If the walls of 2670 Pierce St. could talk, they’d probably sing operatically of two lives devoted to music and to one another: The iconic musician, conductor and composer Michael Tilson Thomas lived in the Pacific Heights mansion with his husband, Joshua Robison, for more than 30 years. Now, for the first time since 1994, the historic residence is for sale, asking $9.85 million. 

Tilson’s contribution to music is hard to capture in a single paragraph. At the end of his life, he was serving as the music director laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, the conductor laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra and the co-founder and artistic director laureate of the New World Symphony, as well as a distinguished professor of music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. But prior to his work in SF, he’d won awards and held prestigious musical roles all over the United States and abroad — a 12-time Grammy winner whose career touched both stage and screen.

Michael Tilson Thomas leads the San Francisco Symphony at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Sept. 24, 2008.

When he died this past April, Tilson was living at 2670 Pierce, the home that he’d shared with his partner of nearly 50 years, Joshua Robison. (Robison, credited as the “force” behind Tilson’s career, died in February of this year.) With its capacious rooms, soaring ceilings and its many windows framing postcard views of San Francisco, the house suited this creative couple, whose long tenancy added to an already interesting history.

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