Nile Niami unloads yet another massive spec mansion

14K sf spread in Hollywood Hills complete with cryo chamber, sold for $26M

1369 Londonderry Place and Niami (Compass via The Agency, Getty)
1369 Londonderry Place and Niami (Compass via The Agency, Getty)

Nile Niami, the swashbuckling but embattled spec home developer, has unloaded his amenity-filled 14,000-square-foot Hollywood Hills mansion as part of a broader property selloff as he faces mounting financial obstacles.

Niami sold the spec home at 1369 Londonderry Place for $26 million, property records show. That was well below the $55 million asking price when it hit the market in 2019. The price was cut three more times, ending at $30 million in early June.

The sale closed in late June but was not previously reported. Niami sold the home through an LLC; the buyer was another LLC, Londonderry Property, LLC, registered in Santa Barbara.

Niami did not return a call seeking comment. A representative for the buyer’s LLC, attorney Joe Billings, did not return calls seeking comment.

Niami completed the six-bedroom, eight-bathroom modern-style mansion in 2018. The two-story spread sits on just less than half an acre and features amenities including a cryo chamber, hot yoga studio, billiard room and two pools located on top of each other — the higher one with a glass bottom, so swimmers below can see those above.

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In 2019, to generate interest, the famously bacchanalian developer threw a party at the property that was inspired by the Hieronymous Bosch painting, “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” and featured a camel to greet guests, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

The home “lends itself to someone in search of the L.A. life of wellness, or a very sexually charged home,” Rayni Williams, the original listing agent, told that newspaper in 2019. “It has a very sexual energy.” Last year, Niami was fined multiple times by the City of Los Angeles for large parties at his properties, including at Londonderry Place, that violated the city’s pandemic lockdown rules.

The recent sale comes amid months of turmoil for the developer once dubbed “L.A.’s Megamansion King,” who has been on a selling spree. Last December, he unloaded his own West Hollywood pad; and in April he sold two neighboring Bel Air mansions for $26 million apiece, less than half of each property’s original asking price.

Niami had once hoped for a $500 million sale for “The One” — his 105,000-square-foot creation meant to be “the most expensive house in the urban world.” But in March, with no buyer in sight, a lender served a notice of default on the famous property.

In December, Niami also put the Londonderry Place mansion into bankruptcy — valuing it at $30 million — though he retained control of the property.

And in early 2020, a lender took control of Niami’s 20,000-square-foot Trousdale Estates spec mansion dubbed “Opus.” A deed showed it was valued at $38 million in the transaction, far below its original $100 million asking price. It was later relisted for $60 million and sold in November 2020 to a real estate investor for an unknown amount.