Inventor of the camera phone built this “dream home for yachters” asking $20M

A bayfront property custom built for camera phone inventor and yacht racer Philippe Kahn on Marin’s Corinthian Island returned to market this week, asking $20 million—$5 million more than its ask one year ago.

Described as a “dream home for yachters,” the property is currently owned by “another tech titan, also known in international yacht racing circles,” according to the dock home’s marketing site.

27 Bellevue Avenue (Source: Redfin)

This undisclosed owner—public record lists only a generic LLC—purchased the house at 27 Bellevue from Kahn in 2013 for $9.5 million. Two years later the owner embarked on a major remodel of the 2009 three-bedroom with over 4,000 square feet, panoramic bayfront views, a covered outdoor pool and spa, and a floating dock with 12,000-pound-boat lift.

27 Bellevue Avenue (Source: Redfin)

Listing agent Bill Smith of Compass also held the listing last year when it failed to sell with a $15-million ask, which was down $1 million from the asking when it first came to market in 2019. Smith did not respond to a request for comment on reasons behind the new $5-million-more asking price, but the isthmus of only about 60 homes that straddles Belvedere and Tiburon recently late last year saw a $20-million sale of a 6,300-square-foot home that isn’t directly on the bay and doesn’t havel. It was the not-quite-an-island’s biggest sale to date, though its sellers had been hoping for nearly $30 million when it first came to market in 2020.

As the inventor of the camera phone in the late 1990s, as well as the founder of several successful tech companies and a competitive yacht racer, Kahn was one of the biggest names on Corinthian Island when he bought 27 Bellevue for $3.1 million in 2005. He originally hoped to combine it with an adjacent property he already owned, according to an article that came out during its construction in Marin Magazine. Belvedere officials balked at that idea, so Kahn demolished the existing home and set about building the new four-level elevator property, with materials barged into the cliffside location at a rumored cost of $20 million. He also dredged a channel into Belvedere Cove so it could accommodate 60-foot sailboats, according to the article.

After years of construction, Kahn ended up putting the home on the market in 2012 when his then-teenage daughter—whose 1997 birth had inspired him to create the camera phone—decided to go to high school in Santa Cruz instead of the Lycee Francais in San Francisco, the Paris-born inventor told the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Kahn’s most recent company, founded with his wife Sonia Lee in 2005, is called Fullpower and is located in Santa Cruz. It makes activity-tracking and sleep-monitoring software used by mattress companies, as well as Nike and Jawbone, among others.

He asked $12 million for the custom home when it first came to market in September 2012, and accepted the $9.5 million offer from the unknown “titan” who was presumably very known to Kahn from both yachting and tech circles, six months later.