How many records can one estate break? Bel-Air’s Casa Encantada is going for three.
The most expensive house in the U.S. is up for grabs, and its lofty $250 million asking price could make it the country’s costliest residence, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. More than two decades ago in 2000, the palatial pad was sold to its current owners, Gary and Karen Winnick, for $94 million. Prior to that, billionaire David Murdock scooped the estate up for $12.4 million in 1980. Both deals set a record for the most paid for a private home in America—so here’s hoping that history will repeat itself.
Dating back to the 1930s, the storied, Georgian-style mansion was originally built for widow Hilda Boldt Weber. She later put the Bellagio Road property on the market in 1948 and hotelier Conrad Hilton picked it up two years later. (Though he only had to shell out a cool $225,000 for the spread.) During the 30-plus years he lived at Casa Encantada, the house remained virtually unchanged. It wasn’t until the Winnicks took over that the place underwent a lengthy two-and-a-half-year renovation.
“I came to appreciate the craftsmanship and workmanship in the house,” Gary told the WSJ. “This isn’t the kind of house where you can just call up a regular decorator and say, ‘Come decorate my house.’ It is a totally different mind-set.”
To restore the 40,000-square-foot stunner, the couple tapped interior designer and architect Peter Marino to oversee the project. Notable updates were made to the plasterwork, as well as the walls inside the formal dining room. In fact, it took over two dozen coats of paint and months of hand-polishing to achieve the resulting lacquer finish.
Today, the eight-acre abode sports a whopping 60 rooms, including a wine vault, a screening room, and a bar. Outside, you’ll find a tennis court, a basketball court, a koi pond, and gardens galore. Altogether, the Winnicks estimate that they dropped tens of millions of dollars on the remodel. “These kinds of estates come up only once every few decades and once they’re gone, they’re gone,” Westside Estate Agency’s Kurt Rappaport tells the newspaper, who holds the listing with Drew Fenton of Carolwood Estates.
Currently, the most expensive home ever sold in the U.S. was a $238 million New York City penthouse that went to hedge fund manager Ken Griffen. Let’s see if whoever buys Casa Encantada can beat it.
Click here to see all the photos of Casa Encantada.
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