Selling Mountains, Coast, Town & Country
Los Angeles has just reached new heights in over-the-top real estate opulence.
The city now boasts the most expensive home for sale in the country: a newly built Bel-Air mega-mansion listed Wednesday at a quarter billion dollars.
It has all the hallmarks of a Big Deal house: 38,000 square feet spread across four floors, 12 bedrooms, 21 bathrooms, three kitchens, a 40-seat movie theater, an infinity pool with a swim-up bar and 270-degree hilltop views from downtown to the ocean. Whereas average home buyers might be able to get the fridge thrown in with the sale, the fully furnished Bel-Air home comes with a $30-million fleet of exotic cars and motorcycles parked in the foyer, including a custom Rolls-Royce, a Bugatti and a vintage Allard. The four-lane bowling alley has shoes in every size, and the candy room is filled with towering cylinders of sweets.
Want even more status symbols? A helicopter is parked on the roof — craned in because the house doesn’t have a permit for landings and takeoffs. A Hobie Cat sailboat sits on a deck ready for imaginary voyages. Stuck in the crocodile-embossed elevator? The house comes with seven full-time employees, who live in a separate staff wing.
The 60-year-old lives in a 27,000-square-foot Beverly Park mansion once leased by the late pop icon Prince and made his fortune selling handbags on QVC before turning to real estate six years ago. He’s built nine homes so far and furnishes them to reflect his own extravagant travels, interests and tastes.
Now the quarter-billion-dollar question is: Who will buy the Makowsky mansion?