On paper, Sam Altman’s $27 million mansion looks incredible.
A four-sided infinity pool boasting views from downtown San Francisco to Alcatraz. An onsite wellness cottage. Even its own “Batcave” tunnel into the garage.
But a lawsuit alleges that the OpenAI CEO was duped into buying a property that was actually “plagued by shoddy construction, corner cutting, and development efforts to save money, all which lead to pervasive defects in the building,” according to The San Francisco Standard.
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The lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court on Friday names the plaintiff as 950 Lombard LLC, which purchased the house in the city’s upscale Russian Hill neighborhood in 2020. Altman, who is not named in the lawsuit, is listed in public records as the property’s current resident, and it has been used as the business address of Apollo Projects, an investment firm run by Altman and his brother, Jack Altman, according to the Standard.
The suit alleges that real estate developer Troon Pacific and its CEO Gregory Malin “misrepresented the condition” of the property in order to sell it “as quickly as possible.” Altman was thereby “misled into buying a $27,000,000 ‘lemon,’” the lawsuit alleges, citing extensive issues with the home.
The 9,500-square-foot mansion—which was reported to be the most expensive single-family home for sale in San Francisco’s history when it was first put on the market for $45 million—was marketed for its absurdly luxurious features, including an interior glass elevator and its private garden planted with 100-year-old olive trees.
But the fancy fixtures and fittings hid a litany of problems that the developer knew about but concealed, according to the lawsuit. The legal filing alleges that the developer failed to pay subcontractors on time who in turn “retaliated” with a “campaign of sabotage, which included filling drainage and sewer pipes with contractor bags and debris.”
Problems with the infinity pool, specifically its allegedly “poor and substandard waterproofing design and installation,” also led to what the lawsuit described as a “massive damage/loss” event last August, when a “flood of water” in the lower level of the property caused the “gypsum ceiling” in the gym to “fail.”
Environmental testing also confirmed “the widespread presence of mold in the lower level of the residence” which, together with the cost of replacing the pool and fixing other damage, will set Altman back over $4 million, according to the lawsuit. Other problems cited in the filing include an “unconnected bathroom sewer line that dumped raw sewage on the ground,” “leaking irrigation lines that were incorrectly installed on the rooftop garden,” and “a crushed sewer pipe running from the laundry system that created a back-up and spillage.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Troon Pacific for comment.
The high-end developer earlier this year was ordered to pay back $48.1 million to investors who had put money into a fund for renovating and selling four luxury properties in San Francisco—only two were ever completed.
Altman last year told Time about another headache with his home that didn’t have anything to do with its build quality. “This coyote moved into my house and scratches on the door outside,” Altman told the magazine, which also ran pictures of the wild animal on the swanky property. “It’s very cute, but it’s very annoying at night.”
