Mansions

When it comes to flipping a 10,000-square-foot mansion on a prime piece of Santa Monica real estate, a simple open house with hors d'oeuvres and soothing background music has apparently become blase. In what city staff calls "a new kind of commercial activity for Santa Monica," the designer who purchased a golf-course adjacent property has re-purposed it for parties and formed the House of Rock LLC to help market the estate. Since hundreds of guests started streaming in and out of the home in September, residents on affluent La Mesa Drive have complained about everything from noise and lights, to traffic congestion and safety - and even naked partygoers sleeping off a long night in their cars.

They call it the monster mansion. With giant spider webs and a skeleton frame loosely covered with black tarp like sagging skin, this Redondo Beach home blends right in at Halloween. But as residents on this quiet residential street can attest, the home doesn't transform after the holiday. They've watched it take shape, and then dilapidate, over the last eight years. What was one South Bay developer's dream home has become an everyday nightmare for the community just a mile from the marina.

Investor and pro soccer team owner Gabriel Brener has put his estate in Holmby Hills up for sale at $90 million. The 35,000-square-foot manse, built in 2001, sits on a 3.6-acre site that once contained motion picture giant Walt Disney's personal residence. The three-level mansion features a two-story oval foyer, statuary, a wine cellar, a movie room, three bars, a library, a gym, eight bedrooms, 17 bathrooms and two safe rooms. Staff quarters are accessible from a service entrance at the garage.

Looking to move? Want a to buy a quick fixer-upper and flip it for a profit? Former Super Bowl champion Warren Sapp has a deal for you. A Florida bankruptcy court has ordered the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers star to auction off his home, which comes equipped with a water slide, two-story wine cellar, movie theater, its own lake (with a dock), five full bathrooms and three half-baths. But only four bedrooms. Sapp, who is $6.7 million in debt, had to auction off the property or face jail time.

A 10,000-square-foot replica of the Disneyland Haunted Mansion attraction minus the 999 ghosts will go up for auction Wednesday on eBay for $873,000 or the next highest bid. Photos: A virtual tour of the Haunted Mansion replica home The ghostly retreat, custom-built in 1996, was designed to fit in with the New Orleans-style homes of the Sweet Bottom Plantation neighborhood, a private, gated community in Duluth, Ga., near Atlanta. The replica Haunted Mansion will be listed on eBay Auctions for 30 days starting Wednesday with a $873,000 Buy-It-Now price tag. The seller can accept or deny any lower bids.

Maybe the attraction is Silicon Beach, the swath of Los Angeles that is home to so many tech start-ups. Or maybe it's just the beach. Either way, Northern California technology titans and wannabes increasingly are sinking money into trophy homes from the Hollywood Hills to the beach in a kind of Silicon Valley south. Making tsunami-like waves so far this year are three Westside transactions: •Billionaire venture capitalist and hedge fund manager Peter Thiel cherry-picked a house in the Hollywood Hills this spring for $11.5 million.

The breeze off Biscayne Bay and playful fountains cool Vizcaya's elaborate gardens even on a sweltering summer day - not that International Harvester heir James Deering would have known. The Coconut Grove, Fla., mansion was his winter estate. When it opened in 1916, Miami's population was a mere 10,000. Why it's a treasure: With the help of painter and designer Paul Chalfin, Deering handpicked every item in his marbled mansion, deftly mixing a French harpsichord, Pompeian table, Venetian gates with an English manor house library, Chinese bedroom and south Florida coral rock.

The Pittock Mansion, a 16,000-square-foot French Renaissance-style masterpiece, reigns atop a 1,000-foot bluff overlooking the city of Portland, Ore. With panoramic views of the Willamette and Columbia rivers and five Cascade mountains, the mansion is a testament to what power and wealth could achieve in 1914, what civic activism could restore in 1965 and what could be a killer setting for a house party in 2012. Why it's a treasure: Henry Pittock, a penniless Oregon Trail pioneer who became a land baron, lumber and paper mill magnate and owner of the Oregonian, which he built into the state's largest daily newspaper, commissioned California architect Edward T. Foulkes to create a showcase legacy for his five surviving children and their families.

Singer-actress Hilary Duff has sold her Toluca Lake estate for slightly less than its asking price of $5.5 million. The buyers are designer Don Stanzione and Sheri Callan, owner of Callan Advertising, which focuses on the independent film industry. The reinvented Mediterranean mansion, built in 1951, features a central courtyard, high ceilings, an industrial-style kitchen, a gym, a billiards room, multiple offices, art and dance studios, a bar, five bedrooms, six bathrooms and 9,277 square feet of living space.