Paul Allen’s Former Enchanted Hill Estate Sells for $65 Million – The Hollywood Reporter

Enchanted Hill – the site of the famous Wallace Neff home built for Oscar-winning screenwriter Frances Marion and silent film cowboy Fred Thomson – has just sold for $65 million. Listed with Hilton & Hyland, the 120-acre property on the slopes of Beverly Crest has had only three other owners since the Hollywood couple lived there in the 1920s: oil baron William Barnes, the home aircraft altimeter inventor Paul Kollsman and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Allen, who bought Enchanted Hill in 1997 for $20 million, demolished the historic Hispanic home and planned to build a new mansion but never completed the project. He died in 2018 after a long battle with cancer and his trust put the property up for sale in October of that year for $150 million. In 2019, it returned to the market with a new price tag of $110 million. Next year, The Wall Street JournalI reported that Amazon’s Jeff Bezos bought Enchanted Hill for $90 million, but the deal ultimately fell through.

Enchanted Hill – located in Beverly Hills, 2001 Benedict Canyon Drive – was most recently listed with Hilton & Hyland for $95 million. Don’t know who the new buyer is. Rick Hilton, Zach Goldsmith and Jeff Hyland of Hilton & Hyland represent the seller.

The new owner will own a large development that includes five separate lots, including a four-acre site for a main site, and sweeping views of the city and ocean. , hills and canyons. Allen’s improvements to the property include the addition of a mile-long private street, utility infrastructure, and two guarded entrances, one on Benedict Canyon Drive and the other on Angelo Street. Drive.

The listing for the property notes that buyers could build a hilltop complex that includes “multiple guest houses, a state-of-the-art wellness and fitness center and spa, an entertainment complex , a sports arena, world-class equestrian facilities [and] vineyards and wineries. ”

As a Hilton & Hyland agent told Realtor.com in 2019, “Imagine the opportunities available when the new city is consolidated, when people start moving up the hills. Well, this is just that. It’s a blank canvas so someone can create anything they can imagine. The possibilities are truly endless. ”

Back in the 1920s, Marion and Thomson’s neighbors included Rudolph Valentino and Greta Garbo, who are said to have named the estate Enchanted Hill. Marion has worked on over 180 films including Mary Pickford in the lead role The girl from the rich and the poor and Sunnybrook Farm’s Rebecca and won an Oscar for writing for the 1930s The big house and in 1932 Heartburn. Her cowboy star husband bought the first four acres of the estate for $1,600, looking for space to house Thomson’s 12 horses.

According to the 2021 book, Wallace Neff: The Master Architect of Southern California 1920-1940, which featured Enchanted Hill on its cover, “Neff originally designed the guest and servant quarters as well as a gatehouse. The couple were so pleased they asked him to design the main house, which Neff had done in the Spanish Colonial Revival style with its outer Islamic minarets decorated with elaborate orbs. At the entrance of the engine court, the architect used a large round arch that would become one of his trademarks. In addition, the couple designed a national emblem that represents the reel on a horse’s head as well as a horseshoe “for much needed luck in Hollywood.” The stables boast mahogany floors and end grounds. It also includes a 100-metre swimming pool, tennis courts, an Italian garden and an aviary. Architectural Notice.

However, the couple’s time at Enchanted Hill was short-lived. Wallace Neff Authors Marc Appleton, Bret Parsons and Eleanor Schrader write that “Three years after the site was completed, Marion noticed that Thomson was limping. He told her he stepped on a rusty nail and that bothered him a bit. When he awoke with pain and fever, he was admitted to the hospital where doctors misdiagnosed him and he died of tetanus on Christmas Day 1928 in his wife’s arms. The following year, Marion sold the property.”