Apparel billionaire Michael Mente paid $45 million for a glass-walled mansion in Beverly Hills before it even hit the market.
The co-founder of online clothing giant Revolve bought the newly built 15,000-square-foot hilltop estate from an unknown seller, Dirt reported.
The seven-bedroom, 10-bathroom house, designed by Irish-born architect Paul McClean, has retractable walls of glass throughout, plus soaring walls of travertine.
The home on nearly an acre of land looks out onto Century City, with clear-day views of the Pacific Ocean to Catalina Island.
The interior was designed by Annette English of Carthay-based Annette English + Associates, with landscaping by Enzo Caserta Landscaping of Northridge.
Because of the off-market sale, few details of the home are available, according to Dirt.
For privacy, the mansion is hidden behind a long, steep and gated driveway. Landscaping is drought-tolerant, with long native grasses, mature agave plants and ancient olive trees that border onto an infinity pool.
In 2003, Michael Mente and business partner Mike Karanikolas co-founded their online apparel firm out of a small home in Buena Park, with $50,000 saved up from former jobs as software engineers. Their company, Revolve, pioneered the deployment of fashion bloggers and influencers to sell duds.
The Cerritos-based firm went public in 2019 in an IPO that valued the company at $1.2 billion. Today, Revolve Group has a market cap of $3.73 billion – and is one of the world’s biggest and best-known e-commerce fashion businesses, marketing more than 500 fashion brands, including 23 lines designed in-house.
The 41-year-old Mente, a native Angeleno, is now worth more than $1 billion, according to Forbes. He led the charge toward “influencer marketing” and is credited with building a stable of more than 7,500 social media celebrities and Instagram influencers.
He’s also known for buying real estate across Southern California.
In 2013, he paid $4.7 million to “Friends” star Matthew Perry for his high-style contemporary home in the Outpost Estates neighborhood of the Hollywood Hills, Dirt reported. Last year, he paid $10.6 million for a large vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley, near Santa Barbara.
[Dirt] – Dana Bartholomew