The riddle wrapped in a mystery could well describe a billboard under construction in West Hollywood — with an enigmatic office building tucked inside.
United El Segundo, a holding company led by Ronald Appel based in Cheviot Hills, is behind the 29,000-square-foot office building and billboard at 8497 West Sunset Boulevard, Urbanize Los Angeles reported. It replaces a 31-unit apartment building.
The three-story office building, dubbed “The Now,” would be wrapped in digital signage at Sunset and La Cienega boulevards. The project is in conjunction with Rick Moses Development, based in Downtown.
Designed by Seattle-based Mithun, it features white offices with floor-to-ceiling windows, with second-floor columns and beams that open up like a mouth facing Sunset Boulevard, according to a rendering. The design was initiated by Hodgetts + Fung.
The digital sign, designed by artist Refik Anadol, juts from the right side of the building.
The building will include restaurants, shops, an outdoor dining terrace, a public plaza and a 3,000 square-foot “extensive green roof,” according to Mithun.
A four-level, 54,000-square-foot underground parking garage for 138 cars, will go under the billboard-office-restaurant extravaganza.
“Poised at the intersection of two famous boulevards, this commercial development extends along an east-west axis, withdrawing on the street-level at an angle to define a public plaza beneath a creative billboard integrated into the building façade,” reads a project description by Mithun.
“On the upper levels, elevated terraces provide full-service dining and green space with commanding hillside views of greater Los Angeles.”
The architect claims its design brings “a much-needed gravity to the disarray of the Sunset Strip,” while meeting a city mandate to add digital media at select locations.
United El Segundo is a holding company that owns prominent development sites in West L.A. and Santa Monica, according to Urbanize.
Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann have bought a 9,300-square-foot Mid-century mansion in Beverly Hills for $31.9 million — $3.6 million less than it sold for a year ago.
The director/producer and the actress of “Cable Guy,” “Knocked Up” and “This is 40” purchased the single-story spread at 514 Doheny Road, south of Greystone Mansion, according to the Robb Report. The seller was Guess co-founder Maurice Marciano.
Marciano bought the house in September 2022 for $35.5 million.
The purchase by Apatow and his wife of 27 years comes five months after they sold their 10,300-square-foot mansion at 239 North Bristol Avenue in Beverly Park for $27 million.
Their new five-bedroom, eight-bathroom home, built in 1955, was renovated and expanded a few years ago.
Hidden behind towering hedges, the nearly 1-acre estate was billed as the “embodiment of architecture as art.”
The mansion has a “floating” entryway over moat-like water features, hand-combed limestone, white oak floors, marble slabs and a media room lined in cashmere.
Its floor plan can be open or intimate, with walls of steel and glass that vanish and reappear at the touch of a button.
Each bedroom and bathroom have their own “private gardens,” according to the listing, with the master bedroom containing a sitting area and dressing room.
The gourmet kitchen has top appliances and dual marble islands, leading to a dining room with silk ceilings and walls. The home contains a library, gym and a temperature-controlled glass wine closet.
Out front is a cobblestone motor court. In the back is a dark-bottom swimming pool surrounded by lawns and gardens.
Apatow and Mann, parents of two adult daughters, actors Maude and Iris, own a $9 million condominium in New York’s West Village.
This month, Apatow was among the Hollywood celebrities who pitched in $15.5 million to buy and preserve the Fox Village Theatre in Westwood.
Homebuilding permits across the Golden State fell last year, but not as fast as across the U.S.
California developers filed permits for 111,221 homes last year, 6 percent fewer than in 2022, the Orange County Register reported, citing figures from the National Association of Home Builders.
At the same time, builders in 49 states and the District of Columbia pulled 1.26 million permits, 11 percent fewer than the year before. Nine states had increases.
California ranked third among states for the number of permits filed last year.
Of those, 57,959 were for single-family houses, an 8 percent decline from 2022. Multifamily permits across the state totaled 53,262, a 3 percent decline; in the Inland Empire, however, multifamily permits shot up 89 percent.
California permits equaled 2.8 per 1,000 residents, the lowest ratio since 2020, according to the Register. It’s also above the average 2.2 permits per 1,000 residents pace since 2008.
The Great Recession changed how builders build: from 1990 to 2007, California permitting averaged 4 per 1,000 residents.
Across the nation, builders filed 851,268 single-family home permits, a 6 percent decline. Six states were up for the year. They filed 508,107 multifamily permits, down 19 percent, with 15 states reporting an increase in filings.
The overall decrease in permits was generally attributed to an uncertain economy, higher mortgage rates and fears that too many apartments were being built, according to the Register.
Within the Golden State, Northern California saw a 10 percent drop in building permits last year, compared to a 6 percent drop in Southern California.
In Los Angeles and Orange County, builders pulled 30,691 permits last year, 6 percent fewer than in 2022. Of those, 11,810 permits were for single-family homes, a 7 percent increase. Some 18,881 permits were for multifamily, a 13 percent decrease.
In the Inland Empire, builders pulled 19,710 permits, up 21 percent from 2022. Of those, 11,924 were for single-family homes, down 2 percent. Some 7,786 permits were for multifamily — an increase of 89 percent.
The Joshua Tree property, which looks like a horizontal reflective skyscraper resting in the desert, was listed for $18 million last year — making it the most expensive house ever built in Joshua Tree, a bit over two hours east of Los Angeles.
Over 400 days later, according to its Zillow listing, and after many short-term rentals and plenty of interest from potential buyers — ranging from celebrities to billionaires to art collectors — there are still no takers.
While the 5,500-square-foot home, known as the Invisible House, has attracted a lot of known figures such as Alicia Keys and Demi Lovato, along with influencers and brands Hermés and BMW, finding a buyer has proven a challenge for Aaron Kirman and Matt Adamo of AKG Christie’s International, who represent the property owner.
The uniqueness of the home, the high price range for its remote location and a challenging 2023 market were all contributing factors, according to Adamo.
“It makes it much more difficult,” he said. “2023 one of the hardest markets that we faced, and the buyer pool for this is small, 3 percent of the buyers who are looking.”
Selling a property of this type doesn’t come easy even in a robust market like Joshua Tree, where the average home price is $450,000.
“Joshua Tree is a hot market despite the high interest rates, has really gained traction and scaled even over the last five years, especially during the pandemic,” said Tyler Neale, an agent at Sotheby’s International Realty who’s not associated with the listing. “It’s a popular place for Angelenos, and yet this property is an outlier from the norm in that market in every way.”
“Most spectacular” Airbnb
The character of the property has everything to do with the owner, the film producer and artist Chris Hanley, who along with his wife Roberta were drawn to Joshua Tree and purchased the land there.
