In May 2023, Beyonce and Jay-Z paid $200 million for a sprawling estate in Malibu. At the time of their purchase, most outlets described it as the most expensive home purchase in California history. We here at CelebrityNetWorth described it as the most expensive home sale in US history. The reason for the distinction is that in January 2019, hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin paid $238 million for four unfinished floors of a New York City building located at 220 Central Park South. They were separate units that Griffin subsequently combined, so in our view his purchase deserves an asterisk when ranking the most expensive home sales in US history.
Ken Griffin's asterisk purchase aside, unfortunately for Beyonce and Jay-Z, as of this morning, their US home sale record no longer stands. That record now belongs to Jim Jannard, the billionaire founder of Oakley who just sold this 9.5-acre oceanfront estate in Malibu for $210 million:
As first reported by the LA Times, the buyer of Jannard's Malibu mansion is hidden behind a Delaware-based LLC.
Jannard's soon-to-be-former Malibu estate has a bit of an interesting history.
The 15,000-square-foot mansion was built in 1993. In December 1999, an entrepreneur named Mark Hughes bought the estate for $27 million. Hughes made his fortune as the founder of Herbalife. He founded the multi-level-marketing supplement company out of his trunk in 1980. By the time he bought this Malibu property, his net worth was around $300 million.
At the time he bought the house, Mark owned two other homes in Beverly Hills, including one that sat atop a 157-acre private hilltop estate. Mark bought the Malibu house to please his latest wife, former Hawaiian Tropic model Darcy LaPier. Darcy's most recent marriage was to Jean-Claude Van Damme. All four of Mark's wives were former beauty queens.
Mark struggled with alcohol, insomnia, and other addictions at the end of his life. On May 21st, 2000, he died in his bed. Hughes had taken a prescription pill, Doxepin, to help him sleep. He'd been at a party earlier in the night and consumed alcohol. Darcy woke up to a dead man next to her in bed the next morning. His autopsy revealed his blood alcohol content was three times the legal limit.
In 2002, Mark's heirs sold the Malibu property to finance billionaire Howard Marks for $31 million. Howard sold the estate in 2013 to Jim Jannard for $75 million. Early accounts inaccurately reported that the home was bought by a Russian billionaire, but the real acquirer was soon revealed to be Jim Jannard. FYI, the Jannard/Marks/Hughes mansion is located about 13 minutes down the Pacific Coast Highway from Beyonce and Jay-Z's mansion.
Jannard founded Oakley in 1975 with a $300 initial investment. The company originally made motorcycle and motocross parts but eventually pivoted to sunglasses. In 2007, he sold the majority of Oakley to Italian eyewear monopoly Luxottica for $2.1 billion in cash. He would later go on to found a digital camera company called RED which morphed into producing the video cameras favored by directors like Peter Jackson, and a stand-alone film studio called RED Studios Hollywood.
Outside of his now-former Malibu mansion, Jannard owns a different Malibu mansion, two mansions in Beverly Hills, two private islands in Fiji, a mansion in Newport Coast, California, and a mansion in Las Vegas. However! His primary residence is a 9-acre waterfront estate on Orca Island in Washington. He also owns the entirety of a nearby island called Spieden Island, which was acquired in 1997 for $22 million. And he also now owns the record for the most expensive home ever sold in the United States!
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