The historic estate, originally built for the Fleishhacker family, features seven private residences, multiple pools, and gardens and has hosted notable events and figures over the years.
After six years of trying to find a buyer, the sprawling Green Gables estate in Woodside has finally sold -- setting a record for the Bay Area in the process.
A sale of lots tied to the estate closed on Wednesday for approximately $85 million, the San Francisco Business Times reported. It's a sharp drop from the 2019 list price of $117 million and 2021 price of $135 million, though it still marks the priciest sale in the Bay Area so far this year.
The storied Woodside compound has long been tied to the Fleishhacker family, built in the early 20th century by Anglo California Bank and Great Western Power Company founder Mortimer Fleishhacker. A group of Fleishhacker's family members opted to sell to prevent infighting over the estate. The off-market purchase was made by New York-based Pantheum LLC, incorporated in August 2023, according to the Business Times.
It might have traded hands for 30 percent less than its recent $125 million asking price but still far outdoes last year's most expensive home sale in the Bay Area. That deal involved the $71 million sale of 2840 Broadway in San Francisco's ritzy Pacific Heights neighborhood by Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
Still, the Green Gables sale doesn't come close to teaching the Bay Area's most expensive home sale in history. That title belongs to a 2012 off-market deal where SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son bought a 9-acre estate in Woodside at 360 Mountain Home Road for $117.5 million, per the Business Times.
The first home on Green Gables built for the Fleishhackers was a nearly 10,000-square-foot home calling to mind English thatch-roofed cottages. Over the subsequent decades, six other homes were built on the property. All seven residences are private and separated from each other.
The property features a Roman pool, a stone teahouse, three swimming pools, a fruit and vegetable garden, a tennis court and an artist's studio used by family matriarch Bella Gerstle Fleishhacker.
Irrigation for 90 percent of the estate's gardens is fed via a 50,000-square-foot, 20-foot-deep reservoir. The property also has the rights to the nearby Kings Mountain watershed, including an easement and deed to use up to 30 million gallons of water per year.
Over the years, the estate has welcomed diplomats, politicians and business leaders, including hosting the 20th anniversary celebration for the United Nations in 1965. It was also where former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes stayed during her infamous Bay Area trial in 2021.