The Hanleys were behind movies such as “American Psycho,” “Virgin Suicides” and “Spring Breakers.”
The concept for the Invisible House originated over a decade ago, when Chris Hanley came up with the design and approached Polish American architect Tomas Osinski to bring it to life. Its name describes how the house reflects the surrounding sky, rock and sand in a way that the structure seems to disappear into the landscape.
They began construction in 2013. The design is inspired by New York, where Hanley grew up “feeling comfortable with the monoliths.”
The home is located on a 90-acre property on the border with Joshua Tree National Park, making it the largest parcel of land that shares a border with the park. It was completed in March 2019.
It’s clear Hanley was involved in every inch of the home’s creation.
“It has 36-inch steel beams, maybe the biggest of any residential house in California,” he said proudly.
The house also has sustainability features, including a fully solarcool glass exterior with reflective light filtering and a solar thermal smart system for controlling the pool and hot water.
Once the couple built it, the plan was to live in it.
“We never thought in a million years that it was going to end up being some influencer house,” Hanley said.
As they had more guests come over, the house generated more and more interest from people they didn’t know.
“By the time Alicia Keys came in 2020, she wanted it for five weeks,” Hanley recalled. “So the house is kind of like one of these science fiction forms — it was no longer just Chris and Roberta Hanley’s residential dwelling, it had taken on a form in social media and media at large.”
Eventually it became one of the most desirable Airbnbs in the world, with CEO Brian Chesky calling it a “piece of modern art” and “one of the most spectacular homes in the world on all of Airbnb.”
After that, things really took off and the Hanleys started making rental income from brands including Hermés, BMW and others.
“The amount of income that comes, it’s better than most office buildings,” Adamo said. “You’re getting a potential 6 percent CAP rate.”
Joshua Tree was in fact one of the top two short-term rental markets in California and one of the top 25 in the U.S., according to AirDNA data cited by The New York Times.
Hanley said the house generates around $900,000 each year since 2021 in net income.
That may still not be enough for most buyers to justify the listing price.
“There is no Airbnb price or nightly rate that will make a property of $18 million cash flow that’s practical,” Neale said in reference to the rental revenue. “It’s a hard proposition even as a short-term rental at that price.”
“I don’t think it’s inflated, because it is a piece of art, but it is a hard proposition,” he noted.
“Pyramid in Egypt”
The decision to sell came when the Hanleys realized that the house was getting big and they were ready to move on to other projects.
“When I make a movie, it needs to get out, it needs to be experienced,” Hanley said. “And this was starting to get so experienced by so many people.“
While they have a property management company, they are not looking to become landlords long-term.
“We’re not in the hospitality business,” he said. “We’re creating new forms.”
They’re already on to the next project, which is the Starburst House located nearby in Joshua Tree.
Starburst House
Hanley has big ambitions for his properties and is not shy about it.
“It’s become this kind of social destination, very much like a pyramid in Egypt or something like that, where you just want to go to see this form,” he explained. “It somehow relates to the world at large, there’s some thought that there’s an interaction between extraterrestrial or other life forms or other forms of consciousness that are constantly taking place.”
Needless to say, not everyone can afford to stay at the Invisible House, but everyone can at least follow the Instagram account. It’s available for rent from $2,689 to $7,500 per night, according to property manager Fieldtrip Hospitality.
Demi Lovato was one guest who said she saw aliens there, as per The Wall Street Journal, and the buyer is likely to be someone who has an appreciation for metaphysical experiences, real or imaginary.
The agents trying to sell the property have their work cut out for them: They’ve had a hard time imagining the ideal buyer.
Speaking about potential buyers, Adamo was nostalgic for a minute about the crypto craze of 2021, when newly minted millionaires were quick to invest in real estate and would appreciate the artistic vision behind the property.
“We’ve had billionaires, investors from other countries and everything in between,” he said. “We’ve had brands and CEOs look at this for company retreats, art collectors.”
They had one proposal to build “something in the metaverse” and an idea of partial ownership, which didn’t work out.
Given the level of public and social media interest the house has generated, the buyer is unlikely to be a recluse or a hermit. There is a public performance aspect to the space.
Still, the image of the perfect buyer remains elusive.
“We haven’t figured out who the perfect buyer is for the property, because if we had it would be sold by now,” Adamo said.
FBI agents swooped into the homes of two AB Capital executives in Newport Beach and Laguna Beach to find evidence of an alleged Ponzi scheme that cost investors tens of millions of dollars.
Armed with search warrants, the federal agents seized documents as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into Joshua Pukini and Ryan Young, co-owners of the Newport Beach-based real estate finance firm, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.
The FBI also searched AB Capital’s former Newport Beach headquarters at 15 Corporate Plaza Drive, investors say.
In a broadcast on KCal News, the FBI agents were seen hefting boxes and bags of evidence from one of the homes.
The raids lasted hours, with FBI agents first barking on a bullhorn to those inside the homes, said Brian Werlemman, a wealth manager who alleges he was fleeced out of $2.7 million in 2018 during an elaborate Ponzi scheme involving the company.
He claims around 100 others, many from Orange County, were duped into investing with the company.
“There was approximately upwards of $100 million involved,” Werlemman, who says he was the largest investor, told KCal News. “These are first and second trust deeds, where we started noticing bizarre things were happening — and money was missing, literally missing.”
Laura Eimiller, spokeswoman for the FBI in Los Angeles, confirmed the raids, saying they’re connected to an ongoing criminal investigation. She declined to provide further details.
Neither of AB Capital’s two principals could be reached for comment by the Daily News. Information wasn’t available on whether they face criminal charges.
Werlemman said he has cooperated with the FBI and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
The investigation follows an involuntary bankruptcy foisted upon AB Capital by disgruntled investors in 2022, he said. A civil lawsuit tied to the bankruptcy names Pukini and Young, alleging breach of fiduciary duty, conversion and other offenses.
It seeks $50 million or more in damages.
AB Capital is described in the suit as a real estate investment company that provides loans, then syndicates and sells fractional interest in those loans to investors.
“Prior to bankruptcy, debtor and its principals breached their fiduciary duties by looting and fraudulently transferring debtor’s assets, misappropriating debtor’s business opportunities, and defrauding creditors, the complaint says.
Werlemman, commenting on the alleged Ponzi scheme, said the defendants took real estate properties and liquidated them to return funds to investors.
“It looks like there are going to be cents on the dollar when everything is done,” he told the Daily News. “The civil suit is trying to unwind the tangled mess.”
