US$250m Los Angeles luxury mansion awaits buyer with deep pockets and a taste for chainsaw art and classic cars
Bruce Makowsky used money from sale of fashion business to Hong Kong’s Li & Fung in 2008 to get into speculative property development; his latest offering is 38,000 sq ft, with 12 bedrooms, 21 baths, a cinema, and 150 artworks
A new mansion that developer Bruce Makowsky is selling for US$250 million comes with 150 pieces of original artwork, US$30 million worth of classic cars (his estimate), a dozen high-performance motorcycles, and a deactivated helicopter.
Makowsky, who in 2008, along with his wife sold their fashion infomercial business to Hong Kong-based Li & Fung for a reported US$330 million, says the mansion in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, offers 38,000 square feet of interior space, including 12 bedrooms, 21 baths, a 40-seat home cinema, and a four-lane bowling alley. That works out to more than US$6,500 per square foot. By comparison, one lavish Los Angeles spec house (one built for open market sale rather than one that is custom-built to a buyer’s specifications) changed hands last year for US$100 million, or about US$3,300 per square foot.
I understand how rich people want to live, because I’m very wealthy
Makowsky maintains that the house is worth it. “It just reeks of quality and looks absolutely spectacular,” he says. “It gives you the feeling you can only get if you go to heaven.”
He came to this business via fashion and cable television. He spent three decades designing women’s shoes and handbags along with his wife, Kathy Van Zeeland, hawking them on TV infomercials.
Makowsky started ploughing his money into Los Angeles spec homes after 2008. His biggest hit so far: a 22,300 sq ft Beverly Hills mansion he sold for US$70 million to Markus Persson, creator of the video game Minecraft.
