Petra Ecclestone buys 13K sf Brentwood mansion for $30.5M

Formula One heiress Petra Ecclestone and her husband, real estate agent Sam Palmer, have bought a new 13,500-square-foot mansion in Brentwood for $30.5 million.

The couple bought the not-quite-finished estate at an undisclosed address on Rockingham Avenue in an off-market deal, near their former home in Brentwood Park, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

The seller was Santa Monica-based Kelly-White Living Trust, which bought the 0.6-acre property in 2020 for $15.6 million. The trust is controlled by Bryan Kelly and his wife, Emily White, a former Snapchat executive.

The gray, two-story mansion sits behind oak and olive trees. The newly built brick home has seven bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a movie theater, a music room and a 200-bottle wine cellar, with a large pool in the backyard.

Palmer said he and Ecclestone, daughter of British billionaire and Formula One racing boss Bernie Ecclestone, had been on the hunt for a new L.A. property for some time. He just got his real-estate license and is an agent with Hilton & Hyland. She’s passionate about interior design.

“We’ve been looking for something that’s a bit of a project,” Palmer told the Journal.

Though the property is newly built, he said, they want to put their own stamp on the interior and garden, which aren’t finished. 

Ecclestone will design the inside of the home, while he’ll focus on the landscaping, he said, including a large lawn with a barbecue, a vegetable garden and room for soccer. 

The couple has a record of buying and renovating homes, then selling them for a far higher price.

They paid $22.7 million in 2019 for their previous Brentwood home at 565 North Tigertail Road, which they sold in October to L.A. Lakers star Russell Westbrook for $33.5 million, plus another  $2.5 million for the furniture. Westbrook now plays for the L.A. Clippers.

In 2019, Ecclestone sold The Manor, the 123-room Holmby Hills estate built by television producer Aaron Spelling, for $120 million to an unidentified Arab sheik, after buying it in 2011 for $85 million.

Spelling Manor is currently on the market for $165 million.

Palmer worked on the Brentwood deal with David Kramer and Barry Watts of Hilton & Hyland. Blair Chang of The Agency and David Solomon of Douglas Elliman represented the seller.

— Dana Bartholomew