Thursday, March 19, 2009

Another Behemoth Beverly Hills Beast Hits the Market

SELLER: Lou Gonda
LOCATION: Lexington Road, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $35,000,000
SIZE: 16,733 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms (as per assessor)
DESCRIPTION: ...Situated behind the Beverly Hills Hotel on over 1.5 acres of finely manicured grounds, complete with salt water, mosaic tiled pool, n/s championship tennis court, complete guest house, flat grass pad with meandering pathways, streams, waterfalls and creek. This Georgian-style traditional estate was built using the finest materials and craftsmanship of unparalleled quality. Large-scale rooms with an intimate feel create an inviting home of magnificent proportions...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A couple of weeks ago, Your Mama discussed a number of mega-mansions currently for sale in Los Angeles wherein we briefly mentioned the Beverly Hills home of aircraft leasing billionaire Lou Gonda. At the time, we were not aware of the house being on the open market, but thanks to Snooping Sebastian, it's come to our attention that Mister Gonda's Lexington Road residence has arrived on the open market with an asking price of $35,000,000, reduced from it's original (off-market) asking price of $42,000,000.

According to an earlier report in The Wall Street Journal, much of Mister Gonda's mountain of money came from his huge holdings in a little company called American International Group, Inc., otherwise known as AIG. We all know what's happened to AIG, right? When AIG's share prices plummeted from $60 to $2, Mister Gonda lost untold millions of dollars.

Your Mama don't know nuthin' from nuthin' about Mister Gonda's personal finances, but this severe drop in net worth may have something to do with the little known bizness man putting his big Beverly Hills house on the market. Of course, it should be no surprise that Mr. Gonda told the good people at The Wall Street Journal that his children are grown, he and the wifey want to travel more and therefore no longer need such a significantly sized home and also that the family began diversifying there assets away from AIG six years ago which he said "has served us well." We'll let the children decide what they think is truth and what is fiction in all that.

Records on file with the County of Los Angeles show the Georgian-style pile's taxable square footage is 16,733, but we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that number does not account for all the interior spaces because children, this house is a monster. Records also show there are 6 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms and listing information indicates there is also a guest house.

The meticulously maintained 1.5 acre estate includes a 5-car garage, a properly aligned north/south tennis court separated from the mosaic tiled salt water swimming pool by a long pavilion, enough lawn to pitch a large tent for philanthropic functions, meandering paths, waterfalls and creeks.

The interior spaces are, according to listing information, both "large-scale...with an intimate feel." We'll just have to take the listing agent's word on that since there are not currently any photos of the interior spaces that we were able to locate in our pre-caffeinated state. However, we'd imagine they are as opulent and lavish in that special way that only billionaires and Beverly Park residents do up their day-core.

Given that there are a butt-load of behemoth mansions with $20+ million price tags currently on the market in Los Angeles, Your Mama fears Mister Gonda faces some stiff real estate competition for the small pool of qualified buyers who are still looking to spend the big bucks for a house in which they can live like pashas and Gilded Age robber barons.

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