It is the most expensive single-family home ever listed in the US, at US$250 million, in the tony Bel Air area, high above the city of Los Angeles..The estate, Casa Encantada, spans 40,000-sq.-ft. saysThe Wall Street Journal (WSJ) adding it’s one of a small collection of trophy LA estates dating back almost a century, with former owners including hotelier Conrad Hilton and Dole Food billionaire David Murdock. .The estate grounds occupy an 8.4-acre peninsula, jutting into the Bel Air Country Club. The property has no neighbours on either side, and there’s a tunnel running under the property, connecting two holes of the exclusive golf course.. Casa EncantadaCasa Encantada .The current owners, billionaire fiber-optic telecommunications pioneer Gary Winnick and his artist-author wife, Karen Winnick, have been in the home for 25 years..The estate came into being in the 1930s and has an interesting history..In the late 1920s, wealthy Cincinnati-based glass manufacturing magnate, Charles Boldt, became hospitalized and was tended to by Hilda OIsen, a former New York City nurse. .They soon became a couple, and moved to Los Angeles, where Hilda, now Hilda Boldt, inherited a fortune after Charles died in 1929. .Hilda bought the land in 1934 for US$100,000, which was considered a large fortune in the Great Depression Years ($2,187,562 in 2022 US dollars).. Casa EncantadaCasa Encantada .Landscape architect Benjamin Morton Purdy re-designed the gardens in 1935 and the home was completed in December 1938 at a total cost slightly more than US$2 million ($41,579,196 in 2022 US dollars). .The mansion features 40 professionally decorated rooms, panelled in black walnut and English sycamore, says WSJ, adding there are another 20 or so rooms if the extensive staff quarters, silver vaults and other storage rooms are counted..Listing agent, Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency, says, “The amply proportioned and graciously appointed main floor rooms flow out to broad terraces and great expanses of lawn that slope down to the swimming pool, backed by a spacious pool house.”.“Mature, well-placed trees and shrubbery provide privacy from the golf course, and the grounds, which require constant care and maintenance, include great sweeps of lawn and a massive motor court with a huge fountain at the centre,” says Rappaport. “There are formal gardens, meandering paths, an outdoor basketball court just inside the main gates, and, at the southern tip of the property, a lighted tennis court bordered by several outbuildings.”.Weber hoped Casa Encantada would secure her place within Los Angeles society, which it did, for a while, says WSJ.. Casa EncantadaCasa Encantada .However, by the late 1940s, a gambling problem and spendthrift ways left Weber all but destitute and she put the house and its contents up for sale in 1948 for US$1.5 million, but got no buyers. .Desperate for money, she sold the estate in November, 1950, to Conrad Hilton for US$225,000 ($2,736,722 in 2022 US dollars) who occupied the house until his death in 1979..In 1980, billionaire businessman David Murdock paid US$12.4 million for Casa Encantada, then a record for the most expensive home ever sold in the US. . Casa EncantadaCasa Encantada .Twenty years later, he sold it to the Winnicks for US$94 million, once again setting the record for the highest sale ever in the US..The Winnicks considered selling several years ago and floated the property as a not-so-under-the-radar whisper listing with a rumoured and reported price of US$225 million, says WSJ, telling the newspaper there were interested parties, but they just weren’t ready to sell, until now..If the Winnicks get their asking price, it will eclipse the current record selling price of US$238 million paid by hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin in 2019 for a four-floor penthouse in a tall tower on New York’s Billionaire’s Row..At US$250 million, Casa Encantada is the most expensive listing in the LA area and tied with a New York property as the most expensive in the US, a penthouse at Central Park Tower..Neither however are close to what is believed to be the most expensive listing in the world, near London, England, listed for £250 million (about CAD$419 million and US$318 million)..See that one here next week.
