The world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, just purchased a $165 million mansion—known as the Warner Estate—in Beverly Hills. The Amazon CEO’s latest real estate venture sets a new record for the most amount of money ever paid for a home in California, but for someone whose net worth is $131 billion, the price tag is only a fraction of his e-commerce fortune.
Bezos bought his new home (one of several he has purchased across the country in recent years) from producer David Geffen, who bought the estate for $47.5 million in 1990. The home, which was built as a Spanish Colonial Revival, was converted into a Georgian mansion during the Great Depression by movie mogul Jack Warner. Here are a few of the most ridiculous things about the Spanish-Georgian architectural mashup.
It’s Amazon-big
Bezos’s new pad sits on a whopping nine acres—the size of seven football fields. The main residence only takes up 13,000 square feet; the rest of the land is occupied by a pool, several fern gardens, a 300-foot-long, tree-lined driveway, sculptural fountains, and a guest house. Allegedly, Marilyn Monroe stayed here during the home’s former Hollywood heyday.
It has its own golf course
The estate also features a tennis court on its grounds, which is not uncommon for properties in Beverly Hills, but the fact that it also boasts a golf course is . . . much less par for the course. Additionally, the house has an entertainment room (naturally) with a standard-size theater screen and projector.
Bezos got a discount
As it turns out, Bezos saved money on the $165 million purchase by not paying typical broker fees. According to Jeff Hyland, a Los Angeles-based broker and author of The Legendary Estates of Beverly Hills, Geffen had secretly put the home on the market for an even more ghastly $225 million before he and Bezos agreed on the more modest number.
Maybe he could take that extra cash and do some good with it, like, you know, pay his employees’ medical benefits.
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