Frida kahlo's telegraph hill home hits market for £6m

Frida Kahlo's former San Francisco home, a 1938 building designed to resemble a Swiss village, has been put on the market for £6 million ($8 million).

Artistic abode in telegraph hill

The 11-unit complex at 36-52 Calhoun Terrace cascades down the hillside overlooking San Francisco Bay, offering each apartment generous picture windows and many retaining original details like hardwood floors, fireplaces and colorful tiled bathrooms.

Kahlo and her husband, fellow artist Diego Rivera, lived in Apartment 42 in 1940 while Kahlo worked on her Pan American Unity mural for the Golden Gate International Exposition. They remarried at San Francisco City Hall that December after divorcing the previous year.

The building's unique design, prioritizing light and privacy over scale and convenience, appealed to artists. Its architectural pedigree is bolstered by standing alongside Richard Neutra's 1939 modernist masterpiece, the Sidney Kahn House.

However, the building's quirks include no on-site parking and residents of lower units facing a long stair climb to reach the street.

As San Francisco Planning Chief of Staff Dan Sider noted, 'They literally don't build things like they used to. But also, people don't die on construction sites nearly as often as they used to.'