Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently shelled out $165 million to buy the Warner Estate in Beverly Hills, a sprawling nine-acre estate that belonged to media mogul David Geffen, the Wall Street Journalreports. It is now the most expensive property purchased in Los Angeles, surpassing the Chartwell in Bel-Air, which was bought for about $150 million in December by Lachlan Murdoch, son of News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.
Geffen purchased the Warner Estate in 1990 for $47.5 million. At the time, it was considered the most expensive price ever paid for a home in the United States, but that honor now belongs to hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who spent about $238 million on a 24,000-square-foot New York City penthouse apartment that overlooks Central Park.
If plunking down $165 million on a new home wasn't enough, Bezos also recently threw down another $90 million for the Enchanted Hill property, which was sold by the estate of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Prior to his death, Allen intended on developing the site, which was purchased in the late 1990s for about $20 million.
Surprisingly, the Warner Estate wasn't technically on the market when Bezos bought it, however, it was a well-known fact among highly connected real estate brokers that Geffen wanted to sell it. In 2007, Geffen reportedly contemplated putting a $100+ million pricetag on the home, but didn't go through with it.
Both homes amounted to about a quarter of $1 billion for Bezos, but what's that mean to the richest person on the planet?
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