SAN FRANCISCO—Artist David Ireland's house in San Francisco will not hit the real estate block; Carlie Wilmans, an art collector and philanthropist, has bought the 500 Capp St. residence with plans to preserve and restore it, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The 1886 Victorian house is known for holding much of Ireland's work as well as being a kind of evolving art installation itself. In early January, the Chronicle reported that the house was soon to be offered for sale; Ireland, 77, had moved out three years prior due to health problems and needed to sell quickly in order to get a one-time tax advantage. Plans for preservation, including a possible annexation by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, had fallen through.

Wilmans, an art collector and SFMOMA board member, decided to save the house. "I knew if it went on the market a developer would come and snap it up," she said. "I'm familiar with the gentrification process in the Mission." She purchased the house for $895,000.

Wilmans has started a foundation to oversee 500 Capp St. and preserve it as a place for the study of Ireland's work and his archives. Once the legalities of establishing the foundation have been worked out, she will give the house and the artworks within it to the foundation.

She has consulted with Ireland and with his friend Jock Reynolds, director of the Yale University Art Gallery, about the project. Reynolds told the Chronicle via e-mail that "For many artists who came of age in San Francisco during the 1970s and 1980s, David's home, and all that creatively and socially transpired within it, came to be considered a genuine masterpiece of contemporary art."

The details of scholarly and public access to the space have yet to be worked out. Wilmans is also exploring the option of an artist's residency program.