{"id":261697,"date":"2018-07-30T08:57:40","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T06:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=261697"},"modified":"2018-07-30T08:57:40","modified_gmt":"2018-07-30T06:57:40","slug":"1-billion-property-for-sale-on-top-of-beverly-hills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/property\/261697\/1-billion-property-for-sale-on-top-of-beverly-hills\/","title":{"rendered":"$1 billion property for sale on Top of Beverly Hills"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A storied and virtually undeveloped\u00a0157-acre plot of land overlooking Beverly Hills is officially coming to sale with a record-setting asking price of $1 billion.<\/p>\n

Offering sweeping, 360-degree views ranging from the San Gabriel Mountains to Malibu, the Pacific Ocean, and downtown Los Angeles, prospective buyers will gaze down on neighbors who include Seth MacFarlane, Sylvester Stallone, and Warren Beatty.<\/p>\n

Rebranded the Mountain Beverly Hills, the property previously known as the Vineyard Beverly Hills is the highest point in the prized 90210 zip code. It\u00a0occupies\u00a0a\u00a0ridge in\u00a0the Beverly Crest neighborhood\u00a0adjacent to Beverly Hills, with Studio City to the north and Bel Air to the west.<\/p>\n

So large is the prized piece of real estate that all\u00a0of Disneyland could fit within its confines and still have 57 acres to spare. Press materials liken a visit to the site, accessed via Benedict Canyon, to a \u201cgod-like experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bold-faced names attached to the property, be they previous owners or once-prospective buyers, include Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Merv Griffin, Herbalife founder Mark Hughes, and Princess Shams, elder sister of the late Shah of Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a special property, a\u00a0trophy property,\u201d says Christine Hong, Global Luxury Property Specialist at Coldwell Banker in Beverly Hills. \u201cVery unique and beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Demand in the area is high, says Hong, whose recent sales in the environs have hit $3,500 per square foot; the\u00a0Beverly Hills average is currently at $2,500 per square foot. The Mountain comprises six manicured, zoned lots on which the new owner can build up to 1.5 million square feet of home.<\/p>\n

Using the average price cited above, building such a structure or structures would cost almost $4 billion, on top of the land\u2019s asking price.<\/p>\n

Recent additions to the market\u00a0include the Chartwell Estate in Bel Air, the fa\u00e7ade of which was used in The Beverly Hillbillies. At an asking price of $350 million, this\u00a0is currently the priciest home listed in the country; the Mountain doesn\u2019t offer\u00a0one.<\/p>\n

Shams Pahlavi, elder sister of Iran\u2019s last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, acquired the summit property in the late 1970s and planned to construct a single estate. Following the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which saw her brother toppled and Molotov cocktails thrown at her then-California residence by pro-Islamic Republic demonstrators, the princess let the plateau lie fallow for a decade before media mogul Merv Griffin took ownership in 1987.<\/p>\n

Griffin had grand plans to build a massive compound on the site. Under his ownership, about 1 million cubic yards of dirt were moved from the top of the site to achieve a more level grade, and the zoning was reworked to incorporate the six buildable lots.<\/p>\n

Griffin\u2019s interest in the project waned. In 1997, the year he took ownership of the Beverly Hilton Hotel, he sold the land to Herbalife founder and billionaire Mark Hughes.<\/p>\n

Hughes paid $8.5 million and planned to build a 45,000-square-foot home on the grounds. After\u00a0he died in 2002, the land became part of his estate, held in trust for his then-eight-year-old son.<\/p>\n

Hollywood royalty, including Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, have since reportedly showed interest in all or part of the estate, which was occasionally used as an event space in recent years. But complicated lawsuits over ownership kept the property off the market until now, with the estate being offered for sale by Secured Capital Partners LLC and listed by Aaron Kirman Partners.<\/p>\n

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Read: Here is why more South Africans are buying property in Mauritius<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A storied and virtually undeveloped 157-acre plot of land overlooking Beverly Hills is officially coming to sale with a record-setting asking price of $1 billion. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":261739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12755],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-261697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261741,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261697\/revisions\/261741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}