PALM SPRINGS, Calif .– Almost 300 meters above the desert floor, a sprawling mountainside mansion overlooks Palm Desert, California.
The home, designed by Coachella Valley architect Guy Dreier, features three pools, seven bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, six kitchens, and a host of high-end amenities for the ultra-rich.
The property is for sale for $ 49.5 million following the death of its builder and former owner, publishing and resort mogul, Duane Hagadone, earlier this year. The outrageous price will get you to buy what listing agent Steve Frankel of Coldwell Banker Realty describes as “your own private resort”, complete with a shark tank, waterfalls, pickleball court and a private office straight out of the box. ‘a “James Bond” movie. .
“I call it ‘The Office of Power of All Time’,” Frankel said.
Hagadone, originally from Idaho, made a fortune as a newspaper publisher and through investments in tourism-oriented real estate. He was the founder of the Coeur d’Alene Resort, which is often credited with turning his sleepy hometown of Idaho into a major vacation destination.
The multimillionaire bought the Palm Desert land and had the mansion built inside the Bighorn Golf Club about 15 years ago, according to property records. The process involved a huge amount of planning, including a year-long wind study by a Colorado-based company that previously helped design facilities for the Beijing Olympics, according to Frankel.
“The company built a model of the house connected to 135 sensors and subjected it to the rigors of a wind tunnel,” Frankel said. The results were used to design the structures so that at least half of the windows in the facility could stay open and channel cool air in all windy conditions, according to the listing agent.
There are no doorknobs in most of the mansion, according to Frankel, as the entrances are operated via a Crestron smart home system – although a few manual handles in the “staff quarters” leave the employee hired. do things the old fashioned way.
There are hardly any right angles to the property, a design feature, according to Frankel, was intended to “feel organic on top of the hill.”
The main house of the mansion is accessible via a 6 to 10 car garage (depending on the size of the vehicles in your collection) and an open-air elevator. This building includes several common areas, the mansion master suite, a huge guest suite and the staff quarters. The hallway to the dining room is enclosed in an aquarium on three sides with separate tanks for exotic fish and sharks above.
Importantly, Frankel has confirmed that the sharks come with the property, assuming the new owner wants them.
The main building is connected to a second structure, which includes four “huge” bedrooms with their own titanium fireplaces as well as its own living room and kitchen. The space between these two residential structures is crossed by three interlocking swimming pools, two of which feature endless edges, along with other living rooms, fireplaces, and an outdoor kitchen.
A large lawn next to the property leads to a further seating area and a pickleball court. Frankel said this area has hosted large fundraising events in the past and would be ideally suited for similar uses by a well-heeled philanthropist in the future.
The third structure – the private “James Bond” office – is located at the top of a staircase on the other side of the property. It is mostly embedded in native rock, although Frankel said the stone at the top of the structure was fake due to weight considerations.
Despite the hefty price tag of $ 49.5 million, Frankel said he viewed the figure simply as “replacement value” for the efforts put into the property.
“I call it replacement value because by the time you find or buy a site and build what they built here, you would participate in it as much as we ask,” Frankel said.
“For me, this is a perfect opportunity to own your own private resort,” he added. “Once you enter these doors, you are in this fantasy land.”
As to who would likely buy the extravagant mountain-top mansion, Frankel said it was “clearly a wealthy individual or family” looking for a unique playground in the world. desert.
“This is someone who will come in and realize that this is the most spectacular desert estate ever to be built,” Frankel said. “They want the best and they can have it now.”