The buyer for the dual Bel-Air estate owned by the late actress Yvette Mimieux and her husband, Howard Ruby, is Sean Rad, co-founder of the dating app Tinder.
Rad paid $35 million for the nearly century-old Tuscan-style villa and a Balinese-inspired cottage at 500-512 Perugia Way in Bel-Air Country Club, Dirt.com reported. The initial asking price was $49.5 million.
500-512 Perugia Way in Los Angeles (Zillow)
The estate was the longtime home of corporate housing magnate Ruby, who now lives on a yacht in Marina del Rey, and his late wife Mimieux, who died in January at age 80. She was famous for her role in the sci-fi film “The Time Machine,” “Where the Boys Are” and “Light in the Piazza.”
They called their 1.6-acre, figure-eight-shaped estate “Il Sogno” – Italian for “the dream.”
500-512 Perugia Way in Los Angeles (Zillow)
The property links two houses and two pools across two lots, including the 10,600-square-foot villa, a six-bedroom, seven-bath mansion built in 1928, and a 4,900-square-foot cottage with three bedrooms and five baths filled with art.
Ruby founded Oakwood Worldwide, a Los Angeles-based real estate firm that provides temporary furnished apartments. He bought Il Sogno in 1979 and had it decorated by the late designer Kalef Alaton. Mimieux moved in after their marriage in 1986.
They bought the house next door in 2010 for $5.55 million, which Mimieux used as an art studio and library, and where she lived during her final years.
The villa was designed by architect and city planner Mark Daniels, who helped lay out Bel-Air, San Francisco’s Forest Hills and Pebble Beach’s 17 Mile Drive.
Il Sogno, one of the first homes built in the neighborhood, is a lesson in formal elegance. Features include hand-painted ceilings in the foyer, a painted skylight in the library, antique plaster walls, stone-carved fireplaces, glass ceilings, cavernous rooms and a brick wine cellar.
The master suite is highlighted by a dome of hand-painted Italian frescos by Claudio Briganti, adorned by a crystal chandelier, fireplace, a private patio, and dual bathrooms trimmed in onyx.
The cottage is its bohemian opposite, wrapped in a tropical oasis with gardens, statues and a pair of swimming pools.
The house has a library of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a sky-lit living room and a sunny art studio where Mimieux created brightly colored abstract paintings.
Linda May of Hilton & Hyland, Jade Mills of Coldwell Banker and Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency held the listing. Mary Fitzgerald and Jason Oppenheim of The Oppenheim Group represented the buyer.
The 36-year-old Rad, a Beverly Hills native who left Tinder in 2017, may have plans to redecorate the estate, according to Dirt. The tech mogul lives with his wife, Lizzie Grover Rad, in a Los Angeles home featured last December in Architectural Digest.
In 2018, he bought Rancho San Leandro, a historic horse ranch in Montecito, from Ellen DeGeneris and Portia de Rossi for $11 million. Last year, they bought it back for $14.3 million.
– Dana Bartholomew
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