Last May (2015), a large house located in a very prime section of Beverly Hills and owned by billionaire Greek heir Alkiviades “Alki” David was listed for $35 million. The rather eccentric Mr. David babbled to the Wall Street Journal some silly nonsense about how “Nobody should consider offering anything less [than $35 million]” and “the price is only going to go up.”
Well, either the bellicose Mr. David was trolling us hard or he was straight up lyin’, because the price did not go up. In fact, the price took a damn nosedive — falling to $29,750,000 this September (2016) and then crashing to $24,950,000 only one month later. That’s a truly embarrassing $10,050,000 less than Mr. David originally wanted.
But we’re not just here for the schadenfreude.
A few weeks ago, the house finally entered escrow. And although the sale has not yet officially closed and the final sale price remains unknown, a little birdie snitched to Yolanda that the new owner will be a controversial Beverly Hills-based businessman named Victorino “Victor” Jesus Noval.
But before we digress, let’s examine the history of this property. The house lies on an oddly-shaped 1-acre parcel of land that’s just a quick jaunt from the legendary Beverly Hills Hotel. The listing says the mansion clocks in at 16,217-square-feet, but it somehow appears smaller to Yolanda’s eyes. In any case, it’s still a big ass house.
Unfortunately, however, the estate is still absolutely dwarfed by the its gigantic next-door neighbor. Yes, kiddies, this home is adjacent to the Hollywood-pedigreed Pickfair estate. If you want the most thorough rundown on that estate’s history, go here. But suffice for this story to say it was originally built in the 1920s by silent film actress Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks. The couple were A-list celebrities of their day who entertained all manner of celebrities at the home until their eventual divorce. Ms. Pickford retained ownership of the home until her 1979 death. RIP. In 1980, the property was sold to Lakers owner Jerry Buss (also RIP), who in turn sold the 2.7-acre estate in 1988 to Israeli businessman Meshulam Riklis and his big-lipped wifey Pia Zadora. The couple tore down the original house and replaced it with a 25,000-square-foot Italian/Venetian monstrosity that Ms. Zadora eventually sold in 2005 to Korean-born businessman Corry Hong for $17,650,000.
Anyway, the Pickfair estate towers over this house, the one Mr. Noval (allegedly) just bought for something like $20 million or more.
In fact, the parcel of land that the David-cum-Noval mansion lies on was once part of Mary Pickford’s original estate and served as her “hunting grounds”. No joke.
Mr. Noval’s new house was originally completed in 2009 — near the height of the recession — by developers named Harvey Rosen and Ryan Lynch. Said developers sold the spec-mansion in early 2010 to Mr. David for $16,500,000, a big discount off the $23,950,000 they were originally seeking.
Now then, we think Mr. David might be the world’s richest professional troll. The billionaire is heir to his family’s Coca-Cola shipping/bottling conglomerate and owns an Internet-based TV provider firm called FilmOn but seems to spend his free time trying to get his mug in the news. This is a guy who once offered $1 million to anyone who would streak in front of President Obama, after all.
Mr. David is currently married to his third wife, socialite Jennifer Stano, with whom he has two young children. Ms. Stano — who sports nearly 700,000 Instagram followers — and Mr. David recently issued a bizarre press release to the media about how their mutual friend — some chick named Danielle — was “just a dear friend” and “nothing more”. Either way, the PR piece sounded like it was desperately trying to imply some sort of ménage à trois but Yolanda really don’t know anything about that so we won’t say anything else other than Mr. David and Ms. Stano currently appear to be in the process of divorcing.
Mr. David has been accused by others of posting (and then deleting) several very vulgar images of his wife. We dare not say any more. Although we have not seen said photographs, they sound rather disgusting.
As for Mr. Noval, he’s a very colorful figure in his own right. Our boy is currently involved in litigation with the city of Modesto, CA over his right to open a strip club and/or adult cabaret or two up there. He also — so we’ve heard — owns a number of strip clubs and “adult-themed” businesses in Nevada. Additionally, Mr. Noval is also a convicted felon who in 2003 pled guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion in connection to a multi-million dollar mortgage scam.
