Everyone knows you have to be really rich to own a house in Beverly Hills. That's common knowledge. What most people don't know is if you're really really really insanely rich, you live in the 325-acre gated community high up in the mountains of Beverly Hills called Beverly Park. That's where you want to live when you're worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It's not an exaggeration to say that Beverly Park is the most exclusive and expensive gated community in the Los Angeles area. The people who live in Beverly Park make the people who live in regular old Beverly Hills look like broke chumps.
I actually got to go up there a few times a decade ago to visit a friend who was house sitting for an extremely successful actor. It's hard to put into words what it's like. It feels fake. Even getting there is a dream. If you were pulling out of the driveway of the Beverly Hills Hotel you would turn right, then right, then meander up a winding road for 10 minutes, straight up into the clouds. Your ears will pop. You'll know you've reached the top because you'll eventually be greeted by an intimidating guard tower that will not let you in unless you are a resident or are basically escorted by a resident. You famously are not allowed to take photos within the common areas of Beverly Park.
Below is a really great drone video tour of Beverly Park that I'm sure was NOT approved by the HOA. Speaking of the HOA, the monthly HOA fee is $3,000 per parcel. Many homes consist of multiple parcels. At the 10 second mark and again at 3:40 you can see Mark Wahlberg's insane mansion which was still under construction (this video is from 2014, Mark completed construction in 2015). At the 2:23 mark, you see a large grey mansion that according to property records is owned by Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. How is an ambassador rich enough to have what looks like a $50 million mansion? Reema's great-grandfather Ibn Saud is the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. Her maternal grandfather was the King of Saudi Arabia from 1964 to 1975.
The average home in Beverly Park is 20,000 square feet. The few remaining vacant lots regularly sell for $30+ million. Current celebrity residents include Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Eddie Murphy, Justin Bieber, Rod Stewart, Steve Harvey, Samuel L. Jackson, Magic Johnson… and Sylvester Stallone.
Let's talk about Sylvester Stallone.
Earlier today it was revealed that Sylvester was putting his Beverly Park mansion for sale. The reported asking price?
$130 million
We say "reported" twice in that previous sentence because the information from a bit of a roundabout source.
The source is the Instagram feed of real estate super-agent Ben Bacal. In an Instagram story that I can't find anymore, Bacal posted a photo from what looks like Sylvester's private office accompanied with the text "Sylvester Stallone – Rockey's estate hits the market! $130 million". He also appeared to be promoting his new real estate app "Rila". So I'm really struggling to understand how accurate this announcement really is, or if it's a marketing gimmick for the app.
For what it's worth, Sylvester's listing is so far not covered by other typical celebrity real estate outlets like the Wall Street Journal's Mansion Global or the LA Times.
Sylvester bought his 3.5-acre slice of Beverly Park in the 1990s for an undisclosed amount. It was a vacant lot at the time. He proceeded to build a 21,000 square-foot Mediterranean mansion that has 8 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms. Here's a video tour:
I have to say, I'm very skeptical that $130 million is the actual listing price. The current highest-price paid for a Beverly Park mansion is $40 million.
On the flip side, if Stallone's listing is real, it wouldn't actually even be the most-expensive listing in Beverly Park at the moment. That honor goes to home called Villa Firenze, which is located just 12 houses up from Sly.
Villa Firenze's current asking price?
$160 million
There's no video tour of Sylvester's house yet, but there is one of Villa Firenze which I'll post in a moment so you can an idea of what we're dealing with in Beverly Park.
As you watch, keep in mind that Villa Firenze is 8,000 square-feet larger that Villa Stallone and is on 9 acres instead of 3.5 acres. Also it's been on the market since 2018… so those comps do not bode well for Sly getting $130 million:
Who owns Villa Firenze?
A billionaire husband and wife named Steve and Christine Hazy. Steven Udvar-Hazy earned his roughly $4 billion fortune in the airline leasing industry. In 1973 he founded International Lease Finance Corporation. He sold the company to insurance giant AIG for $1.2 billion in 1990. His latest company Air Lease Corporation is publicly traded and has a market cap of around $5 billion. Air Lease owns around 300 planes which are leased to airlines and private customers around the world.
The Hazys own TWO others Beverly Park mansions. They are reputed to be the wealthiest Mormons in the world.
If you happen to be in the market for such a mansion, I have good news! Villa Firenze is actually going up for auction in five days. The owners are accepting offers between January 26 and February 2nd. No reserve. Put in an offer!
As for Sylvester, if the sale is real, he's probably looking to decamp to his recently-acquired $35 million mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.