The complaint alleges Pukin and Young refused to turn over AB Capital’s accounting records and destroyed documents, to the “shock and utter amazement” of a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee.
The trustee’s examination of AB Capital’s electronic and hard files on Oct. 7, 2022, revealed there were no files of any kind left on computers other than 80 files found in the computer’s “trash,” the complaint alleges. Additionally, large filing cabinets in a conference room at AB Capital’s headquarters were allegedly empty.
It is also alleged that Pukini lied about the disposition of AB Capital funds and misappropriated or fraudulently transferred proceeds, according to the Daily News.
AB Capital, founded in 2016, claims the firm makes “disciplined investments in targeted markets,” according to its website, with its founders having completed more than $1 billion in real estate deals.
Southern California has slammed the brakes on falling home sales.
After 25 straight months of declining year-over-year sales, home sales rose 7 percent in January to 10,581 deals, the Orange County Register reported, citing figures from CoreLogic.
The volume of January sales still ranked as the third-lowest in records dating back 36 years.
Home prices, meanwhile, continued to climb during a severe shortage of homes on the market, CoreLogic reported.
The median price of a Southern California home was $705,000 in January, up by more than 5 percent from the year before.
Despite the gain, January’s median was down from the previous nine months. The month is typically the slowest of the year, reflecting deals signed during the holiday season when buyers and sellers generally take a break.
January’s median was $45,000 below the all-time high of $750,000 reached in April 2022, right before climbing mortgage rates combined with high prices to slow buyer demand.
Both prices and sales were up year-over-year in all six Southern California counties.
Orange County had the biggest gain in both prices and sales, with the median up 12 percent to nearly $1.07 million. Sales increased 13 percent year-over-year.
Los Angeles County had the smallest price gain percentage-wise, with the median rising 4.6 percent to $800,000.
The Inland Empire continued to have the best housing bargains, with a median price of $475,000 in San Bernardino County and $550,000 in Riverside County. But their annual price growth was 5.6 percent in San Bernardino County and 2.1 percent in Riverside County.
A lack of homes for sale continued to prop up prices, according to the Register.
The Southland averaged fewer than 39,000 homes for sale in November and December, when most of January’s transactions went under contract, according to Redfin.
The region had 37,594 active listings in January, down 8 percent from the previous year and 39 percent below the average for the previous 11 years. All six Southern California counties saw declines in real estate listings.
High mortgage rates continued to dampen both sales and listings.
Interest rates for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage averaged 7.4 percent in November and 6.8 percent in December, according to Freddie Mac.
The typical monthly payment for a Southern California home was nearly $3,800 in December, not counting taxes, insurance and the HOA, or homeowner association fees. In addition to dampening demand, higher rates discouraged homeowners from giving up their low mortgage rates by selling their house.
Housing Diversity has secured a $34.9 million loan for a nearly completed, 227-unit “micro apartment” complex in Downtown Los Angeles.
The Seattle-based developer landed the loan to complete the eight-story Liv DTLA at 1411 South Flower Street, in South Park, the Commercial Observer reported. It replaced a vacant lot.
The company announced it secured a $34.9 million loan from United Way of Greater L.A. and a $13.6 million equity investment from Arctaris Impact Investors, based in Boston.
The financial injection comes two years after the project secured $41.1 million from Lument Real Estate Capital, based in Ohio.
That adds to an original investment of $10 million raised for the building through crowdfunding platformCrowdstreet, plus $8 million of equity from high-net-worth individual investors, according to the Observer.
The 96,400-square-foot building is 85 percent complete on more than a third-acre near the Pico Boulevard Metro station and the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Liv DTLA will contain 227 market-rate and affordable studio apartments, most of which would be around 265 square feet. Expected rents for the complex were not disclosed.
The project, designed by Downtown-based Steinberg Hart, has five levels of wood-frame construction above a three-story concrete base. The contemporary brown building with divided balconies will include a rooftop deck, ground-floor courtyard and a breezeway.
Housing Diversity employs the city’s Transit-Oriented Communities program to build a larger building than zoning rules allow in exchange for 25 affordable apartments for extremely low-income households.
Liv DTLA also taps into federal opportunity zone tax breaks, which allow investors to defer taxes on capital gains. Some 66 units are projected to accept federal housing choice vouchers.
Elsewhere, the Seattle-based team filed plans in late 2021 to build an eight-story, 92-unit micro apartment building at 603 South Mariposa Avenue in Koreatown.
A second Downtown project at 1317 South Grand Avenue will rise eight stories and include 151 apartments that average 325 square feet and will likely rent for around $1,600.
Housing Diversity is also building an eight-story micro apartment building at 1621 North McCadden Place in Hollywood. Plans call for 69 studio apartments that average 375 square feet and likely rent for around $2,000.
The top-floor penthouse at the 22-story Beverly West in Westwood has listed for $28.9 million — $11 million less than it was priced two years ago.
The 8,000-square-foot condo tower penthouse was put up for sale at 1200 Club View Drive, overlooking the Los Angeles Country Club, according to the Robb Report. The seller was undisclosed.
In 2022, the never-occupied boutique penthouse known as “The Producer” listed for nearly $40 million, but had no takers. Prices at the luxury condo complex may be trending downward.
In August, the musician known as The Weeknd, born Abel Tesfaye, sold an 8,000-square-foot furnished penthouse on the 18th floor for $19 million — $2 million less than he paid in 2019. The home initially sought $21 million, then $19.8 million, before selling for less to an undisclosed buyer.
The Emaar Properties’ Beverly West, built in 2009, is among the top luxury condo towers in Los Angeles.
The 22nd floor penthouse, which takes up an entire floor, looks out from floor-to-ceiling walls of glass from Downtown L.A to the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains.
The three-bedroom, six-bathroom home, designed by Lisa Garriss, has stone and wide-plank white oak floors, walnut paneling, soaring ceilings and designer lighting, according to Robb.
Highlights include a foyer opening to a hallway with a climate-controlled wine vault. An open living room and formal dining area and bar span the length of the penthouse.
Tucked around the corner is an Italian Arclinea kitchen with stainless countertops, floating shelves and top Miele appliances. The penthouse includes an office, a screening room and a master suite with a balcony, plus dual walk-in closets and luxe baths.
A buyer would pay an HOA fee of $9,054 a month for security, valet parking, a saltwater pool and spa, fitness center and a helipad. There’s also a “house car” with a dedicated driver.
It’s not clear why the flagship penthouse at Beverly West sat empty for 15 years.
Brokers Tomer Fridman, Sally Forster Jones and Amir Ensani of Compass hold the listing. In December, there were 11 penthouses available at Beverly West, owned by Emaar Properties PJSC, based in the United Arab Emirates. Prices range from $2.75 million to $28.9 million.
