And we're back on top! Just a few months ago, there was a glut of homes on the market in the $125-135 million range, including the Holmby Hills estate of Suzanne Saperstein, Fleur-de-Lys. Sure, it seems like a lot but we had some heavy competition for the title of Most Expensive Real Estate in the US from Aspen and Palm Beach. But never fear, LA (and technically Beverly Hills) will always take its rightful place as the country's undisputed leader in egregiously, outrageously overpriced real estate. The former estate of William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies (you somehow suspected this sentence would start that way, didn't you?) is on the market for $165 million, making it the most expensive property on the market in the US today.
So what does a cool $165 mil buy you today? Pedigree and space and some other stuff:
72,000 square feet (6,689 square meters) of living space in six residences on about 6 1/2 acres (2.6 hectares). The property is known as 'The Beverly House Compound'' and John F. Kennedy and the former Jacqueline Bouvier spent part of their honeymoon there. The Ross property includes 29 bedrooms in four separate houses, one apartment and one cottage. The main house has nine bedrooms including two master suites, a two-story library with hand-carved paneling, eight fireplaces, two movie-projection rooms and a living room with a 22-foot (6.7-meter), arched ceiling. Both screening rooms are equipped for showing 35-millimeter movies, and one has a Dolby surround sound system. There was also a 20,000 sq foot expansion done in 1992 with fireplaces brought over from Hearst Castle. If the house looks familiar, that may be because its been used as the backdrop for scenes in The Godfather, the Whitney Houston tour-de-force The Bodyguard, and our all-time favorite Steve Martin vehicle, The Jerk. (We LOVE pizza in a cup, but we digress).
That price will also buy you a second house on the compound with "7,200 square feet (669 square meters) of space, two other houses with four bedrooms apiece, two tennis courts, a tennis pavilion with two bathrooms, three pools, and a poolside cabana with two bedrooms and two bathrooms." The seller is hoping to sell the entire property but will consider breaking it up.
So let's say you have $165 million jingling in your pants pocket. What else could $165 million buy besides the Hearst/Davies estate? The Mars Polar Lander. All the outstanding units of a REIT with a portfolio of assets in Central and Eastern Canada. Two California Internet data centers. And a Boeing 787.
· Beverly Hills Estate Hits Market for $165 Million [Bloomberg]