Inside a sold $2.3 million once-tiny home in San Francisco built out of desperation after the 1906 earthquake for $50

The peach-colored home at 31 Romain St. in San Francisco looks more than quaint.

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Source: Redfin

It sits in the city's Eureka Valley neighborhood, where the median real-estate value is $1.59 million.

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Source: Redfin

That's just slightly above San Francisco's overall median real-estate value of $1,378,000.

Source: Zillow

The home is also what's known as an "earthquake cottage," or shack.

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In 1906, an earthquake and a series of fires leveled 500 city blocks in San Francisco and left about 250,000 people homeless.

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One of the city's temporary housing solutions was building 5,000 wooden cottages at designated camps for displaced residents. Each cottage cost $50 to build, which tenants paid $2 a month toward.

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Source: Business Insider and National Park Service

Over 16,000 people found refuge in them.

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Source: Business Insider

Eventually, the homes were moved from the camps and are now scattered throughout the city.

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Source: National Park Service

They blend into residential streets fairly seamlessly.

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Source: National Park Service

And as chance would have it, another of the once-tiny cottages sits next to the home at 31 Romain St.

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Rose said both of them, including the earthquake cottage at 31 Romain St., are completely renovated.

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All that remains of what was once a makeshift disaster shelter is the home's facade.

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You'd never think you're stepping into a century-old tiny home upon entering the foyer.

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In 2015, the home's owner nearly tripled the size of the home, expanding the original 800-square-foot shack into a 2,155-square-foot modern abode with city permits.

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He had the ceilings raised, skylights installed, an open-concept floor plan established, and modern appliances brought in.

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Three bedrooms and three bathrooms are found in the home.

And most notably, he had a new foundation laid in 2015, which Rose said is a huge selling point in an earthquake-prone place like San Francisco.

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"It was pretty much an entire new home besides the fact that the exterior was kept in the front up to how it was supposed to look originally," Rose said.

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Typically, the city's remaining earthquake shacks sell in the $1 million range, with the most expensive on record selling for $1.4 million in 2016.

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Source: Business Insider

The owner himself shelled out only $820,000 for the home in 2013.

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Source: Redfin

But those sales usually will necessitate hundreds of thousands more for renovations, which were already included in this home's $2,290,000 price tag.

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Source: Redfin

"Usually if they are original, they’re going to require a lot of work to get it up to where it should be in terms of plumbing, foundation, electrical — all of that," Rose said.

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The owner also wanted to optimize the property's space ...

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... which included turning the unused attic loft into a yoga studio. Though of course, the home's current owners didn't have to utilize any of these spaces the same way, so some of these features could now look a lot different.

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You did have to climb up a ladder to access it, and Rose said it can't be counted as a bedroom since there isn't a door or a closet, but it's a versatile space and adds a few extra square feet to the overall property.

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"People in San Francisco — all they want is as much space as possible because we’re always so limited on square footage and size here," Rose said.

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Below the loft is a bedroom that faces the street.

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When it was listed on the market, the space was set up as a kids' room.

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In addition to the yoga studio, there's another personal touch the previous owner made to the home at one point.

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The closet space in the master suite was being used to store his two bicycles.

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An avid cyclist, he even had a stained-glass window of a bicycle installed in one of the vaulted walls, a feature that Rose said was a hit with visiting house hunters before it finally sold.

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The master suite comes with a spa-inspired bathroom complete with a rainfall shower.

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There's also a separate bathtub next to it.

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Another bedroom comes with private access via a side entrance.

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There's also an en-suite bathroom.

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Both the master bedroom and the main level where the kitchen is located have terrace access to the backyard.

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A spa hot tub sits feet from the balcony doors.

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Rose said the listing had been an attraction for people, some merely out of curiosity — a home listing stamped with an "earthquake cottage" label will likely grab attention.

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But Rose said she doesn't think that that label specifically makes the home, or other existing earthquake shacks like it, a hot commodity in the city's real-estate market.

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"There are a lot of people who look for certain architectural details, but the thing with this one is it’s been all renovated, so it doesn’t really have much of the original look to it," Rose said.

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Rose said in general, people will seek out properties that have a more "classic San Francisco look," like those from the Edwardian or Victorian design eras, more often than they will hunt down newly-constructed buildings.

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But what buyers find unattractive about those kinds of listings are the outdated features, like electrical and plumbing systems, that are more indicative of the early 1900s rather than the new millennium.

"Overall, in the city, people look for the Victorian, the Edwardian, the historical kind of buildings, but they do like to see a more clean look inside — updated kitchen and baths," Rose said.

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"They like that original charm, they just don’t want to have things that aren’t functioning and want things that are operable," Rose said.

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Rose said that when the owner bought the home in 2013, the state of the home fit that description.

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"It was just an open, tiny little 800-square-foot home," Rose said.

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"It was much more true to the sense of an 'earthquake shack' when he bought it, and then it turned into this large, updated open floor plan," Rose said.

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Now the property merges historical relevance with updated, modern finishes.

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"The easiest sales for me in San Francisco are things that have somewhat of an original look, but they’ve been updated on the inside and are livable but hold those period details, the charm, the architectural finishes, maybe some original, built in," Rose said.

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