There are a few ways you can give your non-legacy children a leg up in getting into Harvard. You can have them (actually) join their high school’s fencing team, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars annually. You could pay $120,000 a year to a consultant who takes meetings out of the Aman club to help shape them, starting around ninth grade, into the perfect applicant. Or, you could buy a nearly $5 million house in Silicon Valley that’s imbued with Ivy League auras.
A listing for the five-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom in Palo Alto promises would-be buyers that while there are many reasons to enjoy living in the 2,700-square-foot, Spanish-style mini-mansion (“craftsmanship,” “timeless elegance”), its apparent pedigree is hard to beat: Since a 2017 rebuild, “every owner’s children have gone on to Harvard or Stanford, paving the way for even greater achievements,” according to the original listing, held by Wen Guo Real Estate Group, which declined to comment. “Now it is ready to pass on its extraordinary energy to the next family.” To drive home the point, staging photos have cardinal-red Stanford diplomas and what appears to be a framed Harvard acceptance letter prominently displayed on a living-room mantel.
In addition to transforming residents into premier university candidates via osmosis, the property’s ground floor features an open-concept kitchen centered around an 11-foot island and a guest bedroom and bathroom. Upstairs, the primary-room suite is decked out with a “spa-like bath,” a wet bar, and a balcony. (The home is also zoned to Henry M. Gunn High School, whose alumni include Harvard grads such as Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO of YouTube, and Scribd co-founder and former CEO Trip Adler.)
Reddit and X users quickly discovered the listing, and by Saturday evening any references to the Ivy League had been scrubbed. But it may have already worked its magic: A day after it went up, the property was listed as pending contract.