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Just in time for spooky season, 152 4th Avenue has landed on the market and is entirely less macabre than the last time we checked in. From the outside, this five-tone painted lady is certainly a dear departure from the stripped down and whitewashed formula typical of house flips. Then there’s the interior, unrecognizable in the best of ways. It in fact has more traditional ornamentation now — new picture frame moulding and box beam ceiling included — than ever. Talk about a plot twist!
152 4th Avenue is open to the public during scheduled open houses and available to tour by appointment. Contact us today for additional information and to arrange a showing.
Honoring its early history and elevating the home to a newfound glory lays to rest, perhaps, a disturbing past. An SF Weekly article published June 2015 sheds light on the last family that lived there, and events leading up to the headline-grabbing discovery that year:
Built in 1904, this little house in the avenues not only withstood years of neglect but also the great earthquake and conflagration of 1906 that leveled the San Francisco of the Gold Rush and Barbary Coast. Archibald and Anna Mae Ragin bought the place on June 29, 1954, after securing a loan for just $7,500. If people still put down 20 percent back then, it means the home’s asking price was under $10,000. After Archibald died in 2000, Anna lived in the house with the couple’s daughter, Carolyn Ragin, a retired Pac Bell worker. The Ragins stopped paying their county property tax in 2006.
Some time after that, the neighbors stopped seeing Anna around the house. When Anna Mae died, Carolyn either didn’t notice or just couldn’t bear to let go. Carolyn continued living in the house with what was left of her mother as liens piled up for unpaid garbage bills and property taxes. Eventually, the County Assessor’s Office filed a notice to sell the property to claim $1,651.28 in back taxes. The home was foreclosed on. The city cleanup crews were summoned, whereupon they found a true house of horrors.
One neighbor described the scene:
A police officer outside the house told me they’d found rats, black widow spiders, 300 bottles of urine and mold on the walls and they felt they were in over their heads.
Most shocking of all, the remains of Anna — wrapped in a blanket — were found amongst the floor-to-ceiling hoard of trash. Over the course of five years since she died, conditions within the home were just right for the corpse to become mummified. And, so, the Mummy House moniker was born.
Shortly thereafter, 152 4th Avenue was purchased in a probate sale for $1,560,000. The buyer was one of San Francico’s most notorious private collectors of real estate (whom we shall not name). A permit was filed to remodel the home from top to bottom but it was never issued and no work was completed. The blighted and seemingly abandoned property received numerous neighbor complaints over the next few years, resulting in at least five separate written violation notices from the Department of Building Inspection.
Ownership changed again in 2021 when another local character acquired the home for $1,825,000 in an off-market deal. To the relief of everyone who cares about tenant rights, this reported serial evictor (again, we shall not name) had nobody to boot this time around — except a ghost or two, perhaps. The photos above show the property’s condition at this time. Within months, transformation of the major fixer-upper into a spectacular 5-bedroom and 4.5-bath home had begun.
Let’s take a look at the new designer digs.
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› Grand living room with gas fireplace
› Spacious open kitchen with central island, Italian marble countertop, and breakfast nook
› Dining and den area with wet bar
› Top-floor primary suite with terrace, walk-in closet, and spa-like bath
› Media room with wet bar
› Wide-plank oak floors throughout
› Multi-zone radiant floor heating and Google Nest thermostats
› Designer lighting and wallpaper
› Integrated home audio speakers
› Rear yard with drought-tolerant landscaping, irrigation, lighting and patio
› New plumbing, electrical, insulation, roof, windows, sprinkler system and foundation
› 1-car garage parking with EV charging capability
If a full-price $4,950,000 offer is received and accepted, this “classic-meets-contemporary gem” will go down as one of the year’s most expensive single-family sales in San Francisco’s coveted Lake Street neighborhood.
