If you were wondering who to thank for hoisting the ongoing kombucha craze upon the world, the hat tip goes to George Thomas “GT” Dave. Now in his mid-40s and born and bred in Bel Air, the high school dropout certainly didn’t discover kombucha — a blend of fermented tea that originated in China millenniums ago — but he was the first to commercialize the drink, which is now a $1.7 billion global industry. Nearly 30 years after he founded GT’s Living Foods, which still controls 40% of the U.S. kombucha market, Dave remains CEO and owner of the company.
Dave lives in the Beverly Hills enclave of Trousdale Estates, where he owns two very custom, side-by-side homes that have been featured in YouTube videos. But now he’s a billionaire, and the crafty entrepreneur is ready to build a more epic monument to his success; records show he’s paid nearly $14 million for a 2.7 acre hilltop promontory in Beverly Hills.*
There’s an asterisk attached to that purchase, because while the estate has a 90210 address and borders the Trousdale neighborhood, it’s technically located within the city of Los Angeles, in an area known as Beverly Hills Post Office, where utilities and services are provided by L.A. and not Beverly Hills.
But that discrepancy worked in Dave’s favor, because it means this property is subject to the city of L.A.’s controversial new mansion tax. The seller originally listed the property for sale two years ago, asking nearly $40 million, but the asking price had cratered to under $19 million by the time Dave rolled up. Facing the looming tax deadline and likely desperate to unload the place, the owner agreed to an even deeper discount, and the deal closed just days before the tax went into effect.
That seller was Kansas-based race car driver John Horejsi, a son of Berkshire Hathaway billionaire Stewart Horejsi. Records indicate the younger Horejsi cobbled together the three-parcel estate in the 2000s, and the village-like compound sits behind a long gated driveway at the very end of a narrow cul-de-sac, ensuring privacy and seclusion.
Currently on the property are three separate single-story houses, all of them painted a sharp crimson, but the seller made no secret that all three are teardowns. The listing noted that the estate is a “true spectacle” with “one of the best unobstructed views in Los Angeles,” ideal for a buyer “with the creativity to imagine their dream home.”
No word yet about what sort of dream home Dave plans to build on his newfound acreage. But based on his track record, we’re betting it will be entirely white, ultra-contemporary and very, very sleek. And with spectacular 360-degree views of the entire city, the mountains and ocean, at one’s fingertips, it would make the ideal place to relax, kick back and crack open a bottle of GT’s refreshing Watermelon Wonder.
Aaron Kirman of AKG | Christie’s International Real Estate represented the seller.
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Image Credit: AKGRE -
Image Credit: AKGRE -
Image Credit: AKGRE -
Image Credit: AKGRE -
Image Credit: AKGRE -
Image Credit: AKGRE -
Image Credit: AKGRE