For Sale: Castle In Hunters Point
You read that headline right. The Albion Castle, a structure which dates to 1870 and was a brewery right up until prohibition, is being put on the market by it's owner in a real estate auction. For the last few years, it has served as a home, an event space, and the tech support headquarters of Laughing Squid -- who recently held their launch party for the new blog, where SFist fell in love with the building and its vast potential for artsy-fartsiness.
We contacted Paul De Jong (via the Laughing Squid help desk, ticket number JJN-89155, as kind of a joke), who's currently staying there until he's officially evicted at the end of the month. He said that after prohibition, the building (which once extended to the road fronting India Basin) was converted into a single family home and studio by a sculptor in 1939. After the jump: why you should buy it, why you should hope nobody buys it even if you can't, and why even if you did buy it, you couldn't really do anything with it.
Photo by Niall Kennedy.
The building, on Innis Avenue near the former Naval Station, rests on an incline atop a natural spring. There are hand-carved caverns -- an upper level to act as a reservoir for the spring (and brisk swimming hole that a certain Naked Luster enjoyed) and dry, cold caverns beneath for storing casked beer -- or holding music performances, as the 10'x10'x200' caverns have great echoic acoustics. There's also a large open area at the base of the structure to serve as a plein-aire art studio, a set of living rooms up the hill, and a three-story tower rising over the front and rear gardens.
Paul said that they are trying to put together an investment team to save the Castle as an arts and entertainment venue, but the landlord insists on putting it up for public auction -- the current asking price is around $2 million, but could be sold for more or less depending on the results of the auction (we assume it will be a reserve auction). But there are some serious restrictions on the property that would-be bidders should be aware of.
First, the property is zoned residential, but is a landmark historical building, so you couldn't just tear it down and build apartments or a McMansion -- you can't even rennovate the structure without clearing your plans with city government. There are too few residential units to make it an income property, unless you wanted to charge exhorbitant luxury rents. Which raises the question -- what single family our group of renters would want to pay premium prices for a building sandwiched between the projects and a radioactive Naval installation?
As the clock runs out on the the current rental arrangment, hopes are dimming. Contact Paul if you're interested in helping efforts to keep the Castle in the hands of the kind of people who would actually appreciate it, use it creatively, and keep it open to the public for parties and events.