In July, a 13,000-square foot penthouse at Four Seasons Private Residences Los Angeles, a few miles away from Beverly West, cut its price to $37 million, from $75 million.
The priciest condo in L.A. last year was Rihanna’s April purchase of a 9,300-square-foot unit at The Century for $21 million.
Neil Shekhter has lost three more apartment properties, this time to foreclosure.
Bank of Southern California foreclosed on 1007 Lincoln Boulevard, 1038 10th Street and 1516 Stanford Street, according to a trustee’s deed filed last month.
Shekhter owed $15.8 million in unpaid debt tied to the three properties, which total 24 apartments, according to the deed.
Bank of Southern California foreclosed with a credit bid of $9.5 million at a public auction, coming out to about $394,000 per unit.
The bank was also able to acquire the properties for less than what Shekhter paid for the three between 2015 and 2016. Shekhter paid $10.6 million total, according to property records filed with Los Angeles County.
Bank of Southern California did not respond to requests for comment. Shekhter and WS Communities CEO Scott Walter have previously declined to comment on the deeds-in-lieu and did not respond to a request to comment on this story.
The foreclosures come a couple of months after Shekhter’s firm, WS Communities, lost nearly half of its portfolio through deeds in lieu of foreclosure, a non-judicial process that allows a borrower to hand over properties to lenders in exchange for debt forgiveness.
Entities controlled by Shekhter handed over almost 30 parcels to lenders Madison Realty Capital, Hankey Capital and Lightstone Capital — across different transactions — relieving more than $1 billion in unpaid debt.
Bank of Southern California’s foreclosures come after the bank had sued Shekhter-owned entities and three of Shekhter’s sons — Alexander, Adam and Alan — claiming default on a $16.2 million business loan tied to the properties.
Shekhter and his sons obtained the loan in 2022, just days after the Federal Reserve hiked rates for the fifth time that year. The interest rate on the debt started at 7.25 percent, higher than the average mortgage rate at the time, and ballooned to 9.5 percent a year later.
Shekhter’s sons each signed the loan with unlimited personal guarantees with recourse provisions, according to court documents, meaning if the entities could not pay back the money, the three of them would have to.
Bank of Southern California successfully pushed the court to appoint a receiver on the three properties, which will handle leasing, rent collection and evaluate financial statements. Attorneys for Shekhter and his sons have not responded to the lawsuit, which is still pending.
Builder’s remedy is inching towards its first legal win.
Mitchell Beckloff, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, issued a preliminary ruling on Friday in a case involving a project in La Cañada Flintridge, suggesting the court is prepared to rule in favor of the builder’s remedy provision.
The preliminary court decision looks to order the City of La Cañada Flintridge to “set aside” a decision from May 1, which rejected the 600 Foothill Boulevard project and said it did not “qualify” as builder’s remedy, according to the text of the tentative ruling.
If finalized as is, the city would be ordered to “process the application in accordance with the [Housing Accountability Act],” the ruling said.
Cedar Street Partners filed a lawsuit in July 2023, following a yearlong back-and-forth with the city and repeated denials.
The project at the heart of the case is located at 600 Foothill Boulevard in La Cañada Flintridge. Cedar Street Partners, the developer behind the project, is among the first batch of firms testing the viability of builder’s remedy applications.
While this is still a tentative ruling, the final decision will reverberate beyond this case and help determine the future of builder’s remedy applications in the state of California.
Builder’s remedy, essentially a penalty for California cities that fail to get state-approved housing plans in order by a certain deadline, has been rippling through the court system for the last couple of years, though no project has been actually built yet through the provision.
The court’s final decision, which is expected within weeks, will serve as a precedent for other cases as the first local court decision on the matter.
“It strongly signals the direction, and so the city now has its work cut out for them to try to turn this around, when the tentative appears to be clearly in favor of the petitioners and in favor of the builders,” Dave Rand, an attorney at Rand Paster Nelson, said. Rand is not involved in the case, but has worked on over a dozen other builder’s remedy cases.
“It is a shot across the bow that this builder’s remedy penalty is real.” Rand said. “This is not just a concoction of a couple of aggressive developers and land use lawyers, that has real basis in law.”
The case is closely watched by other builders, especially since Governor Gavin Newsom and the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, weighed in on the case in December.
The governor’s comments on the case seemed to have played a role.
“The City of La Cañada Flintridge is legally required to process this affordable housing project under California’s builder’s remedy because they did not adopt a compliant housing element on time,” Newsom said in December. “Far too many Californians struggle to access affordable housing, and cities have a duty to facilitate, not block, affordable housing to alleviate our housing crisis.”
Rand sees the governor’s decision to speak out on the subject as a critical factor in the case’s momentum.
“Probably the biggest dynamic shift in favor of the builder’s remedy against the city in this case came when the governor and the Attorney General decided to intervene — that lended huge credibility and legal heft in favor of builder’s remedy,” he said.
The developer behind the lawsuit hopes the tentative ruling will be upheld.
“We won on big items in the tentative and still feel confident that the final decision will retain those findings,” said Alexandra Hack, a principal at Cedar Street Partners.
Billionaire mining mogul Robert Friedland has bagged a second Santa Barbara-area estate, for $32 million.
Five months after the founder of Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines paid $46.9 million for a 2-acre bluffside estate in Carpinteria, Friedland bought an 8-acre estate at 319 San Ysidro Road in Montecito, according to the Robb Report.
The sellers of the 105-year-old, Roman-style “Pompeian Court” were Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, who’d sought $46.5 million.
The celebrity couple bought the five-bedroom, 10-bathroom villa in June 2022 for $22.5 million.
The 7,800-square-foot manor, built in 1919, lies behind an iron gate at the end of a quarter-mile long driveway lined with olive trees.
Described in the listing as a “classic Roman courtyard residence,” the single-story house was remodeled in 2000 before being revamped by DeGeneres and de Rossi into “a minimalist and soothingly neutral retreat,” according to Robb.
The square villa opens onto a central courtyard with Roman columns and an outdoor fireplace.
The 8-acre property includes two guesthouses, a poolside cabana, a small art studio and a temple pavilion.
They’re surrounded by a tennis court, a chardonnay vineyard, formal hedgerows and lawns with Italian cypresses, oaks and eucalyptus trees.
In October, Friedland and his wife, Darlene, bought the 9,400-square-foot mansion on 2 acres at 3165 Padaro Lane in Carpinteria. The off-market deal was the biggest in Santa Barbara County last year.
