San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Moving On

SELLER: Gavin Newsom
LOCATION: Green Street, San Francisco, CA
PRICE : $2,995,000
SIZE: 1,693 square feet, 1 bedroom and 1.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: This 1-of-a-kind Russian Hill Penthouse is located in a prestigious full service doorman building, Bellaire Tower, an amazing Art Deco style building designed by noted architect BAUMANN, H.C. This residence was completely remodeled & stripped to the studs & designed by Michael Agins & Assoc. Interior Design firm in SF. This spectacular residence offers the best landmark Vus SF has to offer including 3 Bridges & water VUS from all rms. In unit lry, wired for surround sound, strge, pkg & rf dk.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: All morning long we've been receiving email after email after email from real estate obsessed San Franciscans directing Your Mama to a myriad of reports that reveal the fetching and slick haired mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom recently plunked his Russian Hill penthouse on the market with an asking price of $2,995,000.

The smooth talking and socially progressive Mister Newsom became a political super star in 2004 when he took the controversial step of allowing marriage licenses to be issued for gay guys and lesbian ladees. We all know what's become of that. Can the children say Proposition 8? However, he of the glittering and perfect chompers recently tossed his hot potato carrying hat into the ring to become the next governor of California. Lefty liberal Mister Newsom sitting up in the governer's chair in Sacramento is a scenario that no doubt scares the beejeezis out of homophobes all up and down the great Golden State who imagine that if homos and lezzies are allowed to get married the institution of marriage would somehow be compromised. Pleeze. That is just stoopid. Married heterosexual people seem to do a fine job of screwing up their marriages without any help from the gays and lesbians. None the less, we are not here to get all frothed up on our soap box so let's just move on to the real estate. (And p.s., homosexual bashing comments will be removed so spare yourself the effort.)

A peep into the records on Property Shark shows the entrepreneurial Mister Newsom snatched up his 1,693 square foot unit in February of 2006 when he paid family friend Peter Getty–brother of Mister Newsom's former bizness benefactor and boozum buddy Billy Getty–$2,350,000 for the 1 bedroom and 1.5 bathroom Green Street aerie.

The Newsom nest is located on the 20th floor of the beautiful Bellaire Tower, an Art Deco extravaganza built in 1930 and has wrap around views that stretch from the gorgeous Golden Gate Bridge, across to Marin County, over downtown and the TransAmerica Pyramid and all the way down to the hard working Bay Bridge.

An ride up the elegant elevator leads to the front door which opens to an entrance hall and an adjacent powder pooper for guests. The apartment pivots around a sizable central living room which has a wood burning fireplace, arched windows that frame the views and a brown and beige day-core done by a nice gay and local decorator named Michael Algin that is part Jonathan Adler and part Rose Tarlow. Okay, truth be told, we don't actually know if he's gay so lay off.

Anyhoo, to the left of the living room is a media room with more brown and white day-core, a dee-voonly cozy looking chocolate brown velvet sofa, and a giant flat screen tee-vee for catching up on all the reality programs Your Mama would bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly are one of Mister Newsom's many guilty pleasures. Behind the media room is a slightly too narrow dining room with Palladian windows, dark chocolate brown walls and a huge abstract painting that is, quite frankly, to much of the same brown and white color as the rest of the room (and apartment). Like in the living room, where an orange color field painting has been hung above the fireplace, it is our humble and meaningless opinion that something more colorful would really help the dining room from looking, well, a little bit dead. Plus we don't like the lack of a chandelier in here. We assume a pendant fixture was nixed in order to keep sight lines of the big views clutter free, but we really like a chandelier in the dining room.

The gore-may kitchen is bathed in Calcutta marble counter tops atop white cabinets, brown paint, and includes an expensive suite of stainless steel appliances including Viking brand range and microwave, SubZero refrigerator/freezer and a Marvel wine cooler and beverage refrigerator. The trio of arched niches for displaying stemware and booze are far too decoratively gimmicky for our personal taste. According to the floor plan, a door leads to the service hallway and a large pantry and laundry room is tucked away off the kitchen.

On the right side of the living room is a beige library/den with both arched and Palladian style windows, another velvet sofa and a collection of books that all appear to have similar bindings which makes them really more about impressing guests than about reading. Beyond the library is the brown and beige bedroom which offers a giant walk in closet with marble counters, custom built-in, drawers, wall mirror and laundry hamper. The bathroom is painted a pewtery sort of beige with grey veined marble on the floor, half way up the walls, on the counter top and in the steam shower where we can imagine Mister Newsom sweats out the toxins from City Hall.

By any estimation, nearly three million clams for a 1 bedroom apartment in San Francisco is a screaming amount of money. However, listings in the very desirable 65-unit Bellaire Tower are exceedingly rare which, of course, tends to keep prices through the roof even in a lackluster economy. The people at Property Shark show that between February of 2006 and June of 2008 not a single apartment transferred ownership and since 2000 and in fact only 10 units have changed hands since July of 2000. Monthly maintenance charges are $1,414.73 and all that moolah pays for the water and garbage services, the 24-hour doorman, building insurance, earthquake insurance, steam heating, storage, care of the common areas including the roof garden and valet parking, because who wants to park their own damn car if they don't have to?

Given that Mister Newsom and his ack-turuss wifey Jennifer Siebel Newsom are with baby, we imagine their next residence will be a bit more family friendly, no less impressive and, we hope, less brown and beige than their soon to be ex-penthouse.