With the recent rash of record-breaking sales in Beverly Park, the favored Los Angeles gated community of choice for celebrities and both local and international business titans, Mark Wahlberg has decided the time is right to hoist his own Beverly Park home onto the market — asking a whopping $87.5 million. The colossal beast of a house, custom-built by Marky Mark and his longtime wife Rhea Durham for their family, was completed in 2014 and designed by Richard Landry, arguably California’s most famous architect of steroidal mega-homes.
The current listing does not specify the mansion’s architectural bent, but the giant place was clearly influenced by Europe’s largest chateaus, albeit with a decidedly L.A. and very showy sort of interpretation. Hidden behind giant gates and protected by an elaborate security system, the estate consists of a huge main house, separate guesthouse, poolside cabana and viewing pavilion beside the full-size sports court.
Guests will be impressed by both the formal motorcourt, which graciously wraps around a grassy island decorated with a tall fountain, and by the home’s two-story foyer, which features an elaborate double staircase. Limestone floors and hallways lead to a sumptuous formal living room with two fireplaces, one at each side of the room, and no fewer than six sets of French doors. Even more impressive is the wood-paneled library, which stands two stories tall and offers a marble fireplace of its own.
A sunny breakfast room overlooks the estate grounds, while a separate formal dining room offers a crystal chandelier, patterned wallpaper and another fireplace. There’s yet another fireplace — one of at least seven in the main house — in the family room, which adjoins the main kitchen and its two marble-topped islands. Upstairs, the master bedroom has dark brown hardwood floors, a sitting area and private balcony, plus dual bathrooms and closets — hers done up in delicate whites and lavenders, his more masculine with wood-paneled everything and thickly veined marble slabs.
Other estate amenities are not limited to a glass-walled gym, wine cellar with tasting room, movie theater with plush seating for 15+ guests, several wet bars, vast lawns, numerous mature trees, an outdoor skate park, outdoor kitchen, golf greens, a grotto-style pool with waterfalls and formal gardens. One thing the property lacks, despite its location high in the mountains above Beverly Hills, are views of city lights, but the 6.14 acres of land probably make up for that omission.
Since its development in the late 1980s, Beverly Park has been the gated community of choice for some of the entertainment world’s top earners; current residents include everyone from Sofia Vergara and Justin Bieber to Denzel Washington and Rod Stewart, and from Samuel L. Jackson and Eddie Murphy to The Rock and Magic Johnson. But should Wahlberg get anywhere near his ask, the house will easily rank as the most expensive Beverly Park property ever sold, surpassing that $70 million estate and Adele’s $58 million splurge.
Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency holds the listing.
