If you’re dreaming of owning a luxury home in Sonoma Wine Country, but don’t have a few millions to spare, there might be a Hail Mary option. The San Francisco Bay Dream House Raffle is holding its 18th and final contest — the grand prize this year is a sleekly designed, 4,500-square-foot home at 3818 Horizon View Way in Santa Rosa’s Fountaingrove neighborhood.
A $150 raffle ticket buys entrants a 1 in 55,000 chance of winning the luxury property. If you beat the odds, and can handle a monstrous tax bill, then you’ll own a tasty piece of the Sonoma County housing market pie. (The winner also can forgo the home and receive instead a cash prize of $1,000,000 paid over 25 years or a one-time payment of $700,000.)
For the past 14 years, the Dream House Raffle has raised funds for the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the “cultural anchor” of the award-winning Yerba Buena Gardens; a mixed-use development that includes public gardens, art installations, performance spaces and recreational areas. The raffle will end this year as the organization “pursues other fundraising avenues,” according to the Dream House Raffle website.
The raffle has received criticism over the years, in part because it remains unclear if a winner has ever moved into one of the Bay Area mansions that have been advertised as each year’s grand prize or “dream house.” Unless 50,000 tickets are sold, the home will not be given away and the grand prize winner will be offered the cash prize instead. Grand prize winners also might opt for the cash prize instead of the home, since federal and state income taxes on the “dream house” would be prohibitively expensive for many.
The Santa Rosa dream house was built in 2022. It was last listed by Coldwell Banker Realty for $3,695,000. According to that listing, the four-bedroom, four-and-a-half bathroom property is set on a half acre and features an open-concept interior with tall ceilings, walls of windows and LaCantina sliding glass doors that open up toward a terrace with an infinity pool and spa. Click through the above gallery for a peek inside the home.
The Grand Prize Drawing will take place on Saturday, December 2, 2023 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. There will also be early bird drawings for other prizes like luxury vehicles, vacations and gift cards. Prize winners do not need to be present to receive their prize.
For more information, visit sfraffle.com