Ray Dolby's San Francisco Mansion For Sale...

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

[Jim Cassedy]

$5.25mil is actually fairly 'cheap' for that neighborhood, and for here in San Francisco
in general where it's hard to buy even a 'normal' house in decent condition for under $1mil.
So $5.25mil is actually a bargain.

[Frank Cox]

Thought you'd be racing over waving your chequebook!

[Steve Guttag]

3500ft² is a mansion now? While not tiny, it wouldn't qualify as a mansion in most neighborhoods. $5.25M for 3,500ft² is very high in most America but, as Jim says, in San Francisco...it's probably a bargain! I just checked current listings...a 5,302ft² is currently $1,164,900, in Annapolis, MD. I'm sure it doesn't have the "media room" that Ray had.

[Leo Enticknap]

It's all about location, I guess. $5.25m would likely buy you a city block in San Bernardino (and the meth lab situated on it as a going concern), probably! But in Beverly Hills or Westwood, only 70 miles away, maybe a condo in one of the more ritzy blocks.

[Sam Chavez]

I'm checking this out. Something may be amiss here. It may not be the only "Dolby" house.

[Leo Enticknap]

Given that, per Wikipedia, his widow is worth $5.5bn, I'd be surprised if it was their only residence. One of my (home theater) service contract customers is "only" reputedly worth around $4bn, and has two mansions in the most expensive parts of the LA Metro, a yacht, and a private jet.

There again, there are some multi-billionaires who choose to live below their means. Dolby may have been one of them. From everything I've read about him, he was motivated by the desire to create technology, not money.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I'm checking this out. Something may be amiss here. It may not be the only "Dolby" house.

Oh, it's not the only Dolby property for sure. It mentions in the article that he left a legacy of real estate and audio inventions....

[Sam Chavez]

As I surmised, there was another "Dolby" house. Much bigger and nicer, somewhere on Scott Street in Pacific Heights.

[Jim Cassedy]

It's all about location,.

Not surprisingly, Dolby's house was in a quiet neighborhood. . .

[Leo Enticknap]

His shtick was noise reduction, so he must have got on well with his neighbors...

[Mike Blakesley]

I think even if I was a billionaire, I would just want one house. If I had several, I'd be constantly leaving stuff in the wrong house, or forgetting where I put stuff. It's bad enough with just one house.

I also never understood the desire rich people get to have a GIANT house. To me that could be a huge pain too. "Where did I leave my glasses?" "Oh, they're in the bedroom." Which happens to be on the other side of the house, half a mile away. I have no problem with a big roomy house but some of these mansions are just over the top. I guess you have to have the bucks to understand the point.

[Joe Redifer]

I can understand a big-ish house so you can have rooms dedicated to a home theater, studio, video games, stereo listening, maybe an indoor horse track, olympic pool, indoor race track, indoor quarter mile drag strip, a sewing room, and a walk in closet. But nothing too big. The important thing is to always live below your means.

[Mike Blakesley]

Don't forget a library, so people will know you're smart.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I can understand a big-ish house so you can have rooms dedicated to a home theater, studio, video games, stereo listening, maybe an indoor horse track, olympic pool, indoor race track, indoor quarter mile drag strip, a sewing room, and a walk in closet. But nothing too big. The important thing is to always live below your means.

If you're a real evil billionaire, you don't just want this in your home, you also want all of those on your boat too.

I've lived in big and in tiny houses over the years, I've come to the conclusion that a big house is just big troubles, in the end you spend most of your time in a few of those rooms, the rest either will become storage or dead space. Also, a big house means big upkeep and instead of spending your resources on that, I'd rather spend them on stuff that matters more to me and my family.