Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Tuesday Tidbit: Bill Chadwick



SELLER: William J. Chadwick
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $35,000,000
SIZE: 10,480 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 9.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Brace yourselves west coast real estate freaks because it's baaaaack! In the summer of 2008, right about the time that the bottom fell completely out of the real estate markets in southern California and around the country, low profile real estate financier William J. Chadwick heaved and ho-ed his behemoth ocean front mansion on Malibu's Carbon Beach on the market with an elephantine (and insanely optimistic) asking price of $65,000,000.

The price eventually fell to $35,000,000 and in mid-September, more than three years after it first appeared on the open market, an auction was scheduled with the minimum bid price set at a substantially and somewhat shockingly lower $22,000,000.

Alas, butter beans, the auction was unsuccessful and yesterday Your Mama received a covert communique from Our Fair Godmother in Bel Air who informed us that Mister Chadwick recently re-priced the 10,480 square foot pile with an asking price of–are y'all sitting down for this?–$35,000,000.

Now, children, Your Mama is well aware we are far from the sharpest knife if the drawer. However, it seems to our rather pea-sized brain that if Mister Chadwick's Malibu manse didn't sell for $35,000,000 before and the September auction failed to entice someone with both the desire and deep pockets to sign on the deed's dotted line then it follows that the increased asking price is just pie in the real estate sky. Yes? No? Bueller?

Then again, let's get real people, what does Your Mama know about anything? We never thought someone would pay Candy Spelling more than $50,000,000 for her monster mega-mansion in Holmby Hills for which Formula One Racing heiress Petra Ecclestone coughed up $85,000,000 in cash money. We also would not have put all our chips on black 35 that sitcom queen Jennifer Aniston would have snagged $35,000,000 for her sprawling Beverly Hills mansion a few months ago either.

Anyhoodles poodles, Mister Chadwick's bulky and hulky quasi-Cape Cod style beach house sits on an unusually large .54 acre parcel, claims an almost unheard of for Malibu 150-feet of beach frontage, and includes a long list of fancy features such as an attached three car garage with direct entry, 90-foot long great room, 6 en suite bedrooms, a total of 9.5 bathrooms, 4 fireplaces, a 16-seat state-of-the-art home theater, formal dining area with 5-seat built-in wet bar, wine cellar (natch), an ocean front gym, paneled library a wall-sized aquarium–breathe, breathe, breathe–a small patch of grass for piddling pooches, a 4,500 square foot ocean side entertainment terrace with outdoor kitchen and barbecue station, and a 75-foot long two-lane lap pool.

This beach house is without question unreservedly lavish and amenity-loaded in that pseudo-casual sort of way that billionaires seem to like to decorate their super-sized beach shacks in the Bu. It is also a weighty and high-maintenance real estate albatross around Mister Chadwick's pampered neck from which he's not been able, despite years on the market with heaps of international publicity and a last ditch effort auction, to un-tether himself.

Your Mama imagines that Mister Chadwick must be about as frustrated as a bee stuck in a jar of honey but we also expect that free-floating real estate schadenfreude will keep Argentina from crying much for Mister Chadwick and his ongoing real estate woes.

listing photos: Westside Estate Agency

27 comments:

hippie canyon said...

I'm guessing if Petra does a drive by, she'll do a walk-through and scoop this one up like a kid finding a sand dollar. Its perfect for her... being right on PCH its incredibly high profile, and architecturally its in a similar vernacular to her Holmby Hills manse (ugly). Picture it with several uber sexy body guards walking around, like call boys with platinum handguns, and enough luxury cars in front to be mistaken for the first car dealer in Malibu.

Anonymous said...

Are those steps on the south side of the property? anyone? Public access would not be a good thing for a buyer. Seems like he set the table with the auction price of any offer now..

Anonymous said...

"May the stones of the houses come
alive and slay their owners..."
Proverbs

Anonymous said...

This house is stunning but the interior finishings (especially the kitchen/bathrooms) are nothing that a track home in the sticks wouldn't have. Decor is awful and tacky at best... so Newish Riche thinking it is fabu!Umm not. The bones of the house are super fab.. gorgeous actually. I could work magic with this pile.

Prediction 25 Million and the new buyer will practically gut the interior... I mean seriously a fishtank in the library/den OMG so Hugh Hefner 1982.

bruckey said...

I am a big Malibu fan.
I don't take part in the 'it's a tiny box on the beach' debate but having said that this price for this house is crazy.
For the same price there are nicer house in malibu.

Anonymous said...

As a European I still can't understand that anyone would like to buy a house within a few feet from a six lane highway! By European health laws you couldn't build there anyway because of the cancer risk that from all the traffic.

Anonymous said...

Clearly when you are dealing with the super rich you need to factor in that quite a few are probably indifferent to cost, particularly if their money has come from somebody else or via inheritance. In short if they never had to do a bit of work for it. So you just put a silly ridiculous price out there and wait for some silly ridiculous person to come along and pay it. Sooner or later it will probably work.

