$250M Bel Air spec house is America’s priciest listing

The spec house in Bel Air and Bruce Makowsky (Credit: Makowsky via LA Times, Getty)
The spec house in Bel Air and Bruce Makowsky (Credit: Makowsky via LA Times, Getty)

Another year, another Los Angeles mega-listing.

A Bel Air spec home by developer Bruce Makowsky is slated to hit the market in the coming days with an asking price of $250 million, making it the country’s priciest listing. It will unseat the $200 million Spelling Mansion in Holmby Hills, which was listed last year by British heiress Petra Stunt.

The 38,000-square-foot Makowsky property, the product of 250 workers and four years of labor, has 12 bedrooms and 21 bathrooms across four stories. It comes with a $30 million car collection, 130 pieces of art, a helicopter, and two years of a full-time, seven-person staff. The home also has three kitchens, a bowling alley, a movie theater, an infinity pool with its own bar and a candy room.

Makowsky, a QVC handbag designer, told the Los Angeles Times that he was inspired to build the house by his passion for high-end yachts.

“Today, people are spending $300 million on a boat, and they use it about eight weeks a year,” he said. “Then they are living in a $30-million to $40-million home.”

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Of the 3,000-some billionaires that exist in the world, half a dozen have already toured Makowsky’s project, according to the Times.

“You’re close to heaven, and you never want to leave,”Makowsky said.

A handful of headline-grabbing Los Angeles sales in 2016 may have spurred sellers to reach for the stars with their listing prices. Big ticket properties that sold in 2016 included the Owlwood Estates and the Playboy Mansion, which traded for $90 million and $100 million, respectively.

The record price for a U.S. home was set in 2014 by hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein of Jana Partners when he bought a Hamptons estate for $147 million.

Meanwhile, a $500 million spec house is in the works nearby, courtesy of developer Nile Niami. The mammoth home, which broke ground in late 2015, is expected to span more than 100,000 square feet. [LAT] — Cathaleen Chen