See the Beverly Hills estate with ties to Hearst and ‘The Godfather’ selling for $125 million
The former Beverly Hills estate of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and actress Marion Davies, a mansion made memorable in scenes from “The Godfather” and “The Bodyguard,” has hit the market at $125 million.
Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy stayed at the Beverly House in 1953 during their honeymoon, and JFK used it for his West Coast presidential election headquarters.
The house was used in a scene from the classic 1972 mobster film “The Godfather” where a rival of the Corleone family wakes up to find a gory horse head in his bed.
Designed by Gordon Kaufmann, the architect behind the Hoover Dam and other notable estates in the Beverly Hills area, the home offers 18 bedrooms, 25 bathrooms, 12 fireplaces, two swimming pools, exquisite formal water gardens and six separate structures.
The mansion boasts extraordinary amenties, such as a near Olympic-size swimming pool, lighted tennis court, two projection/screening rooms, a commercial grade kitchen, terraces to accommodate 400 or more guests for a seated dinner and grounds to accommodate more than 1,000 people.
It sits on five acres of a flat promontory just three blocks from Sunset Strip. The Beverly House comes with extreme privacy and four security gates.
The house was listed in February 2020 at a price $10 million lower than two years ago, according to realtor.com.
“The Beverly House stands as an emblem of Hollywood’s Golden Era,” according to the listing website.
“The estate is well known in the architectural world for its H-form design characterized by long colonnades, wide balconies, arched floor-to-ceiling windows and its spaciousness,” wrote TopTenRealEstateDeals.com in an article.
The villa has a stunning two-story library with hand-carved paneling and a wraparound walkway. The formal living room is crowned by a 22-foot-high, hand-painted arched ceiling.
A substantial addition was made in the 1990s expanding the size of the building when “The Godfather” was filmed, TopTenRealEstateDeals reported.
(TopTenRealEstateDeals obtained permission to share the photos of the mansion seen in the video above.)
Mega mansions appear to be hot again in the Los Angeles area. For example, Chartwell estate, where the “Beverly Hillbillies” introduction was filmed, recently sold for $150 million and the former estate of late television producer Aaron Spelling sold for $120 million. Topping the most expensive recent purchases is Jeff Bezos’ $165 million deal for the former home of David Geffen.
The Beverly House is the second most expensive property on the Los Angeles market, according to several media reports, behind the Italian-style mansion at 67 Beverly Park Court, which is asking $165 million.
Another house with ties to “The Godfather” is on the market in the Lake Tahoe area. The Fleur du Lac Estates property known as Residence 20 can be recognized in the Academy Award-winning “Godfather II.” It’s listed at $5.5 million.
The listing agents for the Beverly House are Mauricio Umansky and Santiago Arana of The Agency, Beverly Hills.
This story was originally published March 13, 2020 at 8:41 AM.
