U.S. sues to evict S.F. couple from former Iran consulate
In one of the more unusual eviction cases in San Francisco, the U.S. government is seeking to eject a couple from the former Iranian consulate in Presidio Heights, a $15 million mansion that was the site of protests and a major bombing in the 1970s.
On Wednesday, the government filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Northern California arguing that the couple living at 3400 Washington St. is there unlawfully.
Alexandra and Bruce Owen are being evicted under California’s Ellis Act, which allows landlords to get rid of tenants if a rental property is being taken off the market.
The property is a grand, 8,700squarefoot mansion with eight bathrooms, which Zillow estimates is worth $15.7 million and should rent for $14,000 per month. The couple was paying $5,523.92 per month in rent, according to the lawsuit.
Bruce Owen, a real estate broker who rents the home with his wife, Alexandra, an interior decorator, raised his children in the former consulate. While the property is owned by Iran, the State Department is the home’s custodian.
The couple started leasing the home in 1984 and insisted that the lease include a provi
sion that the house be subject to all San Francisco rent control ordinances, which don’t normally apply to singlefamily homes. After several lease renewals, the couple entered a monthtomonth lease starting July 31, 2007, according to the complaint.
But when a government inspector toured the property in June 2018, he was alarmed by the amount of repairs the aging building needed. After the inspection, the government decided to take the property off the market since the cost to fix and maintain the sprawling 1927 home — $5 million — far exceeded the rent. The government plans to hold onto the property, but mothball it.
The couple was served a notice of lease termination on June 19, 2018 and was sent more than $11,000 in relocation assistance. The couple, through their lawyer, asked for a year extension, which was granted, but that extension expired Wednesday, according to the complaint, though the couple has not moved out.
Reached by phone on Wednesday, Owen declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit until his lawyer had looked at it. But he called the allegations “all a big lie” and “the most outrageous thing I have gone through in my life.”
“We are the world’s greatest tenants,” he said. “We’ve had problems with the State Department for a long time.”
The property already has a long and colorful history. It the 1970s it was the scene of hunger strikes, violent protests, and a bombing that shattered car and home windows as far away as 400 feet from the property. At the time, it was the most powerful bomb in the city’s history.
The government of Iran bought the home in 1969, but the U.S. State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions has been the custodian of the mansion since the two countries broke off diplomatic relations in 1980. It is one of 11 U.S. properties the Iranian government owns in the United States. Several of them have been mothballed, including the former Iranian embassy in Washington, D.C., which needs up to $15 million in repairs.
The lawsuit states that international diplomatic regulations require that the upkeep of the Iranian properties is funded “solely from received rents.” The policy “seeks to protect U.S. taxpayers from shouldering a financial burden to maintain and repair property owned by the government of Iran,” according to the lawsuit.
Owen, 80, grew up around the corner from the home — close enough that the windows of his parents’ house shattered during the 1971 bombing. He said that he had originally leased the property with the understanding that his family would be able to purchase it after a few years. When Owen moved in, the house had been shuttered for six years. The ceilings and walls were warped, the plumbing and electrical work needed to be redone. The kitchen was covered in grease and the bathrooms were filthy, he said.
He said that he has invested “hundreds of thousands of dollars into maintaining the home.”
“We have paid the rent on time every month of our life and maintained it to the best of our ability,” he said.
Owen said he would be willing to pay more rent if the government took better care of the property.
“If the place didn’t leak like a sieve, we would pay $15,000 a month,” he said. “But why should we? We have a back room that is open to the sky.”
He said mothballing the property will be a disaster. “The house will just disintegrate,” he said. “It will tear up the neighborhood.”
The U.S. attorney’s office, which is handling the lawsuit,
declined to comment beyond the filing. The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Charlie Ferguson, who lives across the street from the Owens’ home and is president of the Presidio Heights Association of Neighbors, called them “great neighbors and great citizens of the city.”
“They were there before us. They were the ones who reconstructed the house, at their own expense,” said Ferguson, who moved to the neighborhood in 1990. “It’s unfortunate what the government is doing.”
If the home is mothballed, it won’t be the first time a Presidio Heights mansion has been left vacant. A home owned by the Republic of Nigeria at 3247 Jackson St. has been empty for two decades and squatters have sporadically taken it over, Ferguson said. In 2015, a large empty home at 3800 Washington St. was taken over by a squatter who made money selling off the pricey artwork the building contained.
Ferguson said that residents are concerned about the prospect of having another empty mansion in the heart of Presidio Heights, a neighborhood of 2,500 residents just west of Pacific Heights.
“With the size of the homes, you often can’t tell if someone is living in them or not,” he said. “We are concerned, and everyone in our neighborhood would be concerned, about having an abandoned building with no way of knowing what is going on in there.” J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen