Skip to main content

Sit on your throne in Bel Air — in the most expensive home in America — for $500 million

Bel Air: Home to the Fresh Prince, and soon, the U.S.’s most expensive house. Movie producer Nile Niami (he’s responsible for The Patriot — the Steven Seagal one, not the Mel Gibson one) is developing the property, which he plans to sell for $500 million. It will include three smaller residences, in addition to the 74,000-square-foot main house. (And we thought that 24,000-square-foot, 3D-printed house was crazy.)

“The house will have almost every amenity available in the world,” he told Bloomberg Business, including a 5,000-square-foot master bedroom, an Imax-style theater, and four swimming pools. The garage will have room for 30 cars, and the property will feature an 8,500-square-foot nightclub.

The buildings will sit upon four acres of hilltop, offering views of the Pacific Ocean. With California’s drought on, the 20,000 square feet of grass could be synthetic, Niami said. Architect Paul McClean tells Bloomberg that the house’s main focus is luxury and not conservation, though: “I can’t tell you that it’s a green and energy-efficient house.” He also imagines its owners using it more for entertaining and events, rather than as a truly domestic dwelling.

The house is still under construction and will be for almost two more years. When completed, it will be bigger than 90,000-square-foot chateau in Windermere