Demolished Strada Vecchia Mansion Selling at Auction

Bel-Air’s most famous unfinished acropolis is up for auction once again, The Real Deal has learned.

Paul Ventura’s Sahara Construction is selling the 1.2-acre site of Mohamed Hadid’s failed spec mansion at 901 Strada Vecchia Road in a sealed-bid auction that runs until July 16, according to a listing posted Monday by Compass’s Tracy Tutor and Premiere Estates Auction Company’s Todd Wohl. The starting bid is $7.9 million and there’s no reserve.

“What’s being offered here is the chance to create something visionary in a location that simply can’t be replicated,” Tutor said in a statement to TRD.

The site can now safely accommodate a 15,000-square-foot home after Sahara surgically demolished it down to the foundation slab, according to a court-ordered engineering report.

Hadid — a developer of hotels and homes for the ultra-rich, and father of models Gigi and Bella Hadid — had envisioned a mega-mansion twice that size for the site when he began construction in 2014. But neighbors, who disparagingly nicknamed it the “starship enterprise,” and city building inspectors took him to court in 2018 over safety concerns. Hadid, who could not be reached for comment, lost the court battle and the property despite declaring bankruptcy to hang onto it.

The unfinished home has remained an eyesore at the end of a cul-de-sac where privacy is sacrosanct, and every other home has its own tennis court.

That started to change when Sahara bought the property for $5 million in 2021 after a judge placed it into a receivership and ordered the stalled development to be torn down to stabilize the surrounding slope. Sahara agreed to undertake the demolition as part of the deal.

The Sun Valley-based construction firm took out an $8 million loan from Northern Bank & Trust Company in 2023 and has now completed its end of the bargain, leaving only a ladder of concrete slabs separated by retaining walls, receiver Douglas Wilson reported in court filings.

Sahara listed the property for sale for $18 million in October 2023, as TRD previously reported. But the listing was removed last year.

The construction firm’s loan is past due, and Sahara was hit with a default notice last month. It’s delinquent on $9.4 million worth of debt, according to the notice.

A spokesperson for Sahara did not respond to a request for comment, but Premiere Estates’ Todd Wohl said Sahara volunteered to sell the property at auction and noted it’s not a foreclosure sale.

“The demolition took a tremendous amount of money,” Wohl said. “From the court’s standpoint, the legal issues and development issues are cured. There’s a flat pad now. This would survive a major earthquake.”