Francis Ford Coppola put up the flatiron-shaped Sentinel Building in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood as collateral for a private loan in the ongoing financial fallout from his notoriously expensive film flop Megalopolis.
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The filmmaker, hotelier and winery owner purchased the unmistakable city-designated landmark at 900 Kearny St. in 1973 for $500K.
One of Coppola’s companies, Francis Ford Coppola Presents, secured the loan from Capital Holdings VI LLC for an undisclosed amount, according to documents filed with the San Francisco assessor. The assessed value of the building also wasn’t disclosed.
Coppola has seen this one before. He nearly lost the building in a 1980 debtor’s auction while juggling financial losses from his film Apocalypse Now. He reportedly paid off a $1.7M loan from Security Pacific Bank just in time to keep the property. He put the building up as collateral again in 1998 to secure a $1.5M loan from First Republic Bank, according to The Real Deal.
This most recent round of financial troubles stems from Megalopolis, the megabudget passion project that reportedly cost $120M and earned just $14.4M at the box office.
He financed the film by merging his Sonoma wineries, the Francis Ford Coppola Winery and Archimedes Vineyard properties, plus Virginia Dare Winery, with a Napa brand and borrowing $200M against his ownership stake. He still owns the Inglenook winery estate in Napa Valley and The Coppola Hideaways hotel group, which includes properties in Belize, Atlanta and southern Italy.
Original construction on the Sentinel Building began prior to the 1906 earthquake and fire. The framing survived the disasters, and construction was completed in 1907. Developer Abraham Ruef intended to use the building as his law offices, but the move was delayed by Ruef’s stint in San Quentin State Prison for a graft conviction. The Sentinel Building was designated a landmark by the San Francisco Planning Commission in 1970.
The building is home to the Coppola-owned Cafe Zoetrope, and the literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story. It previously housed the offices of American Zoetrope, the film studio Coppola founded in the 1970s. In 2019, SocketSite reported that Coppola filed plans to convert the building into a 15-room boutique hotel. Renovations were underway in 2024.
