Feinstein's $16.5 million view in Pacific Heights / SF Chronicle

[shance]

Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her mega-millionaire husband, Richard Blum, are pulling up stakes on their quiet Presidio Terrace home and moving uptown to a Pacific Heights mansion -- with views to die for.

The $16.5 million mansion -- which sits at the foot of Vallejo Street, between the Presidio and some of the city's most hoity-toity addresses -- offers a sweeping view of the bay.

It's right off what Herb Caen christened the "Gold Rush" -- the final two blocks of upper, upper Broadway, where the residents include Ann and Gordon Getty, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and Mimi Haas -- as in the Levi Strauss Haases.

"And everyone is extending a warm welcome,'' said former Mayor Willie Brown, who hangs with the hill crowd. "They figure it will mean better homeland security."

The very hush-hush house sale, we're told, was finalized within the past three weeks. Workers are busy fixing up the place and installing new recessed lighting before Feinstein and Blum move in.

The house, which has yet to go on the market, comes complete with a flagpole.

So why the big move?

"We've never had a view, and this was an opportunity to get one,'' Feinstein said Friday. "We also have an expanding family -- five grandchildren and soon to be a sixth -- and we needed some more space.''

Their new, 9,500-square-foot mansion -- once owned by the former wife of "Star Wars" creator George Lucas and featured as the 1995 San Francisco Decorator's Showcase -- offers much more than just picture-postcard vistas.


This is hardly Blum and Feinstein's only real estate undertaking in recent years. Five years ago, they traded in their five-story townhouse in Washington, D.C., for a nearly $6 million, French Renaissance-style estate in the Spring Valley neighborhood, just down the street from American University.

A couple of years earlier, they built themselves a $7.4 million ski retreat on 30 acres in Aspen, Colo., just down the road from the 15-bedroom pleasure palace of a Saudi prince.

No word yet on if -- or where -- the flagpole will go up on the new digs.



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2...

[Greyhound]

1. And just think, without the voters of NoCal empowering her ambition

he would be in jail and she would be welcoming you to walmart. Way to go!

[G_j]

2. "We've never had a view"

:cry: :cry: :cry:

[shanti]

5. yeah

:nopity:

i did like this part of the story tho:

But by Friday, Feinstein apparently had heard the message loud and clear from constituents urging her to support the filibuster.

"It was very strong in terms of Californians contacting us in support of the filibuster,'' Feinstein spokesman Howard Gantman told us.

YES!!!! she HEARD us!!!!

[Yollam]

19. And yet she never heard her constituents tell her "VOTE NO!"

on the Iraq War Resolution and the Patriot Act.

There are lots of freeperish subdivisions with even bigger, more garish McMansions over in Contra Costa County you could live in. Go already!

[Botany]

3. Now where would they get that money?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/05/11/BU18813.DTL

<Such questions have surfaced again in the wake of the $600 million military contract won by EG&G Technical Services, a new division that URS purchased in 2002 from the well-connected Washington, D.C., investment firm the Carlyle Group.

Carlyle is a $14 billion buyout firm whose associates and advisers include former President George Bush, former British Prime Minister John Major and former Securities and Exchange Commissioner Arthur Levitt. As part of EG&G's sale price, Carlyle acquired a 21.74 percent stake in URS -- second only to the 23.7 percent of shares controlled by Blum Capital.

Anti-war leader Bill Hackwell, a spokesman for the Answer Coalition, said he hates to see politically connected firms like URS win big defense contracts at a time when budgets for schools, health care, housing and other domestic programs are shrinking.>

[mike_c]

4. war profits put to use....

:puke:

[AX10]

6. "Feinstein Manor"

[radio4progressives]

7. K&R

:kick:

[ananda]

8. Go Sheehan!

Come on Cindy. Take Dianne on and get her kicked out of the Senate.

Then she can enjoy that new house monster more often.

[Inland]

9. How horrific. A rich democrat senator.

Thanks for the implied criticism of just about anyone seeking a senate seat nowadays. But never fear, soon her seat will be taken by another rich person whose party doesn't criticize marrying well.

[G_j]

10. see post #3 n/t

[shance]

13. LOL! "Another rich person"? Because non-rich can't afford to buy it.

Good point, even if you didn't mean to make it.

[Inland]

20. That's the truth.

I didn't invent or approve of the fact, but as long as someone needs to be wealthy in order to be in the senate, criticizing dems for being wealthy ensures wealthy republican senators. That isn't trading up.

[Egalitariat]

14. The Senate has a "Married Wealth" Program

If you get elected, and you're not rich, they find you a rich spouse.

See John McCain, John Kerry, Diane Feinstein. I'm sure there's many more and it'd be fun to compile an exhaustive list.

[Inland]

21. I'm for rich spouses, all other things being equal.

Not for them, but for me.

[gardenista]

16. LOL

[flordehinojos]

11. now i understand why, she seems to hav been trouble only by alito's views

and (rulings?) past or to come about on "women's reproduction rights" .... she did not seem to care as to the little people and how alito's presence in the court would negatively impact {b] the little person.

[502ramjet]

12. WTF..

I thought she was for the little guy. There is too much wealth in Washington!

[Maru Kitteh]

15. My my...... that's 1,583 sq ft per grandchild. I hope I don't have too

many. I had no idea the little buggers required so much space.

[shance]

17. ROFL!***

You know, grandkids just don't utilize square footage the way they used to.

[Inland]

22. Maybe it's the ability to put 500 feet between herself and the kids.

THAT I understand.

[formernaderite]

18. Sorry I know we shouldn't judge people by their wealth

but I have to say I find it repulsive the way these people acquire things, houses, political positions etc.

[npincus]

23. Lucky gal.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Just keep sendin' those brib..er, campaign contributions.

And, just keep repeating that "We live in a democracy, not an oligarchy".

[Yollam]

25. You forgot to put up the photo...

Now this would be an impressive house anywhere, but in Pacific Heights, it's phenomenal.

I guess being a whore for the military industrial complex pays well. And the rich "democrats" that infest PacHeights are quite tolerant of "Democrats" like Feinstein. After all, as long as their bread is buttered, who care if the rich are getting richer ant the poor are getting poorer, tax burden being shifted from them on to wworking people. They're Phil Ochs "liberals". They're nice people. They pay their servants and gardeners well, treat them like family. Why, I'll bet they even personally give them big baskets of fruit or flowers that look just lovely in their little one-room hovels!

[Obamarama]

26. That's a pic of said mansion? It's sort of ugly if you ask me....

It looks sort of institutional. The windows should be replaced with multipaned windows - those plain windows really bring the look of the entire house way down. The flat roof also does nothing to flatter the house, either. I'll keep my cozy little 3,200 sq. foot broom closet, thank you very much Ms. Feinstein.

[Laughing Mirror]

27. Throw a few rocks and knock out a few windows

and replace the parterre in the front yard with pavement and broken bottles, and the place would look just like any number of small apartment houses slums in any given city you can think of all across American. Some may have fabulous views too. Feinstein and hubby got ripped off.