Padaro Lane, among the most prestigious addresses in Carpinteria, includes homes owned by Kevin Costner, Kourtney Kardashian, George Lucas, and Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis.
The Friedlands, who count their main residence as a luxury flat in Singapore, own two side-by-side estates in Beverly Hills they bought in 2021 for $26 million. In late 2020, they paid $16 million for Zsa Zsa Gabor’s longtime Bel-Air mansion — then bulldozed it. They also own a blufftop villa in Phuket, Thailand, with three infinity pools.
Jamie Duran, Coldwell Banker’s former Southern California lead, has joined Christie’s International Real Estate and will help open seven offices for the brokerage across Southern California over the next six months, Christie’s International announced on Tuesday.
Duran will join Aaron Kirman’s team as president and will primarily focus on expanding the team beyond the Westside.
The brokerage is planning to open outposts in Newport Beach, Del Mar, Calabasas, Sherman Oaks, Montecito, Pasadena and Palm Springs.
Duran had run Southern California for Coldwell Banker from 2019 until last year, when the brokerage’s CEO Kamini Lane eliminated the role and tapped Northern California lead Jennifer Lind to be the brokerage’s Western regional president.
Before that, Duran had spent more than 30 years at Coldwell Banker.
Duran said she was focused on attracting “the best agents” and would “leverage the exposure to Christie’s auction house.”
“We are not a ‘reality TV brokerage’ or a publicly traded real estate company that puts
shareholders ahead of agents and clients,” Kirman said in a statement.
Christie’s International co-CEO Thad Wong said the firm was aiming to be “No. 1 in Southern California luxury.”
“We have the brand, we have the platform, and now we have the people,” Wong said in a statement.
In 2022, Kirman made headlines for striking out from Compass and starting his own brokerage in partnership with Christie’s International. His firm is called AKG Christie’s International Real Estate. Kirman did $1.1 billion in on-market sales in 2023, topping TRD’s Los Angeles residential broker rankings last year.
Sales of luxury homes in Orange County ticked up last year, despite a lack of blockbuster deals.
The county’s top 25 home sales rose 1.3 percent to a combined $624.7 million last year, from $616.5 million in 2022 , the Orange County Business Journal reported.
The average sale was $25 million; the slight boost in sales last year came without a single deal of more than $45 million.
Since 2020, there have been four sales north of $45 million, including $70 million paid in 2021 by hedge fund executive Joseph Edelman for a mansion on Laguna Beach’s Abalone Point.
Last year was marked by a mixed bag of high luxury deals, according to real estate experts.
While luxury homes in Orange County cost more, fewer of them sold — with higher interest rates and low inventory to blame, brokers said. While most luxury buyers pay in cash, many stayed on the sidelines because their businesses were impacted by the higher rates.
“You only want to go to the beach when it’s sunny, and you only want to buy homes when the economy is strong,” Coldwell Banker Realty’s Tim Smith told the Business Journal.
Properties in OC over the past four years have gained global attention for their sprawling estates, proximity to beaches and high-end shopping centers. That has drawn buyers from Asia, with buyers from other states tripling or quadrupling in the last few years, Smith said.
The top sale in the county last year was $43 million paid in an off-market deal for a 3,900-square-foot bluff-side home in Laguna Beach’s Emerald Bay.
The No. 2 deal was $34 million paid for an 11,200-square-foot estate at 1 Shoreridge in Newport Beach’s Newport Coast. That deal set a record for the gated Pelican Crest.
Newport Coast dominated among the top deals last year, with seven sales from $17.8 million to $34 million. Dana Point counts five homes on the list, including three of the top five deals.
In January last year, a 13,400-square-foot Mediterranean-style estate sold for $30.6 million at 1 Pelican Crest Drive in Newport Coast. The undisclosed seller had sought $45 million.
Irvine’s highest-ever home sale, a $25 million Shady Canyon home bought by investment executive Chad Peets, was the only major inland deal.
Last year’s most popular properties all had three qualities: a newly renovated or newly built home; securitized, gated living; and ample amenities, which range from beach access to proximity to shops and dining, according to brokers.
The luxury market in OC this year is already better than last year’s. Though mortgage rates are projected to fall later than anticipated, brokers believe the market will be busier, while home prices will continue to rise.
The Cecil Hotel — the infamous Los Angeles site of mysterious deaths and a Netflix true crime documentary — is now up for sale.
New York firm Simon Baron Development is selling the ground lease for the 15-story building, located at 640 South Main Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The property was developed as a luxury hotel in the 1920s but was converted to homeless housing in 2019 with $45 million in financing from the L.A. City Council. It reopened in 2021 as the Hotel Cecil Apartments.
According to the listing on LoopNet, there are 91 years remaining on the ground lease for the 601-unit housing complex. The site is owned by 248 Haynes Hotel Associates, an entity tied to New York hotelier Richard Born, property records show. Born acquired the site in 2014 and agreed to a lease with Simon Baron two years later.
Simon Baron was previously targeted by homelessness non-profit Housing is a Human Right. The group questioned why the units in the Cecil Hotel remained vacant as the city faced a homelessness crisis. According to the listing, the 105,400-square-foot property is currently 60 percent leased, with occupancy rates projected to jump to around 80 to 90 percent by the middle of this year.
The asking price was not disclosed.
The listing promises profits based on the site’s qualification for a state program that reduces its taxable value.
“Affordable housing is known for its low turnover rate, providing a stable investment environment. The income from this investment is guaranteed by government subsidies, adding an extra layer of security to the financial performance of the property,” the listing reads.
The hotel’s history is so grim that it has inspired both real and fictionalized accounts of horror. At least 16 people have died on the premises, according to Esquire.
Perhaps the most famous case was that of Canadian tourist Elisa Lam, who was killed in the hotel under mysterious circumstances. In 2013, Lam went missing for 19 days before being found in a water tank at the roof of the hotel. The mystery surrounding the case resulted in a Netflix documentary called “Crime Scene: Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel.”
The property also housed serial killers Jack Unterwerger and Richard Ramirez (also known as the Night Stalker). Ramirez reportedly stayed in the hotel during his 1985 killing spree.
This hotel’s notoriety reportedly inspired the fifth season of television anthology series “American Horror Story.” In a 2015 interview, Ryan Murphy, the show’s creator, said that he based the season on the Cecil Hotel and the disappearance of Lam.
A Colliers team composed of Adam Tischer, Jeffrey Donnelly and Dmitry Levkov who hold the listing did not respond to a request for comment.
Travis VanderZanden has driven his scooter into the gutter, having sold his hilltop Bel-Air estate at a $10.9 million loss.
