In June, 2019, a new record for the most expensive home sold in Los Angeles County was set when The Manor, a 123-room Holmby Hills estate, went for $119.75 million after almost four years on the market.
This record was shortly broken by another massive sale in December, 2019 – The Chartwell Estate in the neighborhood of Bel-Air – which was sold for $150 million. The Chartwell Estate sale also set a new record for the highest priced home ever sold in California.
To many, however, The Manor is a standout not only for its staggering price but also for its spectacular features and storied owners.
History of The Manor
The Manor was custom built in the 1980s for Candy Spelling and her husband, Aaron Spelling, a TV producer best known for shows like The Love Boat, Charlie’s Angels, Dynasty, and other popular series that dominated television ratings in that decade. The sprawling estate was then known as the Spelling Manor or Candyland after its owners.
The property was formerly the site of Bing Crosby’s home built in 1932. The Spellings had the home razed to construct The Manor, spending a total of around $22 million in the process.
In 2011, Candy Spelling, who was widowed in 2006, sold the estate to then 23-year-old Petra Stunt for $85 million. Stunt is the daughter of Bernie Ecclestone of the Formula One empire. It was reported that she spent an additional $20 million in a renovation project that took twelve weeks to complete.
Stunt originally put the mansion up for sale in 2016 for $200 million, but dropped the price to $175 million, and later to $160 million.
A close look at The Manor
The Manor estate encompasses 4.7 acres, including the 56,500 square foot mansion. This makes the mansion larger than the White House by about 1,500 square feet. It has 123 rooms, including 27 bathrooms and 14 bedrooms. Stunt’s remodel was mostly centered on updating the interiors and incorporating contemporary elements.
The property’s lavish features include:
- A 7,000 square foot master bedroom that includes a private living room, a kitchen, two bathrooms, and an adjacent two-level dressing room
- A large kitchen that can “cook for two or 800”, as described by Candy Spelling
- A large foyer with a grand twin butterfly staircase
- A two-lane bowling alley with a shoe closet at the basement
- A two-tier theater room with a movie screen that rises from the floor
- A hair salon and massage parlor, which was converted from a room originally designed to hold Candy Spelling’s doll collection
- Customized rooms, such as a flower cutting room, a humidity-controlled room to store silverware, several gift wrapping rooms, a tanning room, and more
- A swimming pool with a pool house
- A full sized tennis court
- 16 car ports and a motor court that can accommodate more than 100 vehicles
- Five maid’s bedrooms and two butler’s suites
The neighborhood
Holmby Hills is no stranger to lavish estates and multimillion dollar homes. It’s the site of two of the most recent high profile sales in the county – the infamous Playboy Mansion, which sold in 2016 for $100 million, and a two-acre spec mansion sold in the same year also for $100 million.
Holmby Hills is home to high ranking executives, professionals, and celebrities, and count luminaries like Neil Diamond, Frank Sinatra, Walt Disney, and Humphrey Bogart among its former residents.
See our Holmby Hills/Bel-Air listings here.
For more information on these properties and other luxury homes for sale in Los Angeles, get in touch with me, Sasha Rahban at 310.963.9680 or send me a message.
