When Paul Eskenazi, the location manager for “Mountainhead,” a new film from the “Succession” showrunner Jesse Armstrong, set out to find a house to serve as the primary setting for this satire about a group of ultrarich tech bros, he needed a very specific kind of extravagance. In the same way that “Succession,” which Eskenazi also worked on, reveled in “quiet luxury,” “Mountainhead” needed its moneyed protagonists to be living large but without flamboyance. Its characters are too wealthy for mere McMansions, and not any private residence would do.
Portraying how the ultrawealthy really live — with all their subtle signals and status cues — has become something of a specialty for Armstrong and Eskenazi. It’s about not just private jets and sprawling homes, but the quiet hierarchies within the top 1 percent. There’s a pecking order between the 0.01 percent and the 0.001 percent, the kind of distinction that insiders equate to owning a Gulfstream G450 versus a Gulfstream G700.
When Eskenazi found a lavish, 21,000-square-foot ski chalet built into a hill of Deer Valley in Utah, he knew it was the right fit — not because it was so large and impressive, though it’s certainly both, but because its extravagance had a subtlety that made it almost understated.
“There’s a kind of quiet wealthy embedded in that location that doesn’t necessarily scream at you. It reveals itself slowly,” Eskenazi said, pointing out that it has a private gondola with direct access to a nearby ski resort. “It’s not flashy, but it’s deeply exclusive — the kind of feature that signals a level of access and control money affords without ever needing to show off.”
“Mountainhead” is a tightly wound satirical chamber drama about four rich friends in tech who gather for a weekend of carousing while the world is plunged into chaos. There’s Venis (Cory Michael Smith), the founder of a Twitter-like app whose new A.I. creator tools have triggered a tidal wave of online disinformation; Jeff (Ramy Youssef), whose content-moderation software holds the key to resolving global strife; Randall (Steve Carrell), an elder plutocrat with a philosophical bent; and Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), whose meager $500 million net worth has earned him the nickname “Soups,” for “soup kitchen.”
Virtually the entirety of “Mountainhead” takes place within the palatial walls of Hugo’s mansion, which feels like a fifth character.
In real life, the house is on West Crestwood Court in Deer Crest, a gated community adjacent to the Deer Valley ski resort, where celebrities like Khloé Kardashian and Gwen Stefani have hit the slopes. Designed by the architect Michael Upwall, it has seven bedrooms and 16 bathrooms, as well as a two-lane bowling alley, a full-size basketball court, an indoor rock-climbing wall, and a spa with a steam room and sauna.
Outside, it features an infinity pool and a whirlpool bath, both built into a 5,000-square-foot heated patio. But it’s more than just well appointed. As Eskenazi pointed out, the house is “not nestled into a community flanked by neighbors” but is “set apart, elevated, with sweeping views that feel deliberately unobstructed.” That sense of “space, privacy and silence,” he said, provides “its own kind of luxury.”
This was a stark contrast to Armstrong’s “Succession” and its protagonists, the Roy family, who own the media conglomerate Waystar Royco. “That kind of media mogul wealth is about access and movement. It’s flashy, public, very performative,” Eskenazi said. “With ‘Mountainhead,’ it was the opposite. Jesse wanted just one main house — huge, remote and a little unsettling”
“It was more about isolation and privacy than prestige,” Eskenazi added.
The remote home is the “pinnacle of ultraluxury,” in the words of Engel & Volkers, the real estate firm that recently listed the property for $65 million. (It sold for a figure “in the high-50-million range,” a representative for Engel & Volkers said.)
“Mountainhead” wasn’t conceived with this specific property in mind. Instead, the crew was briefed to search for something elevated and isolated, ideally set against snow and ice. What Armstrong wanted “wasn’t about a specific architectural style so much as a feeling,” Eskenazi said. “The house needed to be remote and imposing, yes, but also strangely intimate — a place that could hold both grandeur and silence. It had to feel like it had a history, even if we didn’t spell it out onscreen.”
The search for the right setting started broad: The crew considered homes in Europe, while HBO urged it to consider locations in Canada, such as Whistler, British Columbia, because of the country’s ample tax credits for visiting productions.
An architectural profile in the magazine Robb Report clued the crew into the Deer Valley property. “The moment Jesse saw it, everything changed,” Eskenazi said. “That was when the location locked in and we knew: This is it.”
Stephen Carter, the production designer on the film, and the crew added faux-stone veneers and cedar paneling to cover up some of the house’s bare walls, and he was responsible for details like art and furniture, including a $300 toaster and “a lesser-known Jeff Koons.”
Some of these fixtures were meant to convey Hugo’s desperation to impress, as well as his status as the minor magnate. For example, the art: “While these items would auction in the six figures, they’re not quite at the level” of the others in the group, Carter said. (“Was your decorator Ayn Bland?” Jeff ribs Soups when he arrives.)
