Okay, Yolanda realizes this post is a bit late. We should have put this up at the end of September, right? But we’re running behind on a bunch of stuff. Can you tell? Ugh. Time to pull it together. We know.
After a very slow and unpromising start to the year (there was but one $20 million+ residential sale recorded in LA County during the 2016’s first quarter), the ultra-ultra-high-end market has come roaring back in a big way, culminating in two of the most massive sales ever recorded in LA. Oddly enough (or maybe not?), both estates are located in the tiny Holmby Hills neighborhood and both front the hoity-toity Los Angeles Country Club. Not only that, but both mansions were built by the very same family way back in the day.
But we digress. We’ve still got a couple months left in the year and LA County has racked up 19 sales of $20 million or more, per Yolanda’s tabulations. A healthy nine of those sales broke the $30 million barrier. So let’s discuss.
1. $100,000,000 — Charing Cross Road, Los Angeles (Holmby Hills)
The Playboy Mansion sold, folks. Biggest sale ever in SoCal. Hef is staying! Ew. How creepy. Toss the crypt keeper on out, we say.
2. $90,000,000 — S. Carolwood Drive, Los Angeles (Holmby Hills)
Real estate investment group Woodbridge Luxury Homes made a big bet on a huge spread filled with Hollywood history. (Cher lived here! Some other peeps did too!) The seller was a low-profile lady named Dawn Arnall, widow of billionaire Roland Arnall.
3. $38,270,000 — Williams Lane, Beverly Hills (Trousdale Estates)
Spec-mansion builder extraordinaire Nile Niami sold billionaire financier Brian Sheth a 14,000-square-foot contemporary confection on a .55-acre cul-de-sac flag lot.
4. $38,000,000 — Calle Vista Drive, Beverly Hills
Famous actor and arguably more famous Scientologist Tom Cruise unloaded his 10,000+ square foot 1930s stone flag lot mansion in a great part of Bev Hills to multi-billionaire financier Leon Black.
5. $34,928,500 — Bellagio Road, Los Angeles (Bel Air)
Arkansas native, major philanthropist, and real estate baller Bren Simon — widow of billionaire shopping mall magnate Melvin Simon — finally unloaded her 20,000 square foot, 1.5 acre Bel Air Country Club-fronting compound to art collector and apartment baron Robert H. Blumenfield.
6. $33,500,000 — Sweetwater Mesa Road, Malibu
Malibu’s biggest sale of 2016 came when the US government or the Department of Justice unloaded a massive (and long vacant) hilltop mansion in the guard-gated Serra Retreat neighborhood to Mexican investor Mauricio Oberfeld.
7. $32,500,000 — Casale Road, Los Angeles (Pacific Palisades)
McClean Design did it again. This spec-mansion sale in the pricey Riviera enclave represents the highest price ever paid for a house in the Palisades. Money man Richard Hollander and his wife Jackie are the lucky new owners.
8. $32,500,000 — Trousdale Place, Beverly Hills (Trousdale Estates)
In mid-September, a Trousdale Estates teardown silently sold to a mysterious buyer who may or may not be French bazillionaire Bernard Arnault.
9. $30,000,000 — N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills
The idiosyncratic Jackie Collins estate — it’s actually two adjacent yet separate houses and addresses — was sold in a single $30 million deal to real estate maven Ben Nehmadi.
10. $28,000,000 — Stone Canyon Road, Los Angeles (Bel Air)
Singer/dancer/actress/big-booty-mogul Jennifer Lopez dropped the big bucks on actress Sela Ward’s rather stunning 8-acre estate in the Bel Air hills.
11. $27,250,000 — Birdview Avenue, Malibu
Who knows why a young lady like her wants such a massive, high-maintenance estate, but Russian heiress Julia Lebedev paid American heir Nathaniel Redleaf the big bucks for a mansion on what is perhaps the best street in the coveted “Point Dume” area of Malibu.
12. $27,000,000 — Oriole Drive, Los Angeles (Bird Streets)
In what was first quarter 2016’s only $20 million+ sale, entrepreneur Lynda Weinman (she recently sold her Lynda.com website to LinkedIn for $1.5 billion) paid a guy named Sean Sassounian a lot of money for his never-lived-in 12,000-square foot mansion.
13. $24,250,000 — Somera Road, Los Angeles (Bel Air)
Elon Musk really loves real estate. He bought an unfinished hilltop mansion from one of his neighbors. It’s his fifth Bel Air acquisition.
14. $23,000,000 — Summit Drive, Beverly Hills
The Akhtarzad family of Beverly Hills bought this gold-leaf and marble-filled pleasure palace from the estate of healthcare entrepreneur Leonardo Berezevsky
15. $22,500,000 — N. Hillcrest Road, Beverly Hills (Trousdale Estates)
Stein-Mart chairman Jay Stein splurged on this newly-built Trousdale spread.
16. $22,375,000 — San Remo Drive, Los Angeles (Pacific Palisades)
Financier Jason Subotky and his wife, prominent violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, acquired this newly-built mansion in a prime area of the Palisades Riviera.
17. $21,565,000 — Sarbonne Road, Los Angeles (Bel Air)
Legally-embattled Nigerian oil magnate Kola Aluko quietly dumped his Nile Niami-built Bel Air mansion to a mysterious buyer who may or may not be his former business partner Thomas Flohr.
18. $20,900,000 — Alta Drive, Beverly Hills
Hungarian porn king Gyorgy Gattyan paid up for this 18,000 square foot spec-built Georgian-style mansion. Believe it or not, but this is one of three $20 million+ estates Gattyan owns in the Beverly Hills area.
19. $20,800,000 — Hillcrest Road, Beverly Hills (Trousdale Estates)
GUESS co-founder Maurice Marciano has a new Trousdale spec-mansion to call his own. Last year, billionaire Steve Wynn bought his longtime Beverly Hills estate for nearly $50 million.