Hedge Fund Mogul Drops $47 Million on Ocean-View Palisades Compound

He already owns multiple lavish homes in some of California’s most affluent neighborhoods — Malibu, Montecito and Woodside, for starters — but Thomas Laffont has just finalized his biggest splurge to date: a two-house, four-parcel compound in the posh Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. The big buy set the Coatue Management hedge fund tycoon and his longtime wife Liz back nearly $50 million.

The purchase was consummated in two separate transactions. Back in November, as first reported by The Real Deal, Laffont paid $29.5 million for two of the property’s four parcels, one with a 7,200-square-foot house and the other with a full-size tennis court. Four months later, he shelled out an additional $18 million for the remaining two parcels, one with a 5,500-square-foot house, for a total outlay of $47.5 million.

All four parcels were sold to the Laffonts by Ben Silverman, a longtime Hollywood executive and the Golden Globe-winning executive producer of TV shows like “The Office” and “Jane the Virgin.” It appears Silverman pieced together the substantial estate, which spans about 1.4 contiguous acres, between 2010-2017, for a total outlay of roughly $20 million.

Because the property was never publicly offered for sale, details are scarce. But aerial views and tax records show that in addition to the two separate houses, both of which are East Coast traditional in architectural style, there are two outdoor pools — one a lap-lane affair, the other a conventional swimming pool. Besides the tennis court, the extensive grounds also offer a bocce ball court, vast expanses of grassy lawn, a vegetable garden and orchard.

But the estate’s most valuable feature, and the reason for the lofty sale price, is undoubtedly its primo location on the rim of the Pacific Palisades Riviera, with unobstructed ocean views and gentle sea breezes. The property is also located on a particularly exclusive street, and sits almost directly across the road from another lavish mansion owned by billionaire David Bonderman and his partner, film producer Christa Campbell.

It’s probably no surprise that Laffont would be in the market for a substantial SoCal estate; the 44-year-old’s technology-focused Coatue Management hedge fund, long based in New York, recently announced it would open a Los Angeles office.

Laffont, a billionaire who got his career start in the CAA mailroom before launching Coatue with his fellow billionaire brother Philippe Laffont, has bought and sold a multitude of other extravagant homes. His current holdings include a $12 million estate in Montecito and a $10 million compound on Malibu’s Point Dume. Last year, he sold a Silicon Valley mansion for $17.6 million.

Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency held the listing with Zac Mostame and Santiago Arana of The Agency; Rappaport also repped the buyer.