L.A.’s Most Expensive House, $195M Casa Encantada, Still on the Market

“If I had not gone inside myself, I might not have believed such a residence existed on the planet,” MGM boss Louis B. Mayer as soon as stated of Casa Encantada, thought of by many to be the best residence in the USA. Presently available on the market for an eye-watering $195 million, the storied property, lording over the Bel-Air Nation Membership on a shocking 8.4 acres, encompasses a 7 mattress/20 bathtub principal home described by its Russian-born architect James Dolena as a “trendy Georgian with Grecian influences.” The longtime residence of hotelier Conrad Hilton, it has been referred to as “The Home The place Goals Come True.”

However since 2019, Casa Encantada has repeatedly been listed solely to be pulled again off the market, its worth slashed from $250 million to $195 million. Now a trio of super-agents — Westside Property Company’s Kurt Rappaport, Drew Fenton of Carolwood Estates, and Million Greenback Itemizing’s Josh Flagg of Compass — are dreaming of the big fee that may come their approach if they’re able to lastly promote the mega-estate, at the same time as the luxurious market sags. 

“Casa Encantada is among the most iconic properties in Los Angeles as a result of its architectural significance, designed by James Dolena in 1937, and its Georgian-style magnificence,” Flagg says. “The mansion has hosted high-profile occasions and been owned by notable figures like Conrad Hilton, enhancing its cultural and social legacy. Its huge dimension, opulence, and prime location in Bel-Air, mixed with its historic significance, make it one of the crucial sought-after and costly estates within the metropolis.”

For Flagg, Casa Encantada — or enchanted home — couldn’t be extra aptly named. “It’s all the time a pleasure to point out Casa Encantada since you see one thing new each time that you just by no means observed earlier than,” Flagg says. “My favourite characteristic of the house is the motorcourt. If you pull by means of the gates of the property you journey down an extended winding driveway to a motorcourt with an beautiful fountain highlighted by magnificent bronze sculptures.” 

The property, at 10644 Bellagio Highway, has damaged information as the costliest house offered within the United State twice earlier than. It was constructed for Hilda Boldt Weber, a former nurse turned fabulously rich widow of a glass bottle mogul, who had scandalized society by marrying her butler. Kindly, frumpy, but fatally extravagant, Weber was determined to interrupt into Los Angeles excessive society when she purchased the lot in 1936. She employed Dolena, panorama designer Benjamin Purdy, and T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings to assemble her Artwork Deco neoclassical dream for greater than $2 million, or about $45 million in at this time’s cash. 

No expense was spared. Weber insisted on a constructing tunnel straight to the Bel-Air Nation Membership golf course. She even kitted out the servants’ bedrooms with lush fixtures — together with marble flooring. “One new worker spent his first evening awake, worrying he’d by chance been positioned in a visitor room,” Michael Gross writes in Unreal Property: Cash, Ambition, and the Lust for Land in Los Angeles.

Weber’s profligacy would bleed her dry. So costly was the maintenance, she put up for sale for $1.5 million in 1948. With no takers, determined for money, and shunned by the snobs of Bel-Air, she offered it in 1950 to hotelier Conrad Hilton for under $225,000 ($3 million in 2024 {dollars}). Broke and disenchanted, Weber died by suicide shortly after the sale. 

“It was love at first sight,” Hilton famous of the house, which he named “Casa Encantada.” He lived in his fortress on the hill till his loss of life in 1978. In 1980, billionaire David Murdock of Dole Meals bought the house from the Hilton household and renamed it “Bellagio Home.” He offered it to businessman and philanthropist Gary Winnick for a document breaking $94 million in 2000. 

The Winnicks invested tens of hundreds of thousands in restoring the property, which was overseen by legendary architect and Warhol collaborator Peter Marino. In 2019, the Winnicks put Casa Encantada available on the market for $225 million, with Hilton & Hyland repping the sellers. However no takers may very well be discovered. After Gary Winnick’s loss of life in 2023, his widow, Karen, reportedly relisted the house for $250 million, however once more no agency supply got here by means of.

There may very well be a variety of causes the property has not offered prior to now. The prices of yearly property taxes, upkeep and employees to run a historic property of this dimension are in proportion with the stratospheric asking worth. As well as, the confusion that the COVID period brought about in the true property market, and the competitors with newer, much less demanding properties on the highest finish of the housing inventory have made it tougher to promote Casa Encantada than it might as soon as have been. 

However Flagg believes that the time is lastly proper for the property to promote. “The market has been in a really unusual place for the final couple of years,” he says. “If this was 2017 and even throughout the top of COVID the home can be offered by now. Somebody goes to get an unimaginable deal since it’s now appropriately priced at $195 million.”

Quite a few certified patrons have toured the property. “Curiosity has been terrific,” Flagg says. “I believe individuals see the worth and the chance to accumulate such an iconic property.”

Whether or not these excessive rollers have simply come to sneak a peak at a outstanding a part of American architectural historical past, or truly intend to fork over $195 million — plus untold hundreds of thousands in bills — is but to be seen. By way of all of it, Casa Encantada stays the stuff that goals are fabricated from. However goals might be elusive, and generally, a bit too dear.