Anonymous said...

the steps on the side of the house are to their patio, not the street

Anonymous said...

Good weekend place for Petra, or maybe her sister. Also, some Russian billionaires who don't want to deal with Putin for the next 20 years.

Anonymous said...

Ultra ugly house on no land with no parking on a busy highway on a mediocre beach. No thanks.

For $35 million, I would be in the Bahamas buying islands instead. People in California seem to have no sense of what things are really worth.

Anonymous said...

Things are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it Anon 7:23... this house clearly isnt selling for $35m so yeah it's not worth it... but... the homes that sell, even at high price, clearly are worth it to the buyer.

midTN said...

***

Anon 7:23....you are right on.

More of the silly cali's and their ridiculous real estate prices including Ms.Eccelstone and her new pile formerly known as the Hotel Spelling.

(CA native here who saw the light...and the big bucks being spent a few years back...and sold out:o)

***

Anonymous said...

This house prolly cost $5-6m to build being generous. The land... maybe $15m... the starting bid for the auction is about what it's worth... and they got that.. but turned it down. MORONS.

Anonymous said...

The real new owners of the Spelling house are the Ambani family not the Ecclestone's.

Anonymous said...

6:55 smart of you. I live in Tucson, AZ. Climate as good or better than Palm Springs and it doesn't go dark by 3pm in the winter as it does in PS. Prices about half or less of what CA costs. No worries re earthquakes either. CA is a (deranged) state of mind.

Anonymous said...

I always love the "crazy California people" comments.. Sure, big prices are paid here and if you have the holding power no one has ever lost money on real estate. Some very powerful/smart people have paid huge sums of money for houses over the years without looking back as they know in the long run the money is well invested. So all "you people who live in fear" keep being bitter and throwing stones at those who have. In the meantime some "crazy California people" are having a great time living a good life.

Anonymous said...

David Ellison (Larry's Ellison's son) bought a Cape Cod on Carbon Beach. I thought maybe this was his. Does anyone know which number he lives in?

Anonymous said...

Word has it that Petra's older Sis Tamara is looking at even a more expensive home in Bel Air that is not officially on the market.

Anonymous said...

@anon 10.49 tamara is considering purchasing Fleur de lys just to spite petra as it is the house she originally wanted. They havent talked since tam visited petra in la 3 weeks ago. Apparently petra wasnt fond of the idea that tamara would be living in la too.

midTN said...

***

Anon 8:45am...."if you have the holding power no one has ever lost money on real estate"...you might want to reserach CA real estate history that goes back further than the last 10 years or so....just sayin'.

***

midTN said...

Anon: 8:45 am....P.S.

Please STAY in CA.

Thank you so much.

*****

angie said...

The home has a prison-like fortress look to it. I realize it's Malibu beach location justifies the asking price in the minds of those who care $35MM worth, but for that kind of money I don't understand why they didn't build something with a less stark and dreary vibe.

Anonymous said...

Dear midTN... Gladly I will stay in CA. I don't think you understand CA real estate in prime areas. It does appreciate in value after time, there is only so much of it to go around. Did you see what Aniston sold for? Or Candy Spelling? Or Iris Cantors house? Or the Frank Sinatra house on Carolwood that was a tear down?
Just sayin...

midTN said...

***12:32 pm

Thank you for proving my point!

LOL

***

Anonymous said...

i went to high school with bill chadwick he was a dickhead then and still is today.

MRL said...

Really, you went to high school with Bill? No name, no city, just a blanket statement to put someone down personally? I thought we were talking about his house? I worked as an admin for WJC for many years and he was the kindest, most generous employer, who gave out 10-digit bonuses every Christmas to all the support staff. If I ever moved back to So Cal, he would be the first person I'd call if I needed anything. He's really a great guy.

Jewell said...

This house was featured on some real estate TV show recently & the asking price was $37MM. Now, I don't know much about California real estate, especially high-end. But this is a good example of buying & building something that you keep for a long time because you're not going to get your $$ out of it anytime soon. If Chadwick's intention was to sell so quickly, he put way too many personal touches into this home without thinking of what would appeal to a prospective buyer, relative to the specific, close-proximity market vs competition in that price-range. What was he thinking?

Half-acre lot. 150 ft of beach front. 3-car garage? For that much money I'd want some land (which usually costs to maintain, but living ON the ocean has its own issues & maintenance costs). I agree that they could have done a much better job with the interior, it's quite conservative. Not sure who painted it, either, because it just sings overseas-embassy-housing. Still, lot of lovely amenities. I just think he's dreaming & was smoking something when he came up with the original price tag of $65MM.

Interestingly, on the TV show he was billed as an investment banker. So now he's a real estate mogul? We'll see just how much of a bath he takes on this property -provided he can actually unload it at $20MM - $25MM.