When Los Angeles's most expensive house went up for sale at $125 million, no one expected it to go for that price in a million years. Well, someone, identified only as a "French billionaire," has bought said house for only slightly less that that figure: $102 million. And just to rub it in, the dude paid cash.
What does $102 million get you these days? A Beverly Crest address, for one, in the tiny, tony community located between Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills. It gets you a 50,000 square-foot mansion on 4.6 acres, where among the Versailles-by-way-of-California interiors, you will find 12 bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, a ballroom with a 300-guest capacity, several kitchens, a music room, a movie theatre, and a wine cellar and tasting room. Outside there are, of course, French-inspired gardens, a tennis court, jogging track, swimming pool, and spa. Curbed LA has more gilded images. Oh wait! The sale also included the antique furnishings, which totally makes it worth the $102 million, right?
The estate is named the Fleur de Lys and it was built on spec by Texans David and Suzanne Saperstein, who put the house on the market in 2007. There it sat for almost SEVEN YEARS. Why did it finally go? Apparently this French billionaire beat out other anonymous billionaires for the sale, but to make it even more interesting, the buyer is having the sales papers sent to the office of one Michael Milken, who you'll remember as the junk bond king.
The $102 million sale price makes it the most expensive single family home purchased in L.A. County, and I would estimate that the all-cash sale would also make it one of the largest cash purchases in real estate history. The Real Estalker has some crazy backstories of people buying houses with ridiculous amounts of cash.
This is not the most expensive house ever sold in the U.S., though: A house Northern California went for $117.5 million last year. There's also a house in Greenwich, Connecticut currently on the market for $190 million, and a $100+ million penthouse in Manhattan that will likely be the most expensive apartment ever sold in the city. And don't confuse the Fleur de Lys with Versailles, which is located in Florida, kinda looks the same, and would be the country's largest house—if it ever got finished. [Los Angeles Times via Curbed LA]