The founder and former CEO of Bird, the Santa Monica-based scooter-sharing firm, sold the 10,000-square-foot mansion at 11507 Orum Road for $10.8 million, according to the Robb Report. The buyer was undisclosed.
The sale comes after VanderZanden and his wife, Samantha, sold their 13,800-square-foot mansion in Coral Gables, Florida, for $26 million — $13.9 million off its initial asking price.
In September 2020, the VanderZandens paid $21.7 million to comedian Trevor Noah for their Bel-Air home. “The Daily Show” host bought the spec home in 2018 from developer Jacob Cohan for $20.5 million.
After nearly six months of renovations, the Bird founder was ready to flip and fly — and listed the pad for $25 million. A would-be buyer inked a deal for the six-bedroom, nine-bathroom house, then fell out of contract.
By early last year, the 1.3-acre property’s asking price had sunk to $18.9 million.
After more than three years on and off the market, the VanderZandens finally sold the property for half of what they paid for it.
The two-story contemporary home, clad in black and white, has floor-to-ceiling walls of glass overlooking Bel-Air Country Club. Highlights include a stone wet bar showcasing a 500-gallon saltwater aquarium, a cigar room, a den with a marble fireplace, a movie theater and quarters for a live-in housekeeper.
A gourmet kitchen has two marble islands, plus temperature controlled wine storage for 250 bottles. Upstairs, a 2,200-square-foot master bedroom has its own bar, sitting room, dual walk-in closets and an 800-square-foot balcony.
A family sports room has glass walls that disappear for easy access to the patio. A tree-lined backyard has a 63-foot infinity pool.
VanderZanden, a former Lyft COO and Uber vice president, in 2017 founded Bird, the nationwide electric scooter-rental service once valued at $2.5 billion. By 2020, Bird had been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, In December, the company declared bankruptcy.
Last week, Shashikant Jogani won a payout of $1.8 billion.
He also scored a 50 percent stake in a 17,000-unit apartment portfolio, sprawled across Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, after a jury divided up stakes in family holdings. The jury ordered one of Shashikant’s brothers to hand out slices to the other four brothers.
Jogani, 77, ended up with a slice valued at about $3 billion, according to attorneys on the case.
But the court decision only adds to his already sprawling portfolio across the country.
Shashikant and his son, Pratik Jogani, own at least 8,600 apartments across Southern California, Nevada, Oklahoma and Arizona, according to court documents, property records and reports.
Their earliest acquisitions outside of Los Angeles date back to 2002 — the first deed he signed was the $1.32 million purchase of a 56-unit complex in Tehachapi, about 100 miles north of Downtown L.A. The family still owns the property, records show.
The father-son duo also manage the properties — more than 80 across four states — through their company, L.A.-based Pro Residential Management.
Since 2002, limited liability companies controlled by Pratik have spent almost $500 million on properties, records show. Most are garden-style apartments with rents lower than surrounding complexes — many were built in the 1960s or 1970s and have not been updated since.
About 50 percent of their holdings are in Arizona, reaching from Phoenix down to Nogales on the border of Mexico. The Joganis have been steadily increasing their holdings in Arizona since 2014, making their largest purchase in the state in 2021 — a $64 million deal for a 300-unit property in Phoenix.
With a 50 percent stake in the 17,000 units divvied up by the court, plus at least 8,600 apartments across the country, Shashikant stands within striking distance of the National Multifamily Housing Council’s list of 50 largest landlords in the country; the 50th largest is Northland, which owned 26,599 units in 2023.
Familial sprawl
Shashikant Jogani, a Jain born in India, moved to the U.S. in 1969 to study chemical engineering at the University of Southern California. He then started a jewelry business in 1972, according to court records, following in the footsteps of his father, a diamond trader.
“Diamonds got us started, but California real estate is where the real money is,” Shashikant said in an interview with the Washington Post in 1990. “Most of the big millionaires in America made their money in real estate. I take my clue from that.”
In the 1980s, he bought 6,500 apartments across L.A., valued at $375 million at the time. He had $100 million in equity in the properties.
Then, thanks to a confluence of factors — the savings and loan crisis, a nationwide recession and the 1993 Northridge earthquake — Shashikant ended up in financial trouble. He needed money.
“Like other real property owners, plaintiff was forced to address actual and potential defaults and foreclosures,” Shashikant said in his complaint against his brother, Haresh Jogani.
In 1995, Shashikant and Haresh came to an oral agreement — Haresh and their three other brothers would enter into a joint venture with Shashikant to help support the properties.
A 20-year litigation hinged on the validity of that agreement. The question was decided by an L.A. Superior Court jury late last month, with the resulting payouts to the brothers, including Shashikant.
From 1995 through 2002, Shashikant and his brothers grew the portfolio to 15,900 units. As of 2002, the properties were valued at more than $1 billion, according to court records, with more than $550 million in equity.
And as the portfolio grew, Shashikant wanted his fair share of it. But he also wanted more, across the country.
Litigation squabbles
Shashikant and Pratik’s first significant foray outside of Los Angeles was Oklahoma City, buying at least 700 units in 2005 and 2006, according to property records.
But the move away from his home base brought new court battles.
In 2008, one of their properties in Oklahoma City was condemned by the city and deemed “unfit for human occupancy because of serious mold, electrical, structural and plumbing problems,” The Oklahoman reported at the time.
A year later, an Oklahoma court ordered Shashikant to pay $1 million to a bank, after finding that he had fraudulently signed for and kept insurance money for two fires at one of his complexes in Oklahoma City.
The same year, City National Bank sued Shashikant for allegedly failing to pay a $6.8 million court judgment stemming from unpaid debt, records show. The debt was tied to properties in Central California, Phoenix and Oklahoma. The suit was settled and then dismissed in 2017.
Despite the legal fights, Shashikant has only sold off a handful of properties; he and his son still own at least 10 they bought between 2002 and 2009.
And after each recession — in 1990 and the 2008 financial crisis — the pair quickly switched to acquisition mode.
The duo spent at least $170 million buying apartments between 2014 and 2019, property records show, adding about 3,800 units to their portfolio.
A handful were bought out of distress.
In 2015, Shashikant and Pratik bought a 468-unit complex in Phoenix called Resort on 27th. The seller was Starwood’s special servicing division, after a previous loan on the property fell into default. The duo spent $13.9 million — a 43 percent discount from what the previous buyers had paid for the property in 2007, records show.
And when multifamily investment ballooned to $213 billion in 2021, compared to $193 billion in 2019, according to CBRE, Shashikant and Pratik jumped on the trend. They bought at least 2,800 units between 2021 and 2022, records show, spending $232 million.