According to a fellow blogger, Mr. Noval is currently attempting to scam folks into donating to his Victorino Noval Foundation — which is actually not a legit non-profit foundation at all. And allegedly (!), according to a complaint by his own brother, Mr. Noval was even involved in a plot to murder his mega-rich invalid father! Goodness gracious!
Family squabbles aside and on a lighter note, Mr. Noval married again this year. Here his is with his blushing bride, 25 years his junior.
28-year-old Hannah Fenwick and Mr. Noval were married this August, according to his Facebook page. (Mazel tov!) Now let’s discuss what will be their new marital home, we assume.
Described as an “Italian Villa” in the listing, the house features a large motorcourt and a subterranean garage. A wrought iron gate swings inward for a touch of pomp and circumstance.
Elaborate wrought-iron front doors swing open to a foyer with a black grand piano underneath the industrial-sized staircase. Admirably, the house also packs in at least two study/libraries, though it doesn’t appear Mr. David & Ms. Stano cared much for collecting books.
That breakfast table has a lovely view but those canopy chairs always give Yolanda the willies for some strange reason.
Formal living/formal rooms are massive to the point of ridiculousness. Mr. David must’ve made some tacky tufted leather couch salesman very happy, eh?
The formal dining room has a fireplace and the table seats 14 (!!!). There’s also not one but two massive crystal chandeliers overhead. Looks as though the builder/Mr. Alki attempted to country-fy the kitchen with some faux-distressed wood beams.
Shockingly, the house does not appear to possess a traditional movie theater. Rather, Mr. David makes do with a clumsy setup that includes an off-center projection screen and some eyebrow-raising furniture that probably cost more than a new BMW but looks to Yolanda like it came from the clearance section at Sears.
Somewhere downstairs there’s some sort of dungeon-like wine cellar/game room/lounge.
We hope the master bedroom is staged because all that white leather furniture is tremendoesly banal. French doors access a balcony with treetop views. The master bathroom is swathed in beige marble/tile.
In addition to the master, there are five more suites in the mansion, one of which is done up for the kiddies.
The backyard isn’t as big as you might expect for a $20 million house — remember, this is a huge structure packed onto an oddly-shaped lot — but it does pack in the necessary features like a large swimming pool w/ spa, stone terraces, firepit, outdoor dining areas, etc.
Really, y’all, Yolanda thinks this house will look quite nice if Mr. Noval hires a professional interior decorator to do the place up right.
Yolanda’s research indicates that Mr. Noval will not have to schlep his belongings very far from his current home to his new one. That’s because he already lives in the neighborhood. In fact, it would take him about 90 seconds in his Rolls Royce to trundle from his current home to the house he is (allegedly) about to purchase.
Mr. Noval paid $6,100,000 for his current 7,577-square-foot house back in summer 2012. Described as a “European villa” in old marketing materials Yolanda dug up, tax documents show it has 6 beds and 6.5 baths and rests on a tightly-packed .37-acre lot. There appears to be a subterranean garage.
In addition to Corry Hong, Mr. Noval’s new neighbors (who were also his old neighbors) will include Priscilla Presley and billionaire Elaine Wynn.
All other nonsense aside, Mr. Noval may be best-known for his part-ownership of an enormous property up in Beverly Hills Post Office that is known as “The Vineyard”. The 157-acre undeveloped spread contains six graded estate-sized lots. At one point, the entire village-sized property was being marketed with a downright ludicrous asking price of $1 billion. But after a rather scandalous expose was published in the Hollywood Reporter, Mr. Noval (and his partners) issued a silly press release denying that the property was ever for sale. Oh, puh-lease.
A quick peep and poke through records reveals that these two houses we’ve discussed (and the Vineyard) are not the only Beverly Hills properties owned by Mr. Noval. Last year he paid $13,000,000 (through an LLC) for a ho-hum mansion just above Sunset Boulevard on the eastern edge of Beverly Hills.
Mr. Noval has since razed the mansion and currently has the vacant land up for sale with a ballsy asking price of $22,000,000. You know what they say about suckers being born and all that, right?
Alki David’s agent: Marc Noah, Sotheby’s International Realty