Jeffrey Katzenberg, former CEO of DreamWorks Animation and the founder of short-form streaming platform Quibi, has sold his Beverly Hills home for $125 million in one of the biggest deals ever closed in the Los Angeles area, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The entertainment exec and wife Marilyn Katzenberg never even officially put the home on the market before receiving the offer. According to a rep for the Katzenbergs, the couple “had been looking to downsize for some time, and received an offer they couldn’t refuse.”
The buyer is a family from the United Kingdom that owns properties in London and Aspen, Colorado, the Journal reported.
Kurt Rappaport, co-founder of Westside Estate Agency, headquartered in Beverly Hills, brokered the deal and represented both the buyer and the seller.
Katzenberg originally purchased the estate in 2009 for $35 million. The home, which rests on nearly seven acres, is located just above Greystone Mansion, an iconic Beverly Hills landmark that was built in the ’20s for the son of oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny.
The property was previously owned by Simon Ramo, an American physicist who helped create the microwave and the intercontinental ballistic missile.
When Katzenberg purchased the property in 2009, he enlisted architect Howard Backen to construct the 26,000-square-foot home, as it stands today, from scratch.
Other recent sales in the area that have topped this one in price include the $165 million sale of David Geffen’s estate in February to Jeff Bezos and the $150 million sale of the Chartwell Mansion in Bel Air to Lachlan Murdoch in December.
Katzenberg’s film credits include work on Disney and DreamWorks productions like “The Little Mermaid,” “The Lion King,” “Shrek,” “Kung Fu Panda” and “How to Train Your Dragon.” His more recent venture, Quibi, launched in April, but has had a rough start, falling out of the 50 most downloaded free apps a week after it went live before dropping out of the top 100 altogether, according to The New York Times.
