You may not recognize the name Eric Dean, but this friend-of-Petrolicious is an avid vintage racer and happens to have built himself a streetable, insane, Ford GT40 replica. He also happens to have great taste, with his beloved mid-century shop-slash-home up for sale in Oakland, California. Forget the Batcave, who else sees a place like this as the “ideal setup”?
We don’t often feature properties, much less ones for sale, but this mid-century space does have interesting roots in the West Oakland neighborhood of Dogtown. San Francisco architect F.McCarthy was commissioned to create offices for a local contractor—the space was later turned into a private residence.
“The Oakland house really was my dream house and shop,” he says. “It’s where I did a lot of the work on the GT40 you guys featured, as well as much of the restoration of my vintage Formula Fords and motorcycles.”
Being, originally, an office property for a local builder, the shop used to have a strictly functional purpose: “It’s where they stored all of their heavy equipment. I turned that space into my dream garage. I opened up the entire space that is equivalent to a 5-car garage and outfitted with everything I needed,” he says, continuing, “[with] 110 and 220 power throughout and compressed air line drops from the ceiling in each bay.”
From the street, horizontal wood siding, clerestory windows, and other details immediately speak to the home’s time of origin, with a lovely concrete pad in the middle of the property to serve as a platform for whatever’s going on in that shop.
“I’m really hoping I can find a car or motorcycle enthusiast that can appreciate the space and put it to good use,” he says. “There is simply nothing like it in the Bay Area. I’ll miss it dearly.”
H/T to 1185-32ndst.com (You can check out Eric’s garage property listing here, but watch out for the autoplay music!)
