260-acre site in Bel-Air has hit the auction block
The undeveloped site, among the largest in the L.A. area, will go to the top bidder.
A 260-acre property in Bel-Air — which, thanks to its impressive list of celebrity residents and recordsetting mega-mansions, has a reputation as one of the country’s ritziest enclaves — is being auctioned off to the highest bidder.
The auction is a lastditch effort to sell the spread known as Senderos Canyon, which spans 6% of Bel-Air and is one of the largest and most valuable pieces of undeveloped land left in the Los Angeles area. It has failed to find a buyer since hitting the market a decade ago.
Senderos Canyon is by far the biggest piece of land on the market in Los Angeles. (Second place belongs to a 53-acre spread in Granada Hills asking $1.2 million.) It’s three times the size of Disneyland and easily dwarfs the 157-acre Mountain in Beverly Hills, widely considered L.A.’s finest undeveloped parcel.
Potential buyers have been sparse because of the cost and time it would take to develop the property into something profitable.
Comprising three contiguous parcels, the trophy property first surfaced for sale in 2013 at $125 million. No takers. In 2019, the price was trimmed to $75 million, then
$60 million. Still nothing. Now, it’s being auctioned, with bids starting at $39 million — representing a discount of nearly 70%.
There have been plenty of ideas for the property over the years.
The land is not designated for a specific use, but prospective shoppers have pitched just about everything: a goat farm, a retirement community, a luxury wellness retreat and even an outdoor school campus.
“Everyone has grand ideas,” said listing agent Scott Tamkin of Compass.
Renderings show potential uses for the prized acreage: a golf course or a horse ranch surrounded by a manmade lake.
A more realistic vision for the land could be a handful of luxury homes; Tamkin estimates that Senderos Canyon could fit roughly 17. The 15 to 20 acres at the top of the property would be the easiest to develop; building deeper into the canyon would require significantly more infrastructure and grading.
The auction is being conducted by Paramount Realty USA, which has handled more than $2 billion worth of real estate. Owner Misha Haghani called the property “unique and irreplaceable.”
The bidding opened Tuesday and closes March 15 — a strategic date: Roughly two weeks later, Measure ULA goes into effect, adding a new transfer tax to bigticket property sales. A 4% tax will be imposed on sales of $5 million to $10 million; above that, the rate is 5.5%.
If the Bel-Air property sells at the starting bid of $39 million, the seller — a limited liability company called Giro Properties — would owe $2.145 million under the tax. To help speed things along, the seller is offering a $2-million credit if the buyer closes before the measure kicks in April 1.
It’s the latest example of luxury property owners looking for ways to avoid the tax. Some are simply trying to sell off real estate before April, while others are getting creative by looking into splitting up properties to cut their value.
Auctions are typically viewed as a last resort for selling a home and usually happen only when a property has languished on the market for years.
In 2021, the Hearst estate in Beverly Hills was auctioned off for $63.1 million after originally listing for $195 million. Last year, a 105,000-square-foot megamansion known as the One sold to the highest bidder for $141 million — an all-time record for a home at auction but a far cry from the initial asking price of $295 million.