Hungarian-born billionaire Steven Udvar-Hazy just sold his Beverly Hills estate, known as Villa Firenze, at auction for about $60 million, The Wall Street Journal reports.
That’s a roughly 64% discount from the estate’s original asking price of $165 million in 2018. Despite the discounted sale price, Villa Firenze broke the record for the most expensive home ever to sell at auction, Concierge Auctions CEO Laura Brady told the Journal. The record was previously held by a mansion in Florida that sold for $42.5 million in 2018, also with Concierge Auctions.
The 10-acre estate features a 20,000-square-foot mansion, three guest houses, a resort-style swimming pool, tennis courts, and formal gardens and fountains.
“Many of the world’s most desirable, coveted items are sold at auction — and like these, Villa Firenze is also a work of art in itself,” Udvar-Hazy told Mansion Global in December, when the January auction was announced.
Udvar-Hazy bought the property nearly 30 years ago and built the main residence in the late 1990s, per Mansion Global.
The Hungarian-born airplane leasing billionaire, who’s currently the chairman of Air Lease Corp, is worth $4.3 billion, according to Forbes.
Udvar-Hazy assembled the current estate from three separate lots before putting it on the market in 2018 for $165 million. Most recently, Villa Firenze was listed with Hilton & Hyland for $160 million.
After two years of trying to sell the estate, Udvar-Hazy put it up for up for auction in January with Concierge Auctions, a digital auction house that has auctioned off properties that include villas in Phuket, a historic inn in The Hamptons, and a Malibu waterfront compound.
The estate was auctioned with no minimum price, so Udvar-Hazy was obligated to accept the highest offer. A spokesperson for Udvar-Hazy’s company did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment on the sale.
Villa Firenze sits inside the exclusive gated community of North Beverly Park, which a 2013 Forbes article referred to as a “mansion-packed billionaire community.”
The new owner of Villa Firenze will have their own private sanctuary. The estate is accessed by its own private street, according to the listing. The gates open up to a courtyard that can accommodate 30 cars.
Rick Hilton, cofounder of Hilton & Hyland, which last listed the property, told Mansion Global that the property offers its owners “impeccable privacy.”
The community can only be accessed by two guarded checkpoints, and the mansions all sit on large parcels of land surrounded by gates, according to Forbes.
Stars like Denzel Washington, Sylvester Stallone, and Eddie Murphy have reportedly called the neighborhood home over the years.