A three-story, seventeen-room mansion built in 1904 by R.A. Vance, a San Francisco lumber baron who insisted on the highest-grade materials for his own house. Mahogany paneling, crystal chandeliers, silk wallpaper, and eight working fireplaces. The house overlooks the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park.
In 1968, Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, and their manager Bill Thompson bought the mansion from its elderly owner for $70,000. They immediately painted the entire exterior black. They turned the basement into their recording studio. They lived together as Jefferson Airplane communally from 1968 to about 1971, working through the band’s most commercially successful albums in the house.
It remained band-owned through the breakup, the formation of Jefferson Starship, and the various lineups that followed. The band sold the mansion in the mid-1980s for $795,000. It has been a private residence since. The exterior has been repainted in lighter colors. The size and shape of the building are unmistakable.
This is a private residence. View from the sidewalk only.