LA has seen a healthy spattering of ultra-high-end sales recently — banner sales like private equity heir Evan Metropoulos’s $65 million Trousdale Estates splurge, Hong Kong billionaire Karen Lo’s $70 million Malibu splash, and the $85 million sale of David Geffen’s Carbon Beach compound to an as-yet-unidentified billionaire businessman. (Side note: Yolanda originally heard that the Carbon Beach buyer hails from Texas but now we are hearing that he actually comes from Latin America. Hmm. We shall see!)
So anyway, it was sorta unfortunate that a massive (and record-breaking!) sale down in Venice, a sale that would normally would be headlining real estate news, kinda quickly got lost in the shuffle of all those megabucks transactions. At $14.6 million, this one pales in monetary comparison to those aforementioned exchanges, of course. But make no mistake, kiddies, it’s totally unprecedented and no less shocking. Y’all young’uns may not remember, but 15 or 20 years ago Venice was just a grungy gutterbutt ghetto. No lie. But with the advent of super-trendy Abbott Kinney and all the tech giants opening up offices in the area, prices have skyrocketed so fast that they’ve nearly blown Yolanda’s bloomers off. Multiple times!
Another interesting tidbit is that the Venice house was never advertised on the open market. Built by noted sustainable architect David Randall Hertz, the 5,000-square-foot, four-structure compound found a new owner very quietly and without the aid of marketing. So the story goes, the buyer and seller knew each other beforehand and hashed out a price between themselves — a price that happens to be about $3.5 million more than any other sale ever recorded in the area.
Now, y’all know Yolanda, so y’all also already know we had only one question: who the heck was the outrageously rich buyer? Well, kiddies, Mr. Hertz himself told the LA Times that the new owner was an “investment group headed by Nick Valencia”.
But if y’all had never before heard of Mr. Valencia, you’re certainly not alone. Our Mr. Hertz’s admission absolutely confounded Yolanda. For one, we like to think we keep good tabs on all the richie-rich LA developers, yet we had never heard of this enigmatic Mr. Valencia. Just who is he, and where on earth did he get nearly 15 million bucks for a house in what appears to have been an all-cash sale?! That’s what we couldn’t figure out, not for the life of us.
But lo! Property records have now cleared, and we think all those silly questions have been answered. It seems, y’all, our Mr. Hertz — that crafty coot — was only giving us a portion of this tantalizing tale. Documents show the house was actually acquired by a corporate entity (Venice Sunshine LLC) that is linked not to Mr. Valencia but rather to a fellow named Brendan Iribe Trexler, better known just as Brendan Iribe.
This makes much more sense to Yolanda. Our Mr. Iribe, you see, most definitely has the cash to afford a $14.6 million house in Venice. While we aren’t sure of his exact net worth, it was only three years ago that the 37-year-old Mr. Iribe and his business partner Palmer Luckey sold their Oculus VR company to Facebook for a mind-boggling $2 billion.
Clik here to view.
A thorough investigation reveals that Mr. Iribe and Mr. Valencia are longtime best friends who appear to both be interested in real estate. And it seems they are collaborating on a spat of real estate investment. We really have no proof of their arrangement, of course, but Yolanda imagines that Mr. Iribe provides the cash and Mr. Valencia puts in the work to renovate all these properties they’ve been buying. And there’s a lot. Over on Mr. Valencia’s website, he lists no fewer than 9 in-progress projects. And wouldn’t y’all know — a quick check of property records reveals that all 9 homes/lots are actually owned by Mr. Iribe.
If you’ve been following this silly blog for a while now, you may recall that Yolanda has already thoroughly dissected the very rich Mr. Iribe’s property portfolio. At the time we wrote that tale, we had no idea that our boy was fixin’ to break the Venice record with his Facebook moolah, but now we know. Don’t we?
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
If this compound looks a wee bit familiar, you might have seen it featured on the Showtime series Californication. The double-lot compound is completely walled and gated and encompasses the four previously mentioned standalone structures, which are linked by three enclosed bridges overlooking a courtyard with a long black-bottomed pool. Yolanda would call the house style contemporary with a Balinese or Hawaiian flair. Maybe?
Interior materials are exotic yet “sustainable”: Ipe, Mahogany, and Fir woods and a special kind of recycled concrete called Syndecrete.
For lots more photos and further information about the property, mosey on over here.
And for those of you who didn’t read Yolanda’s last article on him, we’ll be generous today and give y’all a quick but thorough rundown through Mr. Iribe’s property portfolio. The crown jewel in his collection, we believe, is his spectacular blufftop house in Laguna Beach (California).
Clik here to view.
Property records show that Mr. Iribe plunked down a baller-tastic $30,896,545 for his hilltop mansion back in September 2014. The house is located in what is often considered to be the best pocket of Laguna Beach — that would be guard-gated Irvine Cove — and features approximately 10,000-square-feet of contemporary interior space. It also happens to be almost directly across the street from billionaire money manager Bill Gross’s three-house compound.
Clik here to view.
The high-flying Mr. Iribe also lays claim to a 3,367-square-foot modern Spanish-style mini-compound in the pricey “Crescent Park” neighborhood of Palo Alto, CA, where one of his neighbors is Mark Zuckerberg.
Clik here to view.
Mr. Iribe is also not new to Venice — back in 2014 he paid $1,496,500 for a tiny house on a corner lot that Mr. Valencia has since completely gutted, as seen on his website.
In addition to these homes, there are also three new build projects in the works — one in Santa Monica, one in Venice, and one in Culver City — all of which appear to be collaborations with none other than our Mr. David Randall Hertz! Fancy that. There’s also a condo in Miami and a multi-family situation in Santa Monica thrown into the mix (just for fun)!
Since all of Mr. Iribe’s homes appear to be under construction, Yolanda wonders where the fellow actually lays his head at night? But then we suppose those are little people concerns — when you’re really rich you can afford to bunk up at the Montage or Ritz for months on end, right?
Listing agents: Tami Pardee & Justin Alexander, Halton Pardee + Partners; Tim Mullin, Partners Trust
Mr. Iribe’s agents: Tami Pardee & Katie Pardee, Halton Pardee + Partners; Tim Mullin, Partners Trust