A palatial 70,000-square-foot Bel-Air compound hit the market this week for $400 million — and no, that isn’t a typo.
With its blockbuster asking price, it aims to shatter the U.S. residential sales record of $238 million, reached in 2019 by Citadel billionaire Ken Griffin, who bought a New York penthouse. Even if it misses that mark, the estate needs only to top $210 million to surpass the California record set in 2024 when Oakley founder James Jannard sold his Malibu mansion.
The Bel-Air estate has 39 bedrooms and 59 bathrooms across multiple Mediterranean-style structures on a nearly 8-acre promontory lot. It overlooks Bel-Air Country Club, with views spanning downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean.
“This is truly a once-in-a-generation asset,” listing agent Jack Harris of The Beverly Hills Estates said in an email, adding it “not only stands apart in the luxury residential real estate market, but also sets an entirely new global benchmark. It could never be replicated.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported the listing, claiming the estate has ties to Qatar’s ruling Al-Thani family, whose real estate holdings include London’s Harrods and Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel.
Independent verification of the claim proved elusive for the Southern California News Group, but a California Secretary of State filing shows that the signatory for the property’s Chalon Holdings LLC shares the name of a representative for former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad Bin Jassim Al-Thani — a prolific global investor commonly known as HBJ — cited in a separate court document.
Also see: Bel-Air megamansion once listed at $295M sells for a fraction of price
That link aligns with earlier reporting from The Real Deal, which initially named private equity mogul Thomas Barrack Jr. as the owner but clarified he was acting as the developer and front man for HBJ during the construction phase.
The Al-Thanis bought the land for $35 million in 2010, according to the Journal.
Architect Peter Marino designed the estate and Peter McCoy led construction for the decade-long endeavor, completed in 2018.
Harris and co-listing agent Michael Fahimian, also of The Beverly Hills Estates, told the Journal the project cost more than $350 million to complete.
While listing details are sparse, they describe a main house with 10 bedrooms for the family and another 13 for staff, while offering resort-level wellness and fitness amenities.
The guest house includes an additional six guest bedrooms and 10 staff bedrooms.
Photos of the compound reveal ornate interiors with gilded, marbled and tiled surfaces, groin vault ceilings and Middle Eastern-style door arches. There’s a professional-grade commercial kitchen that looks like it belongs in a luxury hotel, a butler’s pantry with floor-to-ceiling gilding and intricate hand-embossed metal surfaces and a living salon that blends classic architecture with bold contemporary art.
A hammam — a wellness spa with dual plunge pools and a steam room with curved marble seating and a home theater with a classic Old Hollywood aesthetic — contributes to the opulence.
Outside, the expansive, symmetrical grounds feature a park-like design centered around a large pool with a geometric, notched border seamlessly set into the manicured lawn. Four square hot tubs are integrated into the pool’s corners, completing the design.
There are three pools in all, including a skylit indoor pool and a semicircular outdoor pool at the guest house.
A Mediterranean-style poolside cabana separates the water features from the sports court designed for tennis and basketball.
Elsewhere, a grand open-air dining pavilion shows a distinct Moroccan influence, while a dome-topped gazebo sits draped in vines.
To complete the landscape, a tiered reflecting pool connected by a series of waterfalls creates a formal water garden flanked by olive trees and stone pathways.
Whether the estate’s sheer scale is enough to fetch its record-breaking asking price remains to be seen, but as Fahimian notes, “From the positioning of the land to the level of detail in every finish, it delivers a fully self-sustained lifestyle that surpasses the finest resorts in the world, yet with complete privacy and exclusivity.”