william randolph hearst

The Beverly House Estate Back On The Market

Filed under: Estates

Nothing like a little breaking real estate news to send me back to my computer on a Friday night. Earlier today the Real Estalker mentioned that financier Leonard Ross had declared bankruptcy. Ross just happens to own one of the largest and most famous homes in Beverly Hills, the former William Randolph Hearst / Marion Davies estate which he hoisted on to the market in 2007 for a jaw-dropping $165 million. It didn't sell and was later pulled off the market. The bankruptcy filings revealed that Ross owes $40 million in mortgages on the home. Later today Homes of the Rich found the listing for the home. It's back on the market with Hilton & Hyland for $95 million, a huge price drop. It's practically a bargain compared to Candy Spelling's $150 million home.

The pink stucco main home comes with 3.7 acres of land just a few blocks from Sunset Boulevard. The home was built in 1927 for banker Milton Getz and designed by Gordon Kaufmann. Marion Davies bought the property in 1946 for William Randolph Hearst for a reported $120,000. Ross bought the home in 1976. If you had acted fast 20 years ago, when the home was briefly on the market, you could have picked this place up for $25 million. The home has been in several movies including The Godfather, The Jerk and The Bodyguard.

Listing pictures from the property website show off the beautiful landscaping and a couple of the home's massive rooms including the library with hand carved woodwork and a second story wrap-around balcony and bookshelves; and the billiard room with a massive carved stone fireplace mantle from San Simeon. There is also a formal dining room, breakfast room, and family room with outdoor terrace accommodating up to 400 for sit-down dining. The garden level is home to an art-deco night club, wine cellar, and one of two projection rooms in the residence. It comes with a commercial kitchen, staff accommodations, a lighted tennis court with indoor bar and media center, guest house above eight car garage, separate security cottage, separate two bedroom apartment and the two story gate lodge with kitchenette and four bedrooms. We've heard rumors that the home is in less than an ideal state of repair but the new owners will be getting a prized piece of property with an incredible history.

Gallery: Beverly House

Tags: beverly hills real estate, marion davies, William Randolph Hearst

Auction Features The Collection Of The Other Ed Hardy

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Decor, Auctions, Art

We've all come to associate the name Ed Hardy with trucker hats and the Christian Audigier fashion line but there is another, more refined Ed Hardy. An upcoming sale of Fine European and American Furniture and Decorative Arts at Bonhams & Butterfields in San Francisco, California includes an evening session showcasing furniture and decorations from the Ed Hardy San Francisco Collection. This Ed Hardy is a prominent San Francisco antiques dealer. His pieces include 17th century Roman giltwood tables, Murano glass chandeliers, modernist furnishings, Chinese ceramics and a collection of Hellenistic marble fountain masks some of which come from the legendary collection of William Randolph Hearst. The one shown at right, a Roman white marble fountain mask circa 2nd – 4th century is estimated at $2,500 to $3,500. The auction previews open in San Francisco on June 11th. The evening session, devoted to the Ed Hardy Collection, begins at 6 p.m. on June 14.

[via Art Daily]

Tags: antiques, bonhams, Bonhams Butterfields, san francisco, William Randolph Hearst

Christie's to Sell Largest Old Master Ever, Owned by William Randolph Hearst

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

Christie's will offer the largest Old Master painting ever to be put up for sale in the auction house's illustrious history in its Old Master & 19th Century Paintings, Drawings, & Watercolors event in New York on Jan. 27. Le Pont Sur Le Torrent, painted in the mid-1780s by Hubert Robert, measures over 20 feet wide by 13 feet high, and carries an estimate of $2 million - $3 million. Originally commissioned by the Duc de Luynes for the dining room of his mansion in Paris, in 1925 it was acquired at auction by William Randolph Hearst and once decorated the beachfront castle that the newspaper baron purchased in late 1927 in Sands Point, Long Island as a retreat for his wife Millicent. The awe-inspiring artwork has not been seen in public in more than 50 years.

Tags: Christies, Old Master, old masters, OldMaster, OldMasters, San Simeon, SanSimeon, William Randolph Hearst, WilliamRandolphHearst

Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens & Land

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates, Books

In a recent Classicist column on magnates and their mansions we discussed the famed Hearst Castle at San Simeon, one of the most lavish private residences ever constructed. Now in a beautiful new book due out May 1, Victoria Kastner focuses on the equally impressive estate itself, which encompasses 120 acres of luxuriant gardens and 450 square miles of pristine coastland, that belonged to William Randolph Hearst.

In Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land, Kastner, Hearst Castle's historian, draws on many anecdotes from famous visitors - Hollywood celebrities, literary figures, and politicians flocked there - and examines the varied artistic influences contributing to San Simeon's design and the recent efforts that preserved its surrounding land from commercial development. It features Victoria Garagliano's stunning color photographs, plus historic images and original drawings.

