The stars shine brighter up in Beverly Park, L.A.’s premier guard-gated community. Famed for its excess and celebrity residents, the semi-remote neighborhood sports Sylvester Stallone, Denzel Washington, Sofia Vergara, Justin Bieber, Mark Wahlberg, and Eddie Murphy, who all call the mountaintop enclave their residential paradise. But sometimes even Beverly Park-ers get burned financially. Kimora Lee Simmons recently sold her palatial home at a nearly $10 million loss, and now Russian oligarch Albert Avdolyan has likewise swallowed a multimillion-dollar hit on another Beverly Park property, this one a 2.6-acre flat lot that’s little more than a vacant patch of dirt.
Avdolyan bought the place in 2011, paying “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” superstar Lisa Vanderpump and her husband Ken Todd $18.8 million for the premises. Avid reality TV watchers may recall that the property — at that time — included a massive mansion that was frequently displayed on Bravo! during the early “RHOBH” seasons and served as the wedding location for Vanderpump’s daughter Pandora.
Nearly a decade ago, the Vanderpump-Todds “downsized” to another glamorous mansion in the nearby Oak Pass gated community, bidding Beverly Park adieu and turning over the keys to Avdolyan, though he and his family reportedly never moved into the home.
While undergoing renovations in summer 2012, the estate was heavily damaged by a reportedly accidental fire. Eventually, the house was torn down completely, and Richard Landry was then hired to design a 30,000-square-foot French Chateau-style megamansion to replace the former Vanderpump digs. But work never broke ground, and for the last three years Avdolyan has been attempting to unload the shovel-ready spread, first at an asking price of nearly $30 million.
Last week, the property finally transferred for $14.8 million, records reveal. The buyer is an entity linked to John Simonian, the ethnically Armenian, but Lebanon-bred owner of famed luxury watch retailer Westime, which has several snazzy locations in L.A. and Miami. And when he’s not watching over his timepieces, Simonian is an active real estate investor — back in November, he sold two adjacent Miami mansions to an unidentifiable buyer for $44 million, $10 million more than he paid for the properties in 2019.
Beverly Park aficionados may recall that Simonian was also the man who — back in 2018 — paid $32 million for a rather outlandish Beverly Park chateau-style mansion that’s just around the corner from the former Vanderpump lot. He also still owns another mansion in a different gated enclave in the 90210, this one a $10 million Mediterranean-style hilltop compound.
Renderings for the new Landry-designed mansion were included in the purchase, although it’s not clear if Simonian actually intends to build the pictured estate. As for Avdolyan, he still owns another Beverly Hills home, this one a contemporary showpiece also designed by Landry, naturally.
David Kramer and Rick Hilton of Hilton & Hyland held the listing.