Jeff Bezos Buys $165 Million Warner Estate in Beverly Hills

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos shattered the record for the most expensive house ever sold in California with his purchase of the $165 million Warner Estate in Beverly Hills. The eye-popping sale, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, comes just three months after media scion Lachlan Murdoch shelled out $150 million for Chartwell, the opulent Bel Air manse that at one point was the country’s priciest listing. Nationally, Bezos’s purchase is the second most expensive, following Ken Griffin’s $238 million acquisition of 220 Central Park South’s four-story penthouse.

The Warner Estate in Beverly Hills. Photo: Dirt.com

Designed by architect Roland Coate, the Georgian-style manor was initially built for Warner Brothers president Jack Warner in 1937, but it has been owned by music executive David Geffen for the past 30 years. (He paid $47.5 million, a national record at the time.) The eight-bedroom home was never officially on the market, but it was well-known in real estate circles that Geffen wanted to offload the 13,600-square-foot pad for a nine-figure sum. In addition to the main residence, there is a pool and guesthouse on the ten-acre property, which is ringed by towering hedges to ensure privacy.

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But one purchase wasn’t enough for the world’s richest man, who has a net worth of $131 billion. Bezos also picked up a $90 million parcel of land just up the road, in the ritzy enclave of Beverly Hills Post Office. Dubbed Enchanted Hill, the 120-acre property is larger than the Vatican, and it once belonged to late Microsoft executive Paul Allen, who wanted to build a compound on the acreage but never got around to doing so. While Bezos has not indicated his plans for the sprawling site, it seems well poised to become a 21st-century Xanadu, with sweeping views that stretch to downtown L.A.

Panoramic views from the Enchanted Hill estate. Photo: Hilton & Hyland

Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, also maintains residences in Washington, D.C.; Van Horn, Texas; and Seattle—and last year he spent $80 million on a trio of units at 212 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The Los Angeles–area purchases give Bezos a permanent base in the hometown of his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez. The couple have been dating since Bezos’s divorce from Mackenzie Bezos last year.