Geffen reacquires Malibu beach house

How do billionaires play?

Media mogul David Geffen apparently just can’t enough of Malibu’s Carbon Beach. He recently spent about $10 million on a 1,473-square-foot two-bedroom house near his main beachfront home. The house sits on a 45-foot stretch of beautiful beach and is already leased out.

What makes the transaction interesting is that Geffen owned this same property once before. He bought it in 1996 for approximately $1.2 million and sold it two years later to Richard Lovett, president of Creative Artists Agency, for an undisclosed amount, according to public records. Then, in 2007, it was bought by Peter Morton, co-founder of the Hard Rock Cafe chain, who sold it back to Geffen earlier this year.

Geffen’s own multi-lot Cape Cod-style palace along the stretch of oceanfront known as “Billionaires’ Beach” shares sand with neighbors such as Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison and Haim Saban, the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” tycoon. The eastern outcropping of Carbon Beach is called “Dealmakers’ Rock” because so much Hollywood business is conducted there.

Geffen recently completed a major renovation of the Malibu Beach Inn, a 47-room luxury Carbon Beach hotel where summer room rates are as high as $850 a night for a 600-square-foot waterfront suite.