Amazing Home of the Year? - Page 2

Still, the property has much to offer, as the doctor invested $1 million in upgrades in the late ‘90s. Besides the spacious home, there is a swimming pool, a water tower, a bomb shelter, and a 1,500-square-foot guest residence currently rented out on the top floor of the barn. The kitchen in the main house boasts custom Italian cabinets, and the two master baths have bathtub jets and radiant-heated floors.

Additionally, there are spectacular panoramic views from the parcel's higher elevations, stretching south from Mount Tamalpais and the bridges down to the South Bay.

"Someone can get in there and make more improvements based on the technology we have now," Thomas predicted. The realtor declined to predict, however, if owners would ever be permitted by local government to subdivide and develop more of the parcel in easternmost Richmond.

"We're surrounded by Wildcat Canyon," he noted of regional parkland that borders the parcel on three sides. (East Bay Regional Park District has owned the land since 1936 as part of a park that now covers 2,789 acres.) Addressing prospective developers, the realtor said, "Whoever's interested [in subdividing], they need to talk to the county."

Even without that possibility, though, Thomas said a large, gorgeous home on this big a parcel is a bargain at just under $4.1 million. He noted there are few if any currently available properties this big and this close to the Bay, with the only ‘comps' being further inland. That's one of the reasons he is advertising the listing in the Wall Street Journal.

"Based on the comparables, it should be selling for $5 [million]," he commented, adding that the only ones he could find were in easternmost Contra Costa County. Furthermore, he added, "They were less [land] than this, and they were asking $5 million."

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