$15 Million Buys 2-Bedroom Apartment in San Francisco

A two-bedroom apartment, selling for $15 million?

These aren’t your average rooms with a view.

San Francisco’s priciest penthouse comes with a wraparound terrace, floor-to-ceiling windows and an unparalleled 360-degree view of the San Francisco Bay Area, from 24 stories up in the tony neighborhood of Russian Hill.

The penthouse--and all the furniture in it--was sold by oil heir Billy Getty to Charlton Buckley, who recently sold a string of radio stations for $125 million. The deal closed Thursday.

“It’s one of a kind--there’s nothing like it in the world,” said real estate agent Richard Weil of Hill & Co., which represented the buyer.

At least nothing like it in San Francisco. Real estate agents say the sale makes it the most expensive home in a city with a skyrocketing housing market, eclipsing the $5 million to $6 million author Danielle Steel reportedly paid for her sprawling Pacific Heights mansion.

“That does appear to be the most expensive two-bedroom apartment I’ve ever heard of,” Ilyce Glink, a nationally syndicated real estate columnist and book author in Chicago, said Friday.

It certainly beats the $9.5 million billionaire David Koch reportedly paid in 1994 for Jackie Onassis’ 15th-floor apartment overlooking New York’s Central Park.

Homes with enough land to build a subdivision have sold for more, and apartments in Manhattan have sold for more than $10 million, but those generally have many more than two bedrooms, Glink said.

“It’s location, location, location, views, celebrity. Add it all up and you’ve got a nice price,” she said.

Just why was Buckley willing to pay so much?

“People who have the money will pay for the best, and this is the best,” Weil said.

“You can’t put a value on the Hope Diamond.”