One of the most notable mansions in ritzy Bel Air, known as Casa Encantada, can be yours if you have a qaurter-billion dollars. Casa Encantada was designed by James E. Dolena during the Great Depression. Over the years its previous owners include hotel business patriarch Conrad Hilton and Dole billionaire David Murdock.
Current owners, billionaires Gary and Karen Winnick, have placed it on the market with an asking price of $250 million. If it sells at that price, will make it the most expensive private residence ever sold in the United States, and even more incredibly, it will be the third time this legendary property has held that record.
David Murdock first put Casa Encantada in the real estate history books when he paid $12.4 million for it back in 1980. Paying $12.4 million in 1980 is the same as paying $46 million today.
In 2000, it broke the record for priciest home sale in the country again when the Winnicks bought it for $94 million.
Casa Encantada is a gem at any price, sprawling across 40,000 square feet and sitting on 8.5 acres of the most expensive real estate in the world.
In addition to its elegant charms, Casa Encantada has some pretty interesting lore behind it. It was constructed for a wealthy widow named Hilda Boldt Weber during the height of the Great Depression, on land she bought in 1934 for $100,000, an astronomical amount at the time. According to the book "The Legendary Estates of Beverly Hills" by Jeff Hyland, Weber had a specific reason for wanting to build such a palace at a time when an unprecedented number of Americans were living hand to mouth or much worse:
"She wanted to make a major statement and assume what she considered to be her rightful place in Los Angeles society. That required a magnificent new estate."
"Magnificent" it was then, and magnificent it remains today, thanks in part to an extensive restoration overseen by its current owners, one that took more than two years and untold millions of dollars to complete.
Now, the home is once again in contention for most expensive private home in the US, a record it will hold for the third time if it sells for more than the $238 million that Ken Griffin paid for this massive New York City penthouse in 2019.
You can take a look at Casa Encantada in the video below by the Billionaire Drone YouTube channel:
