Jeff Bezos buys Beverly Hills mansion for record US$165 million
- The deal marks a record for the Los Angeles area. The previous residential record was set late last year by media executive Lachlan Murdoch
- Jeff Bezos, whose net worth was estimated at US$131 billion this year, owns properties around the world
Jeff Bezos is on a shopping spree befitting the world’s richest man.
The Amazon.com founder agreed to pay US$165 million for a Beverly Hills mansion on nine acres, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, setting a record for a Los Angeles-area home.
The property designed for Hollywood film titan Jack Warner in the 1930s was described by Architectural Digest in 1992 as the “archetypal studio mogul’s estate”, built in Georgian style with expansive terraces and its own nine-hole golf course.
It’s emerging just days after regulatory filings showed Bezos cashed out US$4.1 billion of Amazon shares and comes amid reports that he’s also entered the art market. He reportedly set a record for artist Ed Ruscha at a Christie’s auction with a US$52.5 million purchase of Hurting the Word Radio #2 in November and also bought Vignette 19 by Kerry James Marshall for US$18.5 million.
The purchase of the Warner estate, described by the person on condition they not be named, was reported earlier Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal. The property has belonged to David Geffen since 1990, when he paid US$47.5 million. Bezos was seen socialising on the entertainment mogul’s mega-yacht last summer, visible in an Instagram post with girlfriend Lauren Sanchez and Goldman Sachs’s former chief, Lloyd Blankfein.