Inside Michael Eisner’s Malibu estate.
Peter Aaron/OTTO
There were rumblings across the Platinum Triangle back in 2007 that former Disney chairman and CEO Michael Eisner was looking to unload his family compound in Malibu. At the time, the figure being bandied about as the unverified asking price was in the neighborhood of $75 million.
If the entertainment industry heavy hitter, now 80, did float the property for sale back then, there were no serious takers because now, fifteen years later, the massive compound on the rugged Encinal Buffs has been officially listed with a gasp-worthy $225 million price tag.
Records show Eisner, and his wife, Jane Eisner, acquired the first of the five parcels that comprise their super-deluxe compound in 1995, and added the adjoining lots over the next handful of years. Over time, they constructed a total of nine buildings. Listing broker Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency told WSJ Eisner has decided to sell because he “’loves the creative process,’ and wants to find a new project.” It can’t hurt that he’s likely to pocket a fortune on the deal, not to mention set a record.
As noted by the property gossips as the Wall Street Journal, the first to report the listing, if the estate sells for anywhere near its asking price, it will blow away the current record for the most expensive house ever sold in California, the $177 million venture capitalist Marc Andresson paid for fashion tycoon Serge Azria’s huge spread above Malibu’s Paradise Cove late last year.
Designed by esteemed architect Robert A.M. Stern, the Mediterranean compound sprawls over about five extensively landscaped acres. A village-like assemblage of structures linked by a series of garden courtyards and meandering stone paths, the buildings are faced in hand-set limestone rubble and capped with antique terra-cotta roofs tiles. With chalky white waxed plaster walls and muscular wood-beamed ceilings, interior spaces are furnished in a manner both comfortable and sophisticated. Light streams through steel-trimmed casement windows, while the stone floors continue out to covered porches and open terraces.
Spanning about 25,000 square feet all together, there are a total of 16 bedrooms and 28 bathrooms between the main house, several guesthouses, and two-bedroom caretaker’s cottage. Some of the more expected amenities include an office, gym and boutique hotel-like swimming pool that overlooks the ocean, while one of the more unusual highlights includes a tunnel that links the pool area to a plush movie theater, with seating for at least two dozen in crimson velvet sofas
A grassy central courtyard with an arched loggia and edgeless swimming pool serves as the compound’s boutique hotel-style town square. Shellstone paths wind down the bluff, past a horizon-edge spa, to a spacious two-story cabana nestled the rocks just above tiny and all-but-private Watkins Cove beach. Alternatively, a cliffside elevator whisks beachgoers down the bluff.
The Eisner’s primary home is in Bel Air, where since the 1990s they’ve presided over a huge estate hidden behind an epically tall hedge. They picked up a neighboring home in 2012 for $8.2 million, though tax records suggest they sold it to their son Breck and his wife Georgia in early 2021 for $8.3 million, and they also maintain a ranch in Snowmass, Colorado, and an apartment on New York’s Upper East Side.
This story originally ran on Dirt.com, which has additional photos.