“Succession” Pacific Palisades Home Declared Public Nuisance

The remains of a burned Pacific Palisades mansion owned by Luminar Technologies’ 30-year-old founder and featured on HBO’s hit series “Succession” have been condemned.

The home at 1601 San Onofre Drive is one of eight properties in the Palisades the City of Los Angeles just declared a public nuisance, the Los Angeles Times reported. City officials claim the owner has yet to remove ash and debris from the deadly January wildfires. The home was featured in the fourth season of “Succession” as the luxury estate of the fictional Roy family.

The five-member Los Angeles Board of Building and Safety Commissioners said the fire debris at the eight properties, which includes luxury estates, multifamily apartments and businesses, were a public nuisance and could be a risk to public health and safety. Officials say the owners of these properties failed to meet the Oct. 2 deadline to clear hazardous fire debris. With the Oct. 8 vote, owners must either clean up their lots or prepare for a city contractor to do it for them and slap them with a bill.

“Once a property is declared a public nuisance, the owner has the right to abate the nuisance until the department solicits bids for the work,” Gail Gaddi, a spokesperson for the L.A. Department of Building and Safety, said. “A process or timeline has not been established for when the department will begin to solicit bids.”

The six-bedroom, 18-bathroom mansion last sold in 2021 for $83 million. It was built in 2020 by developer Ardie Tavangarian and is owned by 30-year-old Luminar Technologies founder Austin Russell, according to The Daily Mail; in a “Succession”-like twist, it was once owned by magazine magnate William Randolph Hearst. After the Palisades fire ripped through the neighborhood, the owner withdrew from the federal debris removal program led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers out of worry that the government contractors wouldn’t adequately preserve parts of the estate, according to Jon Mansfield, a representative for the owner. After learning that private debris cleanup would cost between $500,000 and $600,000, the owner changed their mind but it was too late to register.

“There’s millions of dollars of [building materials] that we were afraid would be destroyed in the process and further degrade the value of the property,” Mansfield said.

The “Succession” house and nearby lots are the latest properties in the Palisades to be declared a public nuisance nine months after the fire. Earlier this month, the Building and Safety Commission declared the 170-unit Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Estates community a public nuisance. The mobile home park’s owner could similarly see the lots cleaned up and get a bill for the debris removal work.

— Chris Malone Méndez