At Inman Connect Las Vegas, July 30-Aug. 1 2024, the noise and misinformation will be banished, all your big questions will be answered, and new business opportunities will be revealed. Join us.
Eyewear mogul James Jannard is probably feeling pretty good this week after selling his Malibu mansion for $210 million and breaking California’s residential real estate sales record in the process, The LA Times reported.
The deal blows past another staggering sale that occurred in Malibu last spring: Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s nearly $200 million purchase of a Tadao Ando-designed mansion from the son of soap opera creators Bill Bell and Lee Phillip Bell.
The transaction still does not quite meet the record for priciest home sale in the U.S., however, which still belongs to the $238 million penthouse Citadel CEO Ken Griffin purchased at 220 Central Park South in 2019.
TAKE THE INMAN INTEL INDEX SURVEY FOR JUNE
Jannard, who founded designer sunglasses brand Oakley in 1975, is making a hefty profit on the sale. He purchased the waterfront estate for $75 million in 2012 from billionaire investor Howard Marks. Marks bought the property from Herbalife co-founder Mark Hughes for $31 million in 2002.
The sale was completed off-market and the buyer’s identity is not known, since it was recorded as a Delaware-based limited liability company. Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency is Jannard’s real estate agent.
The Palladio-style main house is sizable in itself at more than 15,000 square feet (with eight bedrooms and 14 bathrooms), but the scale of the land the home sits on is remarkable for the location. The estate boasts 9.5 acres and 300 feet of ocean frontage close to El Pescador State Beach.
Interiors were designed by Michael S. Smith, the same designer who remodeled the White House’s Oval Office. Design features include elaborate columns, beamed ceilings and steel-and-glass windows.
A courtyard and garden span in front of the property, while the rear features a pool overlooking the ocean. A gym and two guesthouses are also located on the property.
The Malibu estate is not the only one that Jannard has an eye to sell right now — he also recently listed a fortress-like contemporary home constructed of concrete in Beverly Hills for $68 million. The 18,000-square-foot property includes a “Stonehenge-esque circular motor court” as well as curved hallways that lead to a separate guest apartment. Rappaport and Josh and Matt Altman of The Altman Brothers at Douglas Elliman are representing the listing.
With this most recent sale, Malibu now maintains the three highest-priced home sales in California history. On top of Jannard’s and Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s transactions, Marc Andreessen’s purchase of a $177 million property in Malibu’s Paradise Cove in 2021 is the state’s third-top sale.
Complications in LA’s luxury market, like the roll-out of the ULA Tax on properties priced at or above $5 million, have cooled the market in recent years, but Malibu seems to be driving a resurgence in the market. The city saw another notable sale earlier this month when Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple’s Steve Jobs, purchased an oceanfront property in Paradise Cove for $94 million.
Jannard attended LA’s Alhambra High School and went on to attend, then drop out of, the University of Southern California. He founded Oakley out of his car, according to Forbes, took the company public in 1995 and sold it to Luxottica in 2007 for $2.1 billion. His net worth is currently $1.3 billion, according to Forbes.
Get Inman’s Luxury Lens Newsletter delivered right to your inbox. A weekly deep dive into the biggest news in the world of high-end real estate delivered every Friday. Click here to subscribe.
