This Sprawling $88 Million Silicon Valley Estate Was Inspired by Lake Como
Venture capital investor Ted Kruttschnitt and his wife, Alexia, spent nearly a decade planning and building their 12.5-acre estate in the unincorporated California town of Hillsborough, about 17 miles south of San Francisco, in the Bay Area’s Silicon Valley, where Randolph Hearst, Bing Crosby, and Elon Musk all once maintained grand residences.
The philanthropic couple were quite specific in their likes and dislikes and, according to the Wall Street Journal, supplied their architect, Andrew Skurman of Skurman Architects , with a 15-page list of features they would like and another six pages of things they would not like.
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The result, completed in 2010, was inspired by the aristocratic gardens of Italy’s Lake Como as well as the work of George Washington Smith, an early 20 th -century American architect known for his Spanish Colonial Revival homes. Dubbed Villa de Verano (Summer House), the estate is anchored by a 17,000-square-foot mansion with a hilltop placement that provides views of Mt. Diablo and the San Francisco Bay.
Beyond the tree-lined driveway that winds up from the gated entrance and the cypress trees that flank the front door, the 17,000-square-foot home, decorated by esteemed designer Suzanne Tucker of Tucker & Marks Design, features public rooms scaled for gracious entertaining along with more intimate family spaces that include a spacious kitchen under a coffered wood ceiling, a sunny breakfast nook, and a cozy fireside den that spills onto a balustraded terrace.
Other customized highlights include six bedrooms and seven bathrooms (plus another 10 powder rooms), a 2,100-gallon saltwater aquarium, a fitness center and spa, a home theater with fabric-lined walls and a tented ceiling, and a game room with a professional wet bar and direct access to the swimming pool.
The rolling property, linked by meandering paths that wind through a redwood grove and pass under a bridge, includes an two-story guesthouse, an executive-length golf course, a 150-seat amphitheater, and a huge lawn for staging events. There are soaring loggias with sweeping views, an Asian garden with a koi pond, and, on a ridge below the swimming pool, a lake-sized reflecting pond with an open-air pavilion and fountains inspired by the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
On a lower part of the property, the sprawling sports complex includes a championship tennis court, shuffleboard and bocce and pickleball courts, volleyball and badminton courts, a putting green, a horseshoe pit, and a two-story pavilion with dressing areas and bathrooms.
The couple, who indicated to the WSJ they now primarily reside at their property within the prestigious Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert, California, are prepared to hand over Villa de Verano to its next owner. Jennifer Gilson at Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty holds the potentially record-setting listing, and, should the estate sell for anywhere near its $88 million price, it will obliterate the current record of $37.5 million, set in 2000 for a six-acre spread that was sold again in 2014 at a huge loss, for $26 million.
Click here for more photos of the Bay Area estate.
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