Ryan Seacrest’s $51M estate in Beverly Hills sold to tech CEO and NYT reporter

The buyers of a $51 million hillside mansion in Beverly Hills sold by Ryan Seacrest last fall have been identified as a tech mogul and a New York Times reporter.

Brian Long, CEO of $6 billion tech startup Attentive Mobile, and his wife, Liz Day, the Emmy-winning reporter behind “Framing Britney Spears,” bought the home at 1192 Cabrillo Drive, Dirt.com reported.

First listed at $85 million by Seacrest in 2020, the couple paid $51 million on Nov. 7 in an all-cash deal.

The listing calls the 3-acre property “one of Beverly Hills’ most private and secluded estates,” and it’s also one of the most celebrity-driven.

Completed in 1963 for actor Laurence Harvey, the single-story, mid-century modern home was immediately remodeled by Buff & Hensman. In the 1980s, the house was owned by Joan Collins. 

By the early 2000s, it had passed to “Will & Grace” creator Max Mutchnick, who sold it in 2007 to Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, who were married at the compound the following year.

DeGeneres remodeled the 9,200-square-foot main house and expanded the estate by buying and demolishing neighboring homes. 

Currently, the seven-bedroom, 10-bathroom hilltop complex sits on its own private street and includes two detached guesthouses, an underground garage, separate gym building and a security/camera office for a live-in bodyguard.

In 2012, DeGeneres and de Rossi sold the property to Seacrest for $36.5 million.

The main house, which sits behind gates and some of the tallest hedges in town, has four bedrooms and six bathrooms, plus a media room and an open kitchen with multiple dining areas. It has a large master suite with a walk-in closet and skylit shower.

Outside, a koi pond is nestled among gardens, manicured paths around lawns shaded by sycamore trees and a massage room and an infinity pool positioned over an underground garage. 

As co-founder of Attentive, Long presides over the No. 3 fastest-growing tech startup in the nation, according to Dirt. Headquartered in New York, the mobile messaging platform has raised some $860 million since it was launched in 2016. 

In 2014, Long sold his first tech startup to Twitter for a reported $100 million.

A longtime New York Times reporter, Day is now a supervising producer of “The New York Times Presents” documentary series. She is widely credited with conceiving and executing “Framing Britney Spears,” the award-winning documentary that chronicled the troubled pop star’s conservatorship and bid for freedom.

In January of last year, the couple bought a waterfront mansion in Coral Gables, Florida, for $19.8 million.

— Dana Bartholomew