198 Catalpa Drive in Lindenwood went on the MLS September 22 at $13,800,000. It was pending by September 30 and closed October 2 at $15,736,000. That is $1,936,000 over the asking price, about 14 percent, and ten days from list to recorded sale.Ten days on a $15 million close usually means the buyer had cash or a lender already lined up. The public record does not say which.The house is a single-story 2011 build by Arcanum Architecture with four bedrooms and 4.5 baths in about 4,625 square feet, on 1.02 acres (44,362 square feet in the MLS). Heated pool and spa, a basketball court, an oak grove, and completed plans for a two-bedroom guesthouse by the same architect. Completed plans and an issued permit are two different things, and the listing does not say where the guesthouse stands. Stephanie von Thaden of Golden Gate Sotheby's had the listing and Billy McNair of Coldwell Banker brought the buyer. MLS ML82062018.Per foot it closed at about $3,402. Altos Research's Atherton report for October 20 puts the active board at $2,343 a square foot, so this buyer paid roughly 45 percent more per foot than the current asking median. A lot of that is land. Divide the price by the lot instead and you get about $355 a square foot of dirt, which is the number I actually watch in this town.The prior sale on Catalpa was July 2004 at $2.7 million, per the MLS history. The house that stands there now went up seven years after that.Same day, October 2, 28 Holbrook Lane closed at $7,210,000 against a $5,888,000 list. That one went 22.5 percent over, $1,322,000 above ask. Very different house. Built 1921, taken to the studs in 2001, five bedrooms and 4.5 baths in about 3,765 square feet on a 21,204-square-foot lot between Middlefield and El Camino that backs onto Heritage Court. Listed September 2, pending September 18. Charles Gillooley of Ektra Real Estate listed it, and Claire Zhou of APR represented the buyer. It last sold in October 1998 for $965,000. MLS ML82059904.Holbrook works out to about $1,915 a square foot of house and about $340 a square foot of land. Put that land number next to Catalpa's $355 and the gap between a half-acre off Middlefield and a full acre in Lindenwood looks a lot smaller than the headline prices suggest.Holbrook was priced right in Atherton's entry tier. Altos splits the active board into quarters by price, and this week the bottom quarter has a median list of $4,588,000 on lots of a quarter to half an acre, median age 73 years, 42 median days on market. Holbrook sat a little above that band on price and got bid way past it in about two weeks.Then 97 Snowden Avenue in Lloyden Park closed October 6 at $5,200,000, exactly the list price. Redfin shows zero days on market. That pattern often means the deal was put together before the listing went public and the MLS entry is there to record it. It is a 1953 house with three bedrooms and two baths in about 2,100 square feet, plus a detached guest house with its own kitchen and a sauna, on 29,574 square feet (0.68 acres). Julie Rossi Rideau of Compass had the listing. MLS ML82063746.On land Snowden comes out to about $176 a square foot, roughly half of what Holbrook and Catalpa fetched. It is a bigger lot with an older house, and it never had a public marketing run, so nobody got to find out what two weekends of open houses would have done to the price.For the wider picture, MK Bay Area Pulse had Atherton's Q3 2026 closings at a $12.25 million median on 21 sales, 105.4 percent of original list, nine days on market. Catalpa at 114 percent and Holbrook at 122.5 percent are well outside that. The board right now per Altos (October 20) is 21 single-family actives at a $14.99 million median list, median days on market 21, Market Action Index 41, which Altos labels a slight seller's advantage. Fourteen percent of those actives have taken a price cut. Freddie Mac had the 30-year fixed at 7.40 percent on October 15, with the next weekly number due Thursday.I do not have offer counts on any of the three, and I would not trust a secondhand one. What the record does show is two sellers who priced under where the market landed and one who sold quietly at a number and never tested it. If you own on a sub-acre lot in Atherton and are weighing a public launch against a quiet sale, run your own land number against these three before anyone picks a list price.Michael Williams is a Bay Area agent with Golden Gate Luxury (Turbohome Inc). Seventeen years in, more than $250M closed, formerly #1 at Flyhomes and Aalto, DRE #01780513. Golden Gate Luxury is not affiliated with Golden Gate Sotheby's.General market commentary only. Nothing here is legal, tax, or financial advice. Listing details, sale records, and market stats change; verify current MLS and public records before acting on any of it.Also on Medium: https://medium.com/@michael_30207/an-atherton-house-listed-at-13-8-million-sold-for-15-74-million-ten-days-later-4e6c351c687b
Michael Williams
Luxury Specialist
Area served: Sausalito, Marin County, CA, Menlo Park, CA, San Francisco, CA
Expertise: First-Time Buyer, Luxury, Zoning Knowledge