Ellen Ruby Blog's: Wild 1980s Time Capsule With 3-Story Chandelier Asking $15M

Wednesday 7 July 2021

Wild 1980s Time Capsule With 3-Story Chandelier Asking $15M

A three-story blue chandelier is just one of the jaw-dropping features of a huge home that is essentially a 1980s time capsule. Measuring a whopping 23,860 square feet, the rad residence on El Granada Boulevard, in El Granada, CA, is listed for $15 million.

Exterior of home in El Granada, CA
Curt Walton

“The home was built by a contractor developer beginning in 1982, and it was completed in 1984, and it reportedly took 100 men two full years to build it,” says the listing agent, Patrick Ryan. “The materials at the time were just the best quality.”

Kitchen with coordinating hood and carpet designs
Curt Walton

Not much has changed inside the home since then.

Most of the wood in the house is purpleheart wood from South America, which has a slight shine and purple tint.

“It’s throughout the house and is just exquisite. It looks like it was just put in yesterday,” Ryan says.

The vivid carpets are certainly a blast from the past, with most of the main living areas done in raspberry red. Bedrooms and bathrooms are also carpeted in bold hues.

“The carpets are original, and I’m assuming that someone is going to replace all of that and update the home,” Ryan says. “It’s pretty shocking. It’s red carpet.”

Even the kitchen comes with carpet, in a pattern that coordinates with the wood cabinetry and a large, round, painted hood.

“There’s also a little water feature in the kitchen, and there are two aisles and then the center. On both sides of the center are ovens and stoves, so lots of cooking can go on there,” Ryan says.

The kitchen has big pantries, ans well as two meat lockers.

“One is a freezer. One is a cooler where carcasses can be delivered and hung up and then frozen—or cured and butchered right there,” Ryan says.

There are nine bedrooms and more than 11 bathrooms. Several of the bathrooms have large sunken square tubs surrounded by, yes, carpet.

The master bathroom includes two sinks on a center island, with plenty of carpet and patterned walls, and the attached main floor primary suite virtually constitutes a wing.

“The developer also ran his office from there, so there’s a boardroom, a regular office, and then the primary suite is off the back. The middle is living room space, and then the atrium,” he says.

What really stands out in the house is the chandelier.

“On the first walk-in level, it appears that the house is actually a single story, but it’s not. It drops down, and it’s three stories, with an open atrium between all three stories,” Ryan explains.

He says the chandelier was made locally and hangs from the ceiling all the way down almost to the pool below it on the lower level.

That’s right. The pool is indoors, with an aquatic design.

“The pool is in the shape of a fish. The main body is the main swimming pool, the tail and the head are two separate Jacuzzi tubs,” Ryan says.

The lower level has custom lighting for the recreation areas, as well as a theater area, game room, sauna, and gym.

An open, glass elevator connects all the floors near the chandelier.

The location, south of San Francisco, is certainly a selling point. The building sits on more than 20 acres of land, with 180-degree views of the Pacific Ocean from multiple decks. There’s also a helipad, perfect for beating the traffic in the Bay Area.

Inside, the dining table takes advantage of the views from the large windows.

“It’s circular, and it was built to slowly travel around, so that every guest has a view of the ocean and the harbor. It still works,” Ryan explains.

Although the property has functioned as a single-family residence, its zoning would allow it to be converted to another purpose.

“It could be used as a corporate retreat, a bed-and-breakfast, a treatment center, or spiritual retreat,” Ryan suggests. “There are eight en suite rooms on the second level, as well as a large semicircular area that goes around the atrium, a family room area.”

Ryan says that the property has so many eye-catching elements it almost looks like a hotel.

The chandelier in the entryway is really the first thing you see, he notes, and it’s the kind of feature you might find in a five-star hotel.

“And here it is in a residence,” he says. “So, yeah, it’s unique, for sure.”