The Atherton, Calif., estate that Jerry Rice built for himself at the height of his San Francisco 49ers career is back on the market at $35 million β roughly four times what it fetched when the wide receiver sold it in 2013.
The six-bedroom house at 267 Atherton Ave. came up for sale in the second week of October under MLS number ML82064159, according to the listing. It is 12,520 square feet on 1.24 acres, built in 2001, with 11 bathrooms across three floors served by an elevator. At the asking price it works out to about $2,795 per square foot. Compass holds the listing through the Buljan Group.
The price history is the more interesting number. Rice first listed the house in 2007 for $22 million and could not get it, SFGATE reported; it eventually traded for $9 million in 2013, after an earlier deal fell through. SFGATE reported the buyers were philanthropists Peter and Susanna Pau.
A $9 million purchase now carrying a $35 million ask is, in one property, a reasonable proxy for what has happened to the far end of the Peninsula housing market over 13 years. Atherton sits on the mid-Peninsula next to Menlo Park, within easy reach of Sand Hill Road and the large tech campuses to the south. It is a town of large lots and almost no new supply, which is most of why a house there can quadruple in price without being rebuilt.
Whether the ask is achievable is a separate question, and the 2007 attempt is a useful reminder that trophy listings in this market have missed before. Prices at the top of the Bay Area have firmed recently: RealtyWire has reported that San Francisco home prices rose about 6% while Seattle’s fell 3.6%, a split that research attributed to the concentration of artificial-intelligence wealth in the Bay Area rather than to broader housing fundamentals. Atherton is the place that wealth tends to buy into once it is realized.
The house
The listing describes a French-influenced design with limestone floors and Venetian plastered walls, set in a Mediterranean-style garden, and a floor plan split between formal entertaining rooms and what the listing calls private spaces for hobbies β an Art Deco movie theater with tiered seating, a wine room, a recovery room and a home gym that, per the listing, still holds Rice’s original equipment. The kitchen was recently updated with Gaggenau appliances. Outside there is a pool and spa, an outdoor kitchen, a putting green, a guest house with its own kitchen and an underground seven-car garage.
Alex Buljan, the Compass agent on the listing, told SFGATE by email that it is “an incredible Atherton estate home that was built no-expense spared in the early 2000s.” He said privacy is among the strongest selling points: the house sits well back from the street at the end of a long driveway, surrounded by other estates.
Rice spent most of a 20-year NFL career with the 49ers and lived on the mid-Peninsula throughout it, famously running training workouts at Redwood City’s Edgewood Park. The house was completed in 2001.
Where it fits
Listings in this band move on their own logic. Supply is thin and the buyer pool is small, and on our reading a single closing at this level can reset a market’s comparable set for a year. RealtyWire covered a comparable test of that in Los Angeles this year, when a Beverly Hills mansion came to market at $45 million.
The broader luxury tier has been moving in the opposite direction from the trophy segment. RealtyWire reported that the entry point to the luxury market fell to $1.2 million in August, a 29th consecutive annual decline β a sign that the softness in high-end housing is concentrated well below the $35 million line, in the part of the market where mortgage rates still decide what sells. More trophy-property coverage is in RealtyWire’s luxury real estate section.
