VC Tim Draper sells priciest home in Hermosa Beach for $18.5M

UPDATED: MAY 9 at 1:30 p.m.:

Tim Draper, a billionaire venture capitalist superstar who once advocated dividing California into six different states, is making his way out of Hermosa Beach.

According to property records, a LLC linked to Draper sold a 7,900 square-foot beachfront mansion located at 2826 The Strand in Hermosa Beach for $18.5 million on May 5. The price works out to $2,346 per square foot. 

In March the seaside home was listed for $18.9 million. The last time it was on the market was in 2011. Tad Thormodsgaard with Palm Realty Boutique represented the buyer and the seller in the deal.

Thormodsgaard said the sale set a Hermosa Beach record. Local agents Evan Haug, a broker with Always Buyers real estate listing platform in Manhattan Beach, and Bryn Stroyke of Stroyke Properties Group at Bayside also confirmed that the deal was the priciest in Hermosa Beach.

The identity of the buyer was not disclosed.

The four-level home offers 39 feet of frontage on The Strand, a popular walkway and biking path in the South Bay, as well as a gym and a cinema, according to a description on Zillow.

With the spring home selling season, there has been an uptick in sales for luxe homes in Hermosa Beach and neighboring Manhattan Beach. On April 27, Dustin Brown, former captain of the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, sold his home located at 522 24th Place for $14.5 million. On April 28, 3000 The Strand in Manhattan Beach, a mansion located a few blocks away from Draper’s beach manse, sold for $13.5 million.

According to a Redfin profile, the median price for a home in Hermosa Beach was $2.1 million in March, down 1.8 percent from March 2022. The median price for a home in Manhattan Beach was $2.7 million in March 2023, which is down 6.5 percent from the same time in the previous year.

Tim Draper is a scion of a family that distinguished itself in the venture capital and political sectors. His father, William Henry Draper III, was founder of Draper & Johnson Investment Company. His grandfather William Henry Draper served as the first ambassador to NATO and started Draper, Gaither and Anderson, what is considered to be the first venture capitalist firm in Silicon Valley. 

In his career, Tim Draper made prominent investments in companies such as Hotmail, Tesla, Twitter, DocuSign, Robinhood and Twitch.  He also advocated for dividing California into six different states, arguing the state had become too big and ungovernable. He failed to collect enough signatures to get a measure on a statewide ballot in 2016. 

In 2018, he collected enough signatures to place a measure to chop up California into three states. But the California Supreme Court blocked the measure before it could be placed on the ballot. Draper spent $1.2 million to support the measure, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Clarification: Agent Tad Thormodsgaard contacted TRD and said the sale set a Hermosa Beach record.