$70 million purchase a record sale in Orange County, California

A New York hedge-fund manager broke a sales record in Orange County, California, when he and his wife paid $70 million for an oceanfront mansion in Laguna Beach.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Joseph Edelman, the CEO and founder of the biotech hedge fund Perceptive Advisors, and his wife Susan Lebovitz-Edelman purchased the roughly 1-acre property located in a gated community of Abalone Point, which sits on a small peninsula that juts out into the Pacific Ocean and has streets named for getaways of the rich and famous, such as Riveria, Monaco and Monte Carlo drives.

The roughly 18,000-square-foot main residence features five bedrooms, a commercial kitchen, a wine cellar and a screening room, Jonathon Curci of Compass, who represented the buyer, told the Journal.

The property also contains a pool cabana and a two-story glass guesthouse that Curci said was akin to a solarium.

The house is one of about a dozen in Abalone Point, which is in the Irvine Cove area of Laguna Beach.

The deal to purchase the home was completed off-market, and didn’t go off without a hitch, according to the Journal. A neighbor filed a lawsuit in May against the seller, alleging certain obligations associated with the property’s homeowners association had been violated. That neighbor attempted to buy the property via a right of first refusal, but the seller did not accept the offer. That case is ongoing, the Journal reports.

The Edelmans listed their New York City penthouse for sale in March and had been leasing in a home nearby when they struck the deal, according to the newspaper. The seller’s name was not revealed.

Last year, another property in the area had been listed for $60 million but was taken off the market, according to the Journal. A nearby property in Newport Coast, California, sold for $61 million last year.