One of the wittiest touches? A work by Damien Hirst in the entry hall: “Beautiful Bleeding Wound Over the Materialism of Money Painting.”
The cumulative effect of these details and the property they’re situated in suggests a kind of gilded cage — the perfect place to sequester four rich tech bros as society starts to collapse all around them.
“The house didn’t just support the story,” Eskenazi said. “It became part of it.”
— Calum Marsh
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
President Trump’s tariffs are in legal limbo. On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of International Trade ordered the Trump administration to wind down its steep tariffs on China and other trading partners, ruling that the administration acted illegally when it used emergency powers to enact them. Hours later, a higher court put that decision on pause. The case is expected to land in the Supreme Court.
Tensions with China are ticking up. The president accused China of breaking an agreement reached this month to roll back trade restrictions, threatened to “aggressively” revoke the visas of many Chinese students in the United States and suspended the sales of some critical U.S. technologies to China. The chipmaker Nvidia, which beat financial expectations this week despite limits on Chinese exports, warned that restrictions on sales to China could hurt U.S. tech dominance.
Elon Musk is stepping back from politics. The billionaire entrepreneur, whose close relationship with Trump has shown signs of fraying, formally announced his departure from the Department of Government Efficiency on Wednesday, and the president publicly sent him off with a golden key and plenty of praise on Friday. An investigation by The New York Times on Friday revealed that Musk’s drug use during the presidential campaign was more intense than previously known.
Taylor Swift finally owns her master recordings. The deal ends a long battle over Swift’s first six albums, which Shamrock Capital bought as part of a larger acquisition in 2019. Swift did not disclose its value.
The man in charge of advancing women’s golf
The L.P.G.A. is at an inflection point. As a wave of investment has flowed into women’s sports, breakout stars, sponsorship and fandom are all on the rise — but golf has struggled to harness that momentum. Over the last few years, title sponsors have departed, even main events have struggled to get prime television coverage, and a potential merger fell apart. Craig Kessler, who was appointed the league’s commissioner last week, has the task of navigating this moment of potential and turbulence.
Kessler, who officially starts the job on July 15, talked with DealBook’s Sarah Kessler (no relation) from the U.S. Women’s Open, which teed off this week at the Erin Hills Golf Course just outside Milwaukee. The interview has been condensed and edited.
The L.P.G.A. is locked into joint broadcst deals with the PGA until 2030. Is that working for the L.P.G.A.?
In fairness, I’m not even at Day 1 yet on the job.
We do have a lot to celebrate in terms of visibility. As we roll the take forward, there’s so, so, so much more that has to be done. A lot of that shows up in the broadcast, making sure the women, as much as possible, show up on predictable networks at predictable times. But there’s also things that go beyond the broadcast that can help tell the story of our team.
Are you considering working with TGL, the indoor golf series backed by Steph Curry and Fenway Sports Group?
I think TGL has done a remarkable job of getting people interested in golf. On nights of the week when it was really difficult — or, frankly, impossible — to watch previously, the more we can do to give our athletes access to an audience that will get excited about what they’re doing, the better.
The LIV Golf C.E.O. has said he’s talked with the L.P.G.A. about partnering. Are you open to investments from LIV or Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, PIF, which is a major backer of Europe’s women’s tour?
Our primary job is to elevate our athletes and to elevate the women’s game. And any organization or individual who’s interested in doing that will have a seat at our table to at least have a conversation.
When women’s tennis announced a partnership with PIF, there was backlash from its athletes because of Saudi Arabia’s poor record on women’s rights. Do you think L.P.G.A. golfers would be accepting of a similar deal?
The sense I have from meeting many of the players during the interview process is they are incredibly excited about having conversations with people who want to elevate their sport. I don’t think they’re necessarily discriminating about who that is just yet, but I’m confident I will learn more.
Do you think it’s fair to say golf hasn’t leveraged the momentum in women’s sports as well as basketball or soccer?
There’s real quantifiable success in the women’s sports landscape, and we should celebrate it. I think the L.P.G.A. has signs of success, like purses roughly doubling in recent history.
It feels to me that women’s golf is on the cusp of having its moment. And it is my job and our team’s job to exploit that as quickly as we can.
Quiz: Beyond TACO
A new piece of Wall Street lingo miffed President Trump as it took off among financial analysts and commentators this week: “TACO,” for Trump Always Chickens Out. It refers to the tendency of markets to tumble when the president announces tariffs only to rebound quickly after he pauses them (a pattern that creates, on a line graph, the shape of a taco). “Don’t ever say what you said,” the president told a reporter who asked him about the new term.
TACO is the latest entry in a long tradition of market acronyms. Do you remember its predecessors? Match the terms below with their use (and if you’re stumped, find the answers at the bottom of this newsletter).
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Quiz answers: A, 2 (There Is No Alternative); B, 3 (There Are Reasonable Alternatives); C, 1 (Recession in Name Only); D, 4 (Fear of Missing Out).
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