Mega-mansions are L.A.'s really big show
Unaffected by the economic woes besetting the masses, the super-rich are going on creating palace-like complexes. One builder says he knows of 20 houses of at least 20,000 square feet in the works.
In Beverly Hills, a 32,000-square-foot beaux-arts mansion that will be sheathed in Portuguese limestone and adorned with gold-plated doorknobs fashioned in France is rising on Sunset Boulevard.
A few miles away in Bel-Air, businessman Eri Kroh has requested permits to lop off the top of a hill, fill in a canyon and then, after moving some 68,000 cubic yards of dirt, replace the chaparral-covered lot with a 30,000-plus square-foot single family home with Pacific Ocean views.
Just down the hill, workers recently were building retaining walls for a giant lot that real estate experts say could soon feature one or two giant palace-like homes.
Anyone who assumed that the construction of mega-mansions would grind to a halt as the economy worsens must not be familiar with the customs of the very rich.
"Does anybody need 40,000 square feet?" asks real estate agent Stephen Shapiro of the Westside Estate Agency. "No, [but] these are our current-day aristocrats and feudal leaders . . . and this is what they want."
Builder John Finton, who is overseeing construction of the 32,000 square-foot house on Sunset Boulevard for businessman C. Frederick Wehba Sr. and his wife, Susan, said he knows of at least 20 20,000-plus square-foot homes under construction or about to break ground in what he called the "platinum triangle" of wealthy areas in Los Angeles County: Beverly Hills, Bel-Air and Holmby Hills.
Few properties are as infamous as the site where Finton is building the Wehbas' home. At Sunset and Alpine Drive, it is being built on one part of the former estate of Saudi Sheik Mohammed al Fassi. Known as "the statue house," it became infamous decades ago when it was painted lime green and the nude statues surrounding the property were decorated with representations of genitalia.
Real estate experts give various explanations for the continuing popularity of mega-mansions.
"People are spending much more time at home," Finton said. "They want to be comfortable."
Indeed, for the super-rich, being comfortable can mean turning your home into a resort.
Real estate agent Drew Fenton said that no one sets out to build a mega-house; it just happens.
"You keep adding the rooms you think you need. The ballroom. The screening room. Masters with his and hers and a beauty salon and a massage room. And the house keeps growing." Added Fenton: "I can't explain why someone needs a gift-wrapping room or a florist room. That is a question of culture."
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