GOING HOLLYWOOD
Bezos mansion-shops with price no object
The richest man in the world is shopping for a love nest in Los Angeles — and he’s not ruling out a nine-figure price tag, The Post has learned.
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has been actively shopping for homes in the Beverly Hills and Bel Air neighborhoods in recent weeks with his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez — and some of the mansions they’ve toured have been listed for more than $100 million, sources said.
That’s an upgrade from last March, when Page Six reported that Bezos, 56, and Sanchez, 50, secretly toured an $88 million Bel Air estate without Bezos’ security team knowing.
“I know Jeff is out there. He’s seen everything that is relevant,” Los Angeles highend real estate broker Drew Gitlin of Berkshire Hathaway told The Post.
There are fewer than 10 houses in the Los Angeles area on the market at any given time that fit Bezos, Gitlin said.
One of those he has visited was the 10.1-acre estate at 750 Bel Air Road known as “Chartwell,” which recently sold for $150 million, confirmed Drew Mandile of Sotheby’s International Realty, the broker on the property. “He is always looking,” Mandile said of Bezos. “He is an energetic man who has a large appetite.”
The lovebirds had only been out as a couple since January 2019, after Bezos, worth an estimated $124 billion, announced he was divorcing MacKenzie Bezos, his wife of 25 years — two days after the National Enquirer reportedly reached out for comment about a story it was planning to publish on the Sanchez affair.
Chartwell — famous for having been pictured in the credits for the TV series “Beverly Hillbillies” — was the priciest home for sale in the US when it was listed in 2017 for $350 million. But it sold at less than half that price in December to Lachlan Murdoch, co-chairman of News Corp., which owns The Post, according to reports.
Other LA homes that could be on Bezos’s radar include Bel Air’s Casa Encantada, an eight-acre estate at 10644 Bellagio Road that has twice set the record for highest residential sale in the nation — first in 1979, for $12.4 million, and then in 2000, when it sold for $94 million.
The 40,000-square-foot mansion with pool house, tennis court and 18-foot ceilings is asking for $225 million, which could make it the second-highest residential sale after hedge fund manager Ken Griffin’s 2019 purchase of four floors at 220 Central Park South for $239 million.
Asked about unconfirmed chatter that Bezos looked at Casa Encantada, now owned by ex-Global Crossing chairman Gary Winnick, broker Shawn Elliott of Nest Seekers International, who has been showing the 60-room house, declined to comment.
Also available is the Palazzo di Amore, a 25-acre estate at 9505 Lania Lane that boasts a Turkish-style bath, a disco, a vineyard, a 12-car garage — and 50-seat movie theater, which could allow Bezos to offer private viewings of Amazon Primeproduced films.
A broker for the Beverly Hills mansion, selling for $129 million, did not return a request for comment.
Over at 67 Beverly Park Court, the nine-acre Villa Firenze estate is selling for $165 million. It boasts an Italian-style, 20,000-square foot mansion with a wine cellar, tennis court, pool and two-story guest house. The broker for the Beverly Hills mega-mansion did not return a request for comment.
Leading up to his divorce, Bezos bought two neighboring properties in Beverly Hills with ex-wife MacKenzie in 2007 and 2018 for a combined $38 million. It’s not clear how they might have been split in the divorce — if at all.
Bezos last summer coughed up $80 million for the top four floors of a Madison Avenue apartment building in Manhattan. The deal included a 10,000-foot, three-floor penthouse at 212 Fifth Ave., as well as the two units on the floor directly beneath it.
On Friday, a group of activists, including state Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan), rallied outside of Bezos’ Fifth Avenue apartment to call for a tax on luxury second homes. If passed, the so-called pied-a-terre tax would cost Bezos $2.57 million, they said.
Bezos, who last week saw his net worth briefly soar to $130 billion after posting profits that smashed Wall Street’s expectations, didn’t return a request for comment placed with Seattlebased Amazon.