Algeria Buys Pac Heights Mansion for $10M as Entertainment Space

A Pacific Heights mansion with a history stretching back to 1899 has finally found a buyer after more than two years on the market, and the new owner is the government of Algeria.

The property at Divisadero and Pacific, known variously as the Herbst Mansion and the Coxhead Mansion, sold for just under $10 million. The sellers, Ken McNeely and Inder Dhillon, had originally listed it in late 2023 at $15 million. The house last changed hands in 2014 for $8.6 million, so despite the steep discount from asking price, the sellers still walked away with a significant return.

The Embassy of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria reportedly plans to use the property not as an official consulate, but as an entertaining space. The country opened a San Francisco consulate just this past December, in leased offices at 465 California Street. According to the Chronicle, this mansion serves a different purpose. Daria Saraf, the Sotheby’s International realtor who represented Algeria in the transaction, told the paper that the embassy was seeking stately space in order to “entertain in a gracious way” in San Francisco, given the city’s profile as a global technology hub.

The diplomatic logic is straightforward. When heads of state and senior officials visit a city with San Francisco’s international standing, a formal reception requires a setting that matches the occasion. The mansion delivers exactly that.

The property itself has a genuinely remarkable backstory. Architect Ernest Coxhead designed the brick manse for Sarah Spooner, a wealthy art collector who had relocated from Philadelphia. Spooner chose this precise block along Divisadero for a reason that reads differently now than it might have in 1899. At the time, women could not legally own property within the city of San Francisco. They could, however, own property in San Francisco County, and in 1899, the dividing line between city and county ran along Divisadero Street. Spooner planted herself on the county side.

She did not stay long. By the time the 1906 earthquake and fire tore through the city, the house belonged to John A. McGregor and his family. McGregor would later serve on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 1922 to 1926, a period that overlaps, with some irony, with this reporter’s current beat. He was also president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The Herbst family, connected to the namesakes of the Herbst Theater, acquired the property in 1967 and held it for decades before it passed to its most recent owners.

The house commands views of both the city and the Bay from one of Pacific Heights’ most visible corners. Photos from the listing show rooms that lean into the formal elegance you’d expect from a building of this age and pedigree.

From a real estate perspective, the sale is a notable data point in the luxury market. The property sat for over two years and shed $5 million from its original ask before closing. That’s a familiar pattern in San Francisco’s high-end single-family market, where a handful of trophy properties have struggled to find buyers willing to meet aspirational prices. The final number, just under $10 million, represents a significant correction from the 2023 ask, even if it still reflects strong appreciation over the 2014 purchase price.

Foreign government ownership of residential property in American cities sits in a complicated regulatory space. Federal law restricts foreign missions from purchasing property without State Department notification, though the rules differ when a property is designated for non-consular use. Whether this purchase triggers any formal review process was not addressed in available reporting.

For now, a 127-year-old mansion built by a woman who outsmarted San Francisco’s property laws by standing on the county line passes into the hands of a North African government looking for somewhere to host a dinner party that’s worthy of the occasion. The house has hosted steel magnates, survived an earthquake, and watched the city reshape itself across more than a century. Hosting Algerian dignitaries is hardly its most dramatic chapter.