An art-glass skylight, one of the home's eccentricities, juts into the top floor.

The mansion and its neighbor, 2602 and 2604 Pacific Ave., were both designed by Samuel Newsom. Along with brother Joseph Cather, architect Newsom "designed some of Northern California's most extravagant Queen Anne houses, complete with towers and witches caps, gables, bays, shingles of every shape, and filigree of every description," wrote David Weinstein in the San Francisco Chronicle. They were also responsible for the Carson Mansion in Eureka, California, "decried for its 'sham substantiality and artistic confusion' and praised as probably 'the finest surviving example of Victorian architecture in America' - - by the same architectural historian."

Period details adorn 2602 Pacific from end to end. The exterior is frosted with curlicues, bay windows billows from the second floor toward the street, and wrought-iron quatrefoil greets visitors at the glass entry doors. There's even a glassed-in turret.

The home is listed at $8,995,000. Click here or on a photo to go to a slideshow with many more photos, plus floor plans.