Jim Demetriades asks $85M for tricked-out estate in Beverly Crest

Tech titan Jim Demetriades hopes to sell his 28,000-square-foot mansion above Beverly Hills for $85 million.

The Greek-born founder of Kairos Ventures and his wife, Nancy, have listed their 13-bedroom, 16-bathroom estate at 1499 Blueridge Drive, in the Beverly Crest neighborhood of Los Angeles, according to the Robb Report and the Wall Street Journal.

The 2.2-acre hilltop estate, which they call Villa Theos, includes a Mediterranean-style mansion and village, with 270-degree views overlooking Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean.

It was in 2000 that the newly married couple decided to buy the Beverly Hills Post Office property for $8.45 million.

They then spent more than two decades and many millions renovating the three-story house, built in 1992, while adding more structures to the estate.

“Jim and I really sat down and thought, ‘OK, if we could have anything we wanted — the sky’s the limit — what would we want?’ And we just went for it,” Nancy told the WSJ.

The result is a sprawling compound that includes a bowling alley and nightclub, a shooting range and an underground man cave/emergency bunker accessible by a tunnel. 

The bowling lanes have animatronics including faux boulders and lanterns that swing, shake and flash with each strike, Jim Demetriades said. 

At the range, shooters can fire real rounds or with lasers. Images of objects like watermelons or soda cans are projected onto a screen and explode when hit. “You shoot a can of pop and it bounces into the air,” he told the WSJ.

The main house includes a living room with a reclaimed wood-beam ceiling, bar and an antique fireplace imported from France. A master bedroom has a fireside sitting room and dual baths.

The home is surrounded by numerous guesthouses and offices, along with a newly completed “coach house” featuring an Old West-themed nightclub with a ‘70s-themed disco ball, velvet couches and a 50,000-watt sound system with subwoofers built into the ceiling.

There’s also a 20-seat movie theater, gym and classroom setup for the couple’s five children, now grown.

Demetriades’ man cave/bunker has a 4,500-bottle wine cellar. Located 24 feet underground, it’s built with an escape tunnel, 1-foot-thick reinforced concrete and 2,000-pound blast-proof, bulletproof doors. “I told Nancy, ‘We might run out of food, but we won’t run out of wine,’” Jim Demetriades said.

Up top, the grounds are dotted with 140 fruit trees around an infinity-edge swimming pool and a six-car garage. A chicken coop adds the final touch.

Demetriades, raised in Pasadena, founded SeeBeyond Technology, a software company that was sold to Sun Microsystems, now part of Oracle, in 2005 for almost $400 million, according to the WSJ. His Kairos Ventures, a venture capital firm, works with universities to identify scientific discoveries and commercialize them.

He and his wife Nancy, a former actress who helped run and design the couple’s hotels and restaurants, say they’re selling because they are “faced with the prospect of becoming empty-nesters sooner than expected.”

Brokers Drew Fenton of Carolwood Estates and Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency hold the listing.

— Dana Bartholomew