The book (above) is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Tags: California, garden, Hearst Castle, HearstCastle, mansion, San Simeon, SanSimeon, william randolph hearst, WilliamRandolphHearst

The Classicist: Magnates, Mansions & Millionaires

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates, Books, The Classicist, Wealth

The excesses of today's tycoons have come under lots of scrutiny lately due to the dire financial situation. Titans of business have always been at the forefront of American mythology however, in both good times and bad, and it's worth putting today's crop of nabobs in their proper historical context. That's what William G. Scheller has done admirably in his new book, Great Estates: The Lifestyles & Homes of American Magnates (Universe, $35). The oversized, lavishly illustrated volume celebrates the history of 40 of America's true barons of business, from the 1700s through this year's Forbes list, and opens the door into their private palaces along the way.

Beginning with the colonial era, when trade was overtaking landholding as a way to get rich, Great Estates follows the "restless careers of our most brilliant and driven merchants, industrialists, and financiers as they mastered a new economic world of textiles, railroads, oil, and steel." With the twentieth century came fresh opportunities: "automobiles, motion pictures, broadcasting, publishing, and retailing on a massive scale, and the vast horizon of high technology." And of course the massive mansions that men of great fortune erected as monuments to their success along the way.

These include Henry Clay Frick's Manhattan mansion, now a magnificent museum; William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon in California, aka Hearst Castle; and one of our personal favorites, railroad magnate Jay Gould's gothic castle on the Hudson River, Lyndhurst (pictured above on the book's cover). Shortly after he purchased the estate as a summer home in 1880, Gould was at the zenith of his power, having gained control of Western Union Telegraph, the New York Elevated Railway and the Union Pacific Railroad with rapacious methods that once caused him to be beaten by a Wall Street mob.

Gallery: Magnates' Great Estates

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (former Carnegie Mansion)

Tags: Astor, Bill Gates, BillGates, Frick Collection, FrickCollection, Hearst Castle, HearstCastle, Henry Clay Frick, HenryClayFrick, Jay Gould, JayGould, Lyndhurst, Mansion, Rockefeller, San Simeon, SanSimeon, Tycoon, Vanderbilt, Warren Buffett, WarrenBuffett, William Randolph Hearst, WilliamRandolphHearst

Continue reading “The Classicist: Magnates, Mansions & Millionaires”

The Classicist: Legendary Estates of Beverly Hills

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates, Books, The Classicist, Wealth

Times being a trifle tough these days, that $100 million mansion in Beverly Hills may be a bit beyond your reach. The next best thing has got to be Jeffrey Hyland's new 400-page volume The Legendary Estates of Beverly Hills, a meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated history of 50 magnificent estates in three world-famous enclaves of the ultra-wealthy - Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, and Holmby Hills. The $250 tome is a definitive history of the area's most famous estates - "the architecturally spectacular homes and lavish grounds that have been home to countless celebrities and the world's richest families for almost a century."

Aside from the purely visual pleasure of the photographs both old and new, Hyland explains the history and architectural importance of each estate, and tells the fascinating stories of the many famed owners, from their "passionate involvement in the design of these costly properties, to their intrigues, triumphs, calamities, and romances." The estates run the gamut from historic Beverly House, the sprawling 1920s Mediterranean estate inhabited by William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies and briefly listed a while back at $165 million, to modern classics like the notorious Fleur de Lys in Holmby Hills (above).

The 15-bedroom Fleur de Lys, which is currently on the market for $125 million, was built by Texan billionaire David Saperstein and is now owned by his ex-wife Suzanne - whom he ditched for the childrens' hot Swedish nanny. The five-acre estate is home to a 41,000-square foot French limestone mansion inspired by France's magnificent Vaux le Vicomte palace outside Paris. Surrounding the mansion are rolling lawns, ornamental gardens and mature trees, a 3,000-square-foot manager's house, staff quarters for ten people, a spa and pool with a pavilion and its own kitchen, a championship tennis court, and a lavish garden folly.

Gallery: Legendary Estates of Beverly Hills

Also featured in the book: Bellagio Road in Bel-Air, built for studio mogul Sol Wurtzel in the 1930s along the lines of the villas found on the hillsides near Florence, Italy; Casa Encantada in Bel-Air, a "modern Georgian with Grecian influences" built in the 1930s by a former nurse from New York who married a much-older multimillionaire glass manufacturer, then took up with her chauffeur after he died; and the storied St. Cloud Road estate which was owned by a string of luminaries including It Happened One Night director Frank Capra, Warner Bros. stars Dick Powell and Joan Blondell, director / producer Mervyn LeRoy, and MGM founder Louis B. Mayer. See the gallery for pix.

Tags: Bel-Air, Beverly Hills, BeverlyHills, Fleur de Lys, FleurDeLys, Frank Capra, FrankCapra, Holmby Hills, HolmbyHills, Suzanne Saperstein, SuzanneSaperstein, William Randolph Hearst, WilliamRandolphHearst