A big sale recently went down in the celebrity-soaked Malibu Colony guard-gated community. In fact, the transfer price — a crazy $36,000,000 — means this is the most expensive house ever sold in that enclave, in fact. Let’s discuss, shall we?
The multi-billionaire buyer — as has already been correctly identified by our friends over at The Real Deal — is hedge fund titan Stanley Druckenmiller and his wife Fiona. They purchased the property through a corporate entity named after their beloved dog Axel. Because why the hell not, right?
As for the seller, she is a lady named Wallis Annenberg, who happens to be one of LA’s foremost philanthropists. Now in her late 70s, Ms. Annenberg has funded and slapped her name on just about every building in the city. There’s the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, The Annenberg Beach House, The USC Annenberg School of Communication, and the Annenberg Space for Photography. On and on it goes.
You can afford to do things like that when you’re the sole family heir to the fortune of multi-billionaire publishing tycoon Walter Annenberg, kiddies.
Anywho, Ms. Annenberg purchased the Malibu Colony house back in 2006 for $22,750,000 and straightaway enlisted LA-based architect Fred Fisher to overhaul and expand the existing abode into a 6,900-square-foot, high-style contemporary mansion with 70 feet of ocean frontage and off-street parking for up to 10 cars. That latter feature is a very rare thing in Malibu Colony, where the homes sit cheek-to-jowl and the guest parking situation is often grim.
The house is currently an eye-catching and unusual combination of slate gray stucco, glass and fancy Ipe wood siding. Indoors, Ms. Annenberg hired Rancho Mirage-based decorator Sam Cardella to dress the ol’ beotch up with some fiendishly expensive contemporary furnishings. The result of all this, as y’all can see below, is pretty damn impressive.
In addition to the master suite, which features walls of glass and a private terrace, there are four additional bedrooms plus a separate “guest apartment”. More importantly, however, the house is one of only a small handful of oceanfront Malibu Colony residences that sports its own private pool. This one happens to be heated, so y’all can enjoy it on those freezing California winter nights (yeah right).
While she owned the place, Ms. Annenberg had the house published in at least two high-nosed lifestyle publications: (Town and Country via Curbed, C California Style). Go ahead, click on them links if you want even more photos of the Annenberg-cum-Druckenmiller abode.
This, however, is not the only house in Malibu Colony owned by Ms. Annenberg. Around the same time she acquired this property (back in 2006), Ms. Annenberg laid out another $6,000,000 for the smaller structure directly across the street that she apparently used as staff/guest quarters. This landlocked house measures a paltry 1,080-square-feet and has 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms plus a detached garage/apartment, a pool, and plenty of off-street parking. Records indicate Ms. Annenberg continues to own this property, though Yolanda imagines she would be very open to selling. But only for the right price, natch.
Although neither house was never officially listed on the MLS, it’s no big secret that Ms. Annenberg has been trying to unload her Malibu compound for some time. The two-house estate was first floated as an off-market listing back in 2013 with a rumored asking price of $49 million. A couple years later, the big house was being shopped around by itself with a $39 million ask. Eventually, Mr. Druckenmiller came around to take the beast of Ms. Annenberg’s gold-flaked paws.
Ms. Annenberg resides primarily in Century Woods, a gated community of multi-million dollar townhouses in LA’s centrally-locaed Century City area. Our gal has owned her 6,736-square-foot mansion-sized townhouse for a very long time — since 1991, in fact.
As for Mr. Druckenmiller, he and the missus are currently attempting to sell their palatial 20-acre estate in Greenwich, CT for a breathtaking $31,500,000. That’s a lot of money, of course, but Yolanda wonders if the couple will make any profit at all once everything is said and done. For Pete’s sake, they paid $23 million for the property way back in 2004 and have totally remodeled the main house and built an accessory garage/staff quarters.
But we digress. In addition to their Connecticut compound and new Malibu mansion, the Druckenmillers also keep a luxury apartment on E. 72nd Street in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, just a couple blocks from Central Park. Then there is a 6,800-square-foot house in The Hamptons — on the shore of Lake Agawam in Southampton, to be precise. Yolanda also discovered that the wildly wealthy couple also own a fairly modest multi-million dollar house in North Palm Beach (FL).
Back on the West Coast, Mr. Druckenmiller’s nearest new Malibu neighbors are some of the richest folks in all of LA. In addition to Ms. Annenberg’s other house across the street, there’s Chrome Hearts owners Richard and Laurie Stark, entrepreneurs Michael Lewis and Lizanne Falsetto, private equity pasha Michael Tennenbaum, well-compensated action star Jason Statham, and 25-year-old Herbalife heir Alexander Hughes. Further away but also in the Colony are billionaires Jerry Perenchio and Sheldon Adelson, who each own at least six houses apiece scattered throughout the exclusive gated community.
Listing agent: Linda May, Hilton & Hyland