Casa Encantada — a 40,000-square-foot Bel-Air mega-mansion considered one of L.A.’s most iconic estates — has a new owner: Peter Thiel.
The billionaire venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder quietly bought the property through a limited liability company at a foreclosure auction in Pomona in July, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the sale.
At $130 million, it’s one of the priciest home sales ever in Los Angeles — but perhaps a bargain, depending on how you look at it. The former owner, late businessman Gary Winnick, wanted $225 million for the property in 2019 and $250 million in 2023.
Winnick never found a buyer and died in 2023, leaving a trail of debt in his wake. Records show the Bel-Air estate was used as collateral to pay off a loan from the CIM Group, and Winnick’s family relisted the home for $170 million in April before it was auctioned off to the highest bidder three months later.
The house itself serves as a time capsule of Old Hollywood glitz and glamour, with sprawling gardens and terraced lawns perched on 8.4 acres overlooking the Bel-Air Country Club. It was built in 1938 by James Dolena, a Russian-born architect who erected a handful of trophy properties across Los Angeles.
Ionic columns mark the entry, leading to a foyer with sweeping staircases under 14-foot ceilings. In addition to seven bedrooms and 20 bathrooms, the stately interiors include multiple dining rooms, lounges and a walnut-paneled library. Outside, fountains and gardens surround a tennis court and 60-foot tiled pool.
Hotel magnate Conrad Hilton bought the property in 1950. After his death, it sold to financier David Murdock in 1980 for $12.4 million, setting a national price record at the time. It claimed a second price record in 2000 when it sold to Winnick for $94 million.
Winnick poured tens of millions of dollars into the property over the years, tapping interior designer Peter Marino for a renovation that included tracking down the home’s original furniture and sculpting moldings using historically accurate techniques. The work required roughly 250 workers per day, according to Architectural Digest.
For Thiel, the house is the latest piece in a continent-spanning collection of real estate that includes compounds in Hawaii and New Zealand, homes in Miami and Washington, D.C., and a newly acquired mansion in Buenos Aires.
While seemingly humble, the recurring Pomona foreclosure auction where Thiel bought Casa Encantada has handled the sale of several notable properties over the years, including a prized piece of land in Beverly Hills that listed for $1 billion but sold for $100,000.
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