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- A Russian Hill full-floor penthouse with wraparound terraces is listed near $20 million.
- Billy Getty commissioned the mid-1990s project combining two penthouses.
- The home has 2 bedrooms, 4 baths, and 360-degree views over 6,000 sq. ft.
Once owned by an heir to the Getty oil fortune, a full-floor penthouse atop San Francisco’s Russian Hill with wraparound terraces and views stretching from the Golden Gate Bridge to the downtown skyline is on the market for nearly $20 million.
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The residence began as two separate penthouses, but in the mid-1990s they were combined into one home in a project commissioned by investor businessman Billy Getty, according to Christie’s International Real Estate.
Getty worked with designers Craig Leavitt and Stephen Weaver, the creative team associated with the PlumpJack restaurants and hotels. Getty was an early investor in PlumpJack, founded in 1992 by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The residence at 1750 Taylor St., known as Royal Towers, includes two bedrooms and four bathrooms across more than 6,000 square feet. It is being offered for the first time in more than 25 years, according to the listing.
The home occupies the entire top floor of the high-rise, where more than 2,000 square feet of terraces encircle the residence. Floor-to-ceiling windows look toward the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island, with views extending across the Bay Bridge, Salesforce Tower, Twin Peaks, Golden Gate Park and, on clear days, the Pacific Ocean.
The elevator opens directly into the penthouse foyer. From there, the floor plan unfolds without the interruptions of a typical apartment layout, allowing residents to walk around the perimeter and take in the city from nearly every direction.
The work to combine the two units created an interior that remains unusually distinctive. Hand-poured slab floors, mohair-covered walls, retractable fiberglass Shoji screens and custom olive burl furnishings are paired with stainless steel, aluminum and 24-karat gold leaf. The foyer’s ceiling rises to 18 feet, adding to the sense of scale as guests enter the home.
Some of the more unusual details are found in the bathrooms. Nine-foot stainless-steel screens, originally designed to keep fish from swimming into dams, were reshaped into curved, airfoil-like vanity doors. Similar mesh was used around a gleaming vanity surround.
A system of fixed and sliding fiberglass screens follows an S-shaped path through the interior. The screens can divide the open floor plan into more intimate spaces or retract to restore the expansive layout, making the home adaptable for everyday living or large-scale entertaining.
The design was intended to preserve a continuous connection between the rooms and the views. The glass perimeter brings daylight deep into the residence, while the terraces provide outdoor space on all sides of the home — a rare feature in a city where developable land and height are tightly constrained.
“Most homes ask buyers to choose between views, privacy, outdoor space, and scale,” Jenn Davis of Christie’s International Real Estate Sereno said in an email to The Sacramento Bee. “This residence offers all four in a way that is exceptionally rare, even at the highest end of the San Francisco market.”
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Kristin Cashin, also with Christie’s International Real Estate Sereno, said the property’s height and configuration are central to its value. Later height restrictions changed what could be built on Russian Hill, she said, making it difficult to duplicate the combination of elevation, a full-floor footprint and wraparound outdoor space.
“It’s been held in legacy family ownership for more than 25 years,” Cashin said. “Properties like this don’t come to market every few years; sometimes you wait a generation.”
When Getty owned the penthouse, it became part of San Francisco’s design and social scene, according to a Christie’s representative. News reports at the time said Getty sold the penthouse in 1998 for $15 million, then reported as the city’s most expensive residential sale.
Charlton Buckley, who sold a string of radio stations, bought the penthouse at that time, according to the Los Angeles Times. The property remains in the family today via an LLC, Mansion Global reported.
The current seller has retained much of the original design while presenting the penthouse as a potential canvas for renovation, according to the Christie’s representative.
Davis described the residence as both a significant piece of San Francisco design history and an opportunity for a buyer to reinterpret it. The scale may not match that of a traditional Pacific Heights mansion, she said, but the home offers a different form of luxury: full-floor privacy, extensive outdoor space, panoramic views and the convenience of apartment living.
That convenience is supported by Royal Towers, a full-service cooperative building constructed in the early 1960s. The recently renovated property has a 24-hour attended lobby, on-site management and staff, a state-of-the-art fitness center, an expansive entertaining lounge and a glass-enclosed heated pool with a retractable roof.
Two private, key-secured elevators open directly into the penthouse foyer. The arrangement gives the residence the privacy of a standalone home while retaining the security and maintenance services of a managed building.
“What makes this residence extraordinary is that no single view defines it,” Davis said. “The penthouse is both an important piece of San Francisco design history and an extraordinary opportunity for its next owner to reimagine it for a new era.”
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