They were not as aggressive as some multifamily syndicators that ballooned their portfolio in 2021, using swaths of floating-rate debt. When interest rates rose, many multifamily firms found their portfolios in financial trouble.
Shashikant and Pratik have less than five loans securitized into collateralized loan obligations, according to Morningstar Credit, and none of them are floating rate.
After the legal verdict last month, Shashikant is set to come into $1.8 billion in fresh cash.
At a time when many multifamily properties are in distress — foreclosures and defaults — Shashikant could follow his previous strategy and put that money to use by buying into a downturn.
The century-old Metropolitan Theatres has gone belly up, with theater lease agreements in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and beyond open to question.
The Los Angeles-based movie house chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after ticket sales at 15 locations in California, Colorado and Utah this year fell 20 percent, Bloomberg and CoStar News reported.
The family-owned theaters, which in 1923 opened the Broadway in Downtown L.A., has joined other cinemas seeking bankruptcy protection after being hit hard by the pandemic, at-home streaming and fewer theater film debuts.
Metropolitan is rethinking its real estate portfolio, including 10 theaters in California, half of them concentrated around Santa Barbara, including the historic Arlington Theatre. It also operates theaters in Huntington Park, south of Downtown, as well as San Clemente and Calexico.
The Beverly Grove-based chain also operates three theaters in Loveland and Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and two in Park City, Utah.
The company said its lease agreements will either need to be modified or rejected as it works to streamline operations in light of declining big-screen demand. Last year’s Hollywood strikes were a further blow, because fewer film releases are expected through 2025, the company said.
Metropolitan is looking at leases “that would otherwise continue to be a drain on MTC’s business,” according to its Chapter 11 filing, which listed $26.5 million in assets and liabilities.
Metropolitan Theatres said it doesn’t have enough cash to make up for this year’s poor ticket sales without reducing rent at its remaining locations.
President David Corwin, in a sworn statement, also highlighted continued pressure from streaming as North American ticket sales are down 20 percent this year.
Corwin, whose family has owned Metropolitan Theatres since it was founded by Joseph Corwin in 1923, said the firm intends to use Chapter 11 to negotiate rent reductions with landlords and close locations it can no longer afford.
The firm pays about $2.6 million a year in rent, a cost he said continues “to be a drain.”
Metropolitan will use a form of Chapter 11 for small businesses that’s designed to be cheaper and faster than a traditional corporate bankruptcy, according to Bloomberg. The firm filed customer motions to continue paying ordinary business expenses, including wages for 240 part-time and 12 full-time employees.
The larger AMC Entertainment Holdings avoided bankruptcy during the height of the pandemic, but Regal Cinemas parent Cineworld Group filed Chapter 11 in 2022, closing 39 theaters. Other chains have either gone bankrupt or closed, including the former owner of the historic Cinerama Dome in Hollywood.
Last month, dozens of Hollywood filmmakers rallied to save the Fox Village Theatre in Westwood by buying it for $15.5 million.
In 2022, Grubb Properties bought the Laemmle theater in North Hollywood and plans to replace it with 128 homes.
Other theaters have been converted to new uses such as gyms or content creation studios, Gabe Kadosh of Colliers in Los Angeles said.
But larger theater buildings may be challenging to retrofit, Kadosh said. Tesla, for example, is demolishing the interior of a Los Angeles theater to convert it into a delivery hub and service center.
“It’s really a case-by-case basis” to figure out what’s next for shuttered theaters, Kadosh told CoStar News.
Last year, moviegoers spent $8.9 billion on movie theater tickets across the U.S., down from $11.2 billion in 2019, according to market tracker the Numbers. Last year’s ticket sales, however, were up $1.5 billion from 2022.
L.A. office dealmaker Tony Morales, where are you?
The veteran senior managing director of JLL’s Los Angeles office has left the firm — and has disappeared, according to CoStar News.
Morales had worked with JLL for nearly 16 years, according to his LinkedIn profile, brokering real estate leases as a tenant representative for major companies.
His major deals include DirectTV (1 million square feet), Yahoo (800,000 square feet), Electronic Arts (500,000 square feet), Disney (470,000 square feet), William Morris Endeavor, now known as WME (400,000 square feet), Herbalife (300,000 square feet), Spotify (150,000 square feet) and Cartoon Network (80,000 square feet), according to a JLL webpage.
Prior to JLL, he spent a decade at Los Angeles-based Maguire Partners, in charge of leasing.
His exit marks the latest high-profile departure from a major brokerage.
New York City dealmaker Bob Knakal left JLL earlier this month, while Carl Muhlstein slipped out of JLL Los Angeles in December to start his own firm. Last month, longtime New York broker Darcy Stacom left CBRE to launch her own firm.
A JLL spokesperson confirmed that Morales no longer worked for the Chicago-based firm, according to an email, but cited a policy of not commenting on personnel moves.
Morales didn’t respond to a phone call from CoStar News requesting a comment. It’s not clear where Morales will land, or what he’ll do next.
Last week, the company officially known as Jones Lang LaSallesent legendary New York broker Bob Knakal packing after a glowing profile ran in Sunday’s New York Times, which mentioned the firm once in more than 1,700 words.
Alexandra Hack, a principal at Cedar Street Partners, has taken on an expensive endeavor.
She’s one of a handful of developers testing out the viability of builder’s remedy in California’s courtrooms in order to get more housing built.
Builder’s remedy is a long-forgotten, untested loophole that is essentially a penalty for California cities that fail to get state-approved housing plans in order by a certain deadline.
In theory, it’s a slam dunk — if a city is out of compliance, developers can bypass local zoning rules, as long as 20 percent of the project is affordable. The reality, however, is more complicated.
Hack’s builder’s remedy journey began in November 2021, when her firm’s application for a mixed-use residential and retail project located at 600 Foothill Boulevard project in La Cañada Flintridge was denied. Litigation followed.
Over two years and “millions of dollars” later, Hack got her win.
On March 5, the Superior Court of Los Angeles ruled in Hack’s favor in the case of California Housing Defense Fund v. City of La Cañada Flintridge, ordering Cedar Street Partners’ application to be processed in accordance with state law as a builder’s remedy project.
“This decision demonstrates that cities have a legal obligation to allow housing development to address our severe housing and homelessness crisis, and that if they fail to develop local plans to meet this need, the builder’s remedy will allow for it regardless,” Dylan Casey, who runs California Housing Defense Fund, told TRD on March 5. “Cities can no longer pretend that the builder’s remedy doesn’t exist.
