Though he’s long been primarily based in Northern California’s Bay Area, David Sacks has been on a coast-to-coast real estate tear over the past couple of years. His pricey real estate journey has taken him to Silicon Valley — where he recently sold a $22 million estate to famed corporate mogul Bill McDermott — and to Florida, where earlier this year he dropped $17 million on an all-new Miami Beach mansion. And the South Africa native also put the finishing touches on a years-long renovation of his San Francisco mansion, located on the so-called “Billionaires’ Row.” The two-parcel estate, one of the city’s largest, was last assessed at more than $44 million.
Now Sacks is turning his attention to Los Angeles. For the last 20 years, he’s owned a house here, a modern estate tucked deep into the mountains above Beverly Hills. Acquired way back in 2002 for $3.4 million, that home is famed for its starring role in “Pulp Fiction.” Crime lord Marsellus Wallace and his wife Mia Wallace (Ving Rhames and Uma Thurman, respectively) owned the palatial property in the film.
But it’s a good bet the “Pulp Fiction” house will soon hit the market, because records reveal the Yammer founder has bought a $23.2 million mansion in the Hollywood Hills, high above L.A.’s iconic Sunset Strip. The ultra-visible property stands out from its peers thanks to its highly unusual roofline, which is composed of three separate volumes — all of them steeply gabled — that appear woven together in a neat row, linked by their dark metal roofs. Whether you love or loathe the gables — and there are likely many folks on either side of that coin –the place certainly stands out and is guaranteed to evoke a strong reaction. And it’s endlessly dramatic, which the developers intended.
Described in the listing as an “irreplaceable modern farmhouse,” the nearly one-acre property is located on a hidden cul-de-sac just off the main Sunset Plaza drag, with the house lying at the end of a long, gated driveway. The property last sold in 2015 for $13.5 million to the Woodbridge Group, a now-defunct Ponzi scheme run by Robert Shapiro (he’s currently in prison, serving a 25 year sentence.) Woodbridge tore down the original house, and the new build was completed last year and sold to Sacks on behalf of Woodbridge’s bankruptcy proceedings by Viewpoint Collection, a premier developer of Los Angeles luxury homes.
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Image Credit: Mike Kelley Standard Architecture designed the house and its three unique gables. Each of those volumes has a distinct purpose — the central one is double-height and comprised solely of an open-plan living/dining area, while another is split into two levels, with main living spaces downstairs and three guest bedrooms upstairs. The final volume is also split into two levels, with a kitchen and other service areas downstairs and a hedonistic primary suite occupying its entire top floor. All three volumes boast panoramic views.
Other features include extensive wood paneling throughout, an attached two-car garage with a loft-like staff apartment above it, and walls of glass. A gym, movie theater, and state-of-the-art audiovisual systems are packed into the structure — all told, there are six bedrooms and nine bathrooms in more than 11,000 square feet of contemporary living space. Out back, an infinity-edged and trapezoidal swimming pool is cantilevered over the city below, and jetliner views stretch from the Downtown L.A. skyline to the Pacific Ocean.
For all those amenities and more, the $23.2 million sale price begins to seem almost reasonable. Then again, that number also represents one of the biggest Hollywood Hills deals so far this year, though Sacks actually scored a big discount on the property — it had been listed for as much as $32.5 million last year.
Sacks first came to prominence as the founding COO of PayPal, partnering with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel in the company’s early days. After PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, the trio of tech moguls and their other partners — the so-called “PayPal Mafia” — all went their separate ways. Sacks founded enterprise service Yammer, which was sold to Microsoft in 2012 for $1.2 billion. He also produced “Thank You for Smoking,” the 2005 black comedy film. Nowadays, he’s an angel investor and founder of Craft Ventures, a billion-dollar San Francisco-based venture capital firm. He’s also a major (and longtime) crypto investor.
Tyrone McKillen, Sally Forster Jones and Tomer Fridman of Compass shared the listing; Michael Eisenberg at Keller Williams repped the buyer.
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Image Credit: Mike Kelley -
Image Credit: Mike Kelley -
Image Credit: Mike Kelley -
Image Credit: Mike Kelley -
Image Credit: Mike Kelley -
Image Credit: Mike Kelley -
Image Credit: Mike Kelley -
Image Credit: Mike Kelley -
Image Credit: Mike Kelley -
Image Credit: Mike Kelley -
Image Credit: Mike Kelley -
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Image Credit: Mike Kelley -
Image Credit: Mike Kelley