Eichler Summit Sale Will Benefit Charity

Lorry Lokey, as unpretentious a billionaire as you can find, has enjoyed using his Russian Hill condo in Joe Eichler’s Summit high rise. But it’s time to sell, and he plans to donate the proceeds to help others.

That’s nothing new for Lokey, a former journalist who founded Business Wire, a service for distributing press releases, in 1961, and sold it to Berkshire Hathaway in 2006 for what the San Francisco Business Times said was “a few hundred million dollars.”

Over the years he has given away more than $700 million, and he aims to give away more.

Santa Clara University got $37 million, Mills College $35 million, and $75 million went towards a stem cell research facility at Stanford, where Lokey studied. His old grammar school in Portland, Oregon does well too. “This year, I got off easy with only $25,000,” he told Renee Frojo of the San Francisco Business Times in 2013, adding, “Whatever they need, they get.”

Lokey (pronounced Lo-kay), who grew up in Portland, wasn’t born rich. Talking to the Nob Hill Gazette, he recalled that, after paying off his wife’s wedding ring, he was “$85 in the hole, which I took care of by delaying bills.”

His goal is to give away $1 billion, and he has joined the Giving Pledge, spearheaded by Warren Buffet, “a commitment by the world's wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.”
 

Unlike a lot of people who live at the Summit, a towering, 32-story behemoth of reinforced concrete and glass, so unlike the typical low-slung, wood-framed suburban Eichler home, Lokey knew from the get-go that it was an Eichler.

“I’m almost old enough to be his brother,” he says of Joe, speaking in a recent interview. The two never met.

Still, there’s something about Lokey that suggests Joe. Both cared about more than making money for its own sake. And both cared about society. And both, of course, occupied units at the Summit. Joe and his wife lived in the penthouse.

But Lokey never lived there at all, he points out. “I don’t live there. I use it as a stop-off point when we are in the city,” he says, meaning himself and his partner, Joanne Harrington.

Their residence is in Atherton. They generally stay at the Summit one or two nights a month, and Lokey’s daughter and her husband use it too.

Unlike some of the units in the building, which have been Victorian-ized or Tuscan-ized, the Lokey apartment remains clean-lined and modern. It came furnished when he bought it, and furnished it will be when he sells.

But Lokey is no modernist. “Not particularly,” he says, when asked if he likes modern architecture. “I did not buy it because Eichler built it,” he adds.

“It was the best view we could find,” he says. Promotional material for the sale lays that view out, “Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Angel Island, Coit Tower, the Bay Bridge, and downtown San Francisco.” The realty agent, Jeffrey Castaldo, facilitated Eichler Network’s discussion with Lokey.

“I don’t like wildly contemporary art,” Lokey says, as the discussion drifts towards style. “I do like stuff out of England that’s 150 years old and the less gaudy French stuff.”

When Lokey bought the Summit condo, he knew he would donate proceeds from its sale.

“I own quite a bit of property, and I bought it all at relatively low prices with the idea that I could enjoy it while it would be appreciating, and then I could sell it,” he says. “A lot of what I own is rental.”

He paid $4.6 million for the unit in 2006, so it has appreciated appreciably.

Will he miss the Summit? Yes – but. “We didn’t use it enough to justify the exorbitant HOA (homeowners association) cost. It’s almost $100 a day, $2,100 a month.” And if he and his partner need a pied-a-terre, he has another place “at Jones and Clay.”

Do you have hobbies, Mr. Lokey? “Watching and playing the stock market," he says.

Are you good at it? “I think I’m pretty good at it. I make a million dollars a year, so I think that’s pretty good.”

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