Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Liz Taylor's Bel Air Mansion Sold to Razor Blade Tycoon

NOTE FROM YOUR MAMA: This is an amended re-posting of an earlier and incorrectly reported discussion on the recent sale of Elizabeth Taylor's long-time mansion in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles.

SELLER: Elizabeth Taylor
BUYER: Rocky Malhotra
LOCATION: Los Angeles (Bel Air), CA
PRICE: $8,600,000 (list)
SIZE: 7,000(ish) square feet, 6 bedrooms (plus staff suite)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Property records (and previous reports) reveal that after just 33 days on the open market, the long-time Los Angeles, CA residence of beloved and recently deceased Tinseltown legend Elizabeth Taylor has been sold. The question is–natch–who bought it?

The extraordinarily wealthy, lauded and applauded Elizabeth Taylor went to meet The Great Director in the Sky in late March 2011 and by mid-May her 1.27 acre Bel Air estate, recently refreshed by nice, gay decorator Waldo Fernandez, was on the open market with a price tag of $8,600,000. Just after the fortified estate appeared on the market photos of the home and garden, which includes a guard house Miz Taylor had manned by armed Israeli-trained security personnel, appeared in the glossy pages of Architectural Digest.

Property records Your Mama peeped show Miz Taylor's 7,000(ish) square foot manse was purchased in mid- to late-June (2011) by an entity called Copa de Oro Realty, LLC for an (as yet) undisclosed amount of money.

With an assist from Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air we did some snooping around on the interweb and quickly determined that Copa de Oro Realty, LLC links directly back to a Bel Air residence owned by the somewhat eccentric inventor/entrepreneur/real estate investor named Mark B. Barron (née Mark Bowen).

At first we thought–and reported–that Mister Barron was the new owner of Miz Taylor's house. However and alas, we were wrong, dead wrong, puppies. Thanks to a covert communique from an unimpeachable inside source, let's call her Cleo Clearsupthematter, the new owner is not Mister Bowen but rather businessman Rocky Malhotra. As per Miss Cleo Mister Malhotra leases Mister Bowen's house in Bel Air, which explains why the Copa de Oro Realty, LLC points directly to that particular (residential) address.

Mister Malhotra came by his fortune the old-fashioned way: He inherited it. The Malhotra family, certainly not a household name in the United States, have long-owned the India-based SuperMax World. Mister Malhotra is the chairman of SuperMax World, a successful global concern that manufactures and sells household items, specifically razor blades, shaving products and home manicure sets. There really is, children, so much money to be made in inexpensive but necessary items.
Anyhoo, Your Mama first thought–and reported–that Mister Barron had recently and inexplicably snatched up several high-priced properties in Bel Air. However, according to Miss Cleo, it's Mister Malhotra who quickly stuffed his property portfolio with a trio of pricey pads in Bel Air. In addition to Miz Taylor's storied mansion on Nimes Road, Mister Malhotra coughed up $8,000,000 in May 2011 for an 8,248 square foot pseudo-Gothic kinda-Tudor style pile (pictured above) on a gated 1.1 acre parcel on Bel Air's busy North Beverly Glen Boulevard.
The very month prior, property mad Mister Malhotra snatched up another Bel Air mansion, this time a stately but wildly outdated 6,209 square foot Paul Williams-designed hill top residence on ritzy Bellagio Road (pictured above) immediately next door to the Copa de Oro Road estate financially embattled actor Nic Cage lost to foreclosure last year. The neo-Palladian property, sold by showbiz attorney Larkin Arnold, was purchased in April 2011 for $8,675,000.

Property records indicate that the mansion owned by Mark Barron and leased by Mister Malhotra sits on the same tiny cul-de-sac where music mogul Quincy Jones, PayPal co-founder Elon Musk and soft-porn purveyor Joe Francis all own luxe homes. Mister Barron's pad is just around the corner from the down-on-its-heels Hollywood Regency-style mansion of Zsa Zsa Gabor, currently and still listed with an asking price of $15,000,000.

We queried Miss Cleo as to Mister Malhotra's plans for Miz Taylor's crib and she tattled to Your Mama that Mister Malhotra plans to maintain the house much as Miz Taylor left it and to eventually lease it out. Who else besides Your Mama thinks the first tenant will likely be some rich old queen with a thing for Liz Taylor?

listing photos (top): Teles Properties
listing photo (middle): Westside Estate Agency
listing photo (bottom): Westside Estate Agency

4 comments:

StPaulSnowman said...

All's well that ends well Mama. "Cutters" the world over will be thrilled to know that their unfortunate predilection, and the necessary razor blades, have helped sell Liz Taylor's home. Perhaps the buyer will convert it into a treatment facility......

Anonymous said...

Seems rather unlikely that he plans to preserve this house and lease it out. Sounds like what you tell the old queen real estate agent who is showing you the house. Possible (we can keep our fingers crossed) that he has a relative who would be more than delighted to take up residence on Nimes Rd. More possible that in due time it will be bulldozed to an inch of the living room chimney, and then "renovated."
Without trying to stereotype, billionaire Indians tend to like things a certain way, and it ain't this way. But who knows maybe he's the gay son with a Liz Taylor obsession.

lil' gay boy said...

Fascinating ––– never heard of him before, but a quick google of him shows a number of Rocky Malhotras (not an at all common name; son perhaps?) leaving his electronic droppings far & wide, with skeleton accounts on multiple social media sites, with a more than passing interest in technology. The profile of the buyer of these homes is on LinkedIn, which indicates him as the owner of SuperMax, Los Angeles.

In a video announcing SuperMax's headquarters relocating from London to Dubai (in their 140+ country market they own a share of 60% and are second only to Gillette, worldwide), he appears to be in his 30s to 40s, and although not conventionally handsome, he certain wouldn't frighten the horses...no word on his marital status (not that I care to keep looking).

This is such an odd, eclectic group of homes ––– non-contiguous, but nearby, forming a triangle with the Paul Williams designed home at the southern apex ––– and of such varying styles that it most resembles a shopping spree, as if he either recently came into some additional wealth, or is planning to move multiple branches of his family here. Given the recent info on LinkedIn, my guess would be the latter, and gay or not, I suspect that Anon 12:19 may have the right insight ––– it seems like the perfect purchase a wealthy man might make to relocate his mother to.

Let's hope it remains largely unscathed; as for the Copa de Oro property, while not Williams' greatest it is quietly Hollywood Luxe at its best ("bones-wise" that is; the dated 80s decor has got to go) and will hopefully remain so. The remaining property is nice but undistinguished, and with the location on a busy street, seems the most likely candidate for rehab/demolition, but then it may be just my prejudice; once again, a Tudor/Elizabethan in the unrelenting sunshine just doesn't do it for me.

hippie canyon said...

Oh, that GD Nimes. No left turn. No right turn. I heard LT had the city put up those signs to keep people like me (and the paparazzi) subject to LAPD. Anyways, add me to the list of hopeful dreamers that pray to the gods that this house stays intact. Obviously (!) I know its little more than a tract house a la "Lake Encino," architecturally speaking. That said, its still comforting, to some of us, to know that some original Bel Air homes remain. I am so tired (sick and tired, as my mom would say) of Wall Street F'ers buying homes that are already great - by most standards - and then bulldozing them, only to create what can best be described as limestone vaults. True, I love the simplicity of modern homes (I'm thinking Nightingale Drive of late), but I have a deeply-rooted love of classic architecture (Paul Williams, et al). Well, we shall see, eh?