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This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

Arts & Entertainment

The Largest Home In L.A. County Is On The Market For $200 Million

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Unless you are a very successful cult leader, you probably have no need to for a 123-room home. However, you might want one anyway, if you feel the need to outwardly show-off your wealth, so if you have $200 million and an unrelenting desire for the universe to see how powerful/important/rich/sad you are, we've got a French chateau-style mansion to show you. It's called: the Manor, and it was built in 1988 for Aaron Spelling, the first of two owners.

Currently it's under the lock and key of Petra Stunt, heiress and daughter of Formula One racing's Bernie Ecclestone, who purchased it from the Spelling family in 2011 for $85 million, when it was described as " slightly larger than the White House."

According to TMZ, "Petra recently listed the Manor for the second time in 2 years for a whopping $200 million ... all because of what Hugh Hefner fetched for his famous crib this summer." (That was $100 million.) Of the 123 rooms, only 14 are bedrooms. What do the other rooms do? Under the Spellings' design, one was reportedly used for cutting flowers, another to house a doll collection—the latter was turned into a spa, but you can still hear the dolls screaming if you are quiet enough during your chemical peel.


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According to an L.A. Times article that was published during its controversial construction, the home sits upon what was once Bing Crosby's estate, and features "a bowling alley and an entire floor of closets." According to Aaron Spelling's obituary in the NY Times, there was also an "ice rink and an entire wing devoted to his wife's wardrobe."

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When the project was completed, architecture critic Sam Hall Kaplan declared that it "should be considered a congregate living facility and not a single-family home, and therefore in violation of Holmby Hills zoning. What Spelling's folly is, of course, is a sad commentary on the distorted values that have taken the architectural form of monster mansions at a time when tens of thousands of persons are homeless." The Spellings' neighbor at the time, Audrey Irmas, called it: "Look-at-me-I'm-rich architecture."

According to our sources, you will not find the happiness you are looking for in any one of those 123 rooms.

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