Thanks to the fine folks at SF Luxe, Your Mama has learned that a sprawling Silicon Valley estate in hoity-toity Woodside, CA just sold for—buckle your real estate safety belts, butter beans—a mind-numbing and record-breaking $117,500,000.
The seller, according to previous reports and property records we peeped, was San Francisco-based financier Tully Friedman. The deep-pocketed buyer, shielded behind a mysterious limited liability company, has yet to be revealed but Your Mama hears through the Silicon Valley real estate gossip grapevine that the buyer might be a Korean banker who—so the story goes—bought the property as a summer getaway for his wife—or maybe his mistress—who may want to embark on some sort of remodel.
Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?
The Neoclassical main mansion, according to noted classical architect Allen Greenberg's website, occupies "an elaborate hilltop garden" and reflects a "strong Palladian tradition" that's " planned around hyphens and dependencies and features a double volume, elliptical garden room." We don't really know what an architectural hyphen or dependency is but it certainly sounds high fallutin' don't it? The San Mateo County Tax Man shows the house measures 8,930 square feet and contains just four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms but we really can't vouch for the accuracy of those numbers.
The nearly nine acre gated estate also includes acres of elaborate and meticulously maintained formal gardens, at least one reflecting pool, broad expanses of painstakingly manicured lawns, lots and lots of parking and a swimming pool complex with spa and a pool house Your Mama would bet is twice the size of our own house.
The super-sized transaction, which went down very quietly in late November (2012), makes it the most expensive private residence in California and it's likely to be the second or third highest price ever paid for a private home in the United States. Chicago hedge fund fat cat Ken Griffin and wife Anne Dias-Griffin allegedly and possibly coughed up $130 million for a quartet of contiguous properties in Palm Beach late in 2012 and the 124,000 acre Broken O Ranch in Montana—last listed for $132,500,000—was acquired late last year by multi-billionaire businessman Stan Kroenke and wife Ann for an undisclosed amount believed to be in the nine figures. Ann (Walton) Kroenke, for the record, is the daughter of Wal-Mart co-founder Bud Walton.
The wily SF Luxe folks dug up a small cache photos of the property and is it ever a doozy worth having a look-see at. Run don't walk before they're forced by an angry army of attorneys to take them down!
NOTE FROM YOUR MAMA (01-01-13): The Los Angeles Times subsequently suggested the buyer may be Masayoshi San, the CEO of SoftBank and one of Japan's richest men with a fortune in the eight billion dollar range.
aerial images: Google