The following day, Cedar Street got its own final decision, ordering the City of La Cañada Flintridge to “set aside” a decision from May 1 rejecting the project and saying it did not “qualify” as builder’s remedy, according to the ruling.
This ruling marks the first builder’s remedy case to be approved by a California court, creating a precedent for other projects and clearing the path for builder’s remedy in other jurisdictions. There are 67 builder’s remedy cases across California, according to data compiled by San Francisco-based non-profit Yes In My Back Yard.
“It’s very significant as the first official court ruling endorsing the builder’s remedy as a real penalty for Housing Element non-compliance,” says Dave Rand, an attorney at Rand Paster Nelson, calling it a “big boost for other builder’s remedy cases, such as in Beverly Hills.”
It has taken developers like Cedar Street Partners a lot of time, back-and-forth correspondence and financial resources to get to see their projects greenlighted in court, with many cases still pending.
Governor Gavin Newsom and the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, who both commented on the case in December, were thrilled with the decision. Newsom used the opportunity to warn other jurisdictions about the consequences of non-compliance.
“Today’s favorable ruling should serve as a warning to other NIMBY jurisdictions that the state will hold every community accountable in planning for their fair share of housing,” he said in a statement on March 5.
Bonta said the California Department of Justice is “pleased that the court agrees with us that La Cañada Flintridge must follow state housing laws to facilitate affordable housing and alleviate our housing crisis.”
In the absence of codified law spelling out builder’s remedy application, the intervention of high-profile state officials played a critical role.
“Probably the biggest dynamic shift in favor of the builder’s remedy against the city in this case came when the governor and the Attorney General decided to intervene — that lended huge credibility and legal heft in favor of builder’s remedy,” Rand said, as reported earlier by The Real Deal.
“Onerous and long”
Given the time and financial resources involved, Hack called builder’s remedy a “tool of last resort,” given the time and complexity that comes with it.
On the La Cañada Flintridge project, her firm received at least six letters from the same government office offering conflicting instructions and requests for more information.
Hack sounded befuddled by the government’s resistance to her firm’s plan to develop their project in City of La Cañada Flintridge, through builder’s remedy or without.
“Our site in particular, there’s an unhoused individual taking up residence in it,” she says, referring to the 600 Foothill property site location in La Cañada. “I mean, it’s completely derelict.”
Leo Pustilnikov, a self-made immigrant and the son of Soviet Jewish refugees who fled present-day Ukraine in the late 1980s, has become another outspoken proponent of the builder’s remedy movement.
Pustilnikov and other developers who have chosen to take this route have to be prepared to sue cities and sometimes be locked in back-and-forth court battles for months or even years.
Many, including Hack and Pulstilnokov have taken on several high-profile lawsuits against local governments, including in other jurisdictions like Santa Monica and Beverly Hills. His lawsuits have become costly court battles that try to navigate California’s convoluted and at times conflicting statutes.
“The court process is a very onerous and long process that adds to the timeframe,” Pustilnikov acknowledges.
Most recently, the judge denied his builder’s remedy application for a 35-unit apartment project in Redondo Beach. In that case, the judge attempted to weigh what rules were more important — coastal commission regulations or the concept of builder’s remedy.
Pustilnikov described the costs involved as “astronomical,” estimating the Redondo case will take around three years and cost around $2 million in total.
While tens of applications have been filed under builder’s remedy, no new construction has been built to date in California under the provision. That’s because it’s not exactly a shortcut.
“The process for builder’s remedy is just as bad [as alternatives],” Sonja Trauss, president of San Francisco-based non-profit Yes In My Back Yard, told TRD. “There’s nothing simple about the process, it’s all about what’s allowed. “
The history of builder’s remedy in California is still being written. It’s not a given that other jurisdictions with pending builder’s remedy cases will follow the final decision in the La Cañada case, heed the governor’s warnings or how long courts will take to deliberate.
Other developers will be watching the City of La Cañada’so response and likely appeal.
“The next big legal step is the court of appeal upholding and validating this decision,” Rand said. “It’s not considered binding case law until an appellate court issues a published legal decision on appeal.”
For those championing builder’s remedy, the decisions on La Cañada mark a significant breakthrough.
“Since its addition to state housing law in 1990, there have been no homes actually approved and constructed as a result of the [builder’s remedy] provision,” the California Housing Defense Fund said in a statement on March 6. “This is all about to change.”
The top-floor penthouse at the 22-story Beverly West in Westwood has listed for $28.9 million — $11 million less than it was priced two years ago.
The 8,000-square-foot condo tower penthouse was put up for sale at 1200 Club View Drive, overlooking the Los Angeles Country Club, according to the Robb Report. The seller was undisclosed.
In 2022, the never-occupied boutique penthouse known as “The Producer” listed for nearly $40 million, but had no takers. Prices at the luxury condo complex may be trending downward.
In August, the musician known as The Weeknd, born Abel Tesfaye, sold an 8,000-square-foot furnished penthouse on the 18th floor for $19 million — $2 million less than he paid in 2019. The home initially sought $21 million, then $19.8 million, before selling for less to an undisclosed buyer.
The Emaar Properties’ Beverly West, built in 2009, is among the top luxury condo towers in Los Angeles.
The 22nd floor penthouse, which takes up an entire floor, looks out from floor-to-ceiling walls of glass from Downtown L.A to the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains.
The three-bedroom, six-bathroom home, designed by Lisa Garriss, has stone and wide-plank white oak floors, walnut paneling, soaring ceilings and designer lighting, according to Robb.
Highlights include a foyer opening to a hallway with a climate-controlled wine vault. An open living room and formal dining area and bar span the length of the penthouse.
Tucked around the corner is an Italian Arclinea kitchen with stainless countertops, floating shelves and top Miele appliances. The penthouse includes an office, a screening room and a master suite with a balcony, plus dual walk-in closets and luxe baths.
A buyer would pay an HOA fee of $9,054 a month for security, valet parking, a saltwater pool and spa, fitness center and a helipad. There’s also a “house car” with a dedicated driver.
It’s not clear why the flagship penthouse at Beverly West sat empty for 15 years.
Brokers Tomer Fridman, Sally Forster Jones and Amir Ensani of Compass hold the listing. In December, there were 11 penthouses available at Beverly West, owned by Emaar Properties PJSC, based in the United Arab Emirates. Prices range from $2.75 million to $28.9 million.
In July, a 13,000-square foot penthouse at Four Seasons Private Residences Los Angeles, a few miles away from Beverly West, cut its price to $37 million, from $75 million.
The priciest condo in L.A. last year was Rihanna’s April purchase of a 9,300-square-foot unit at The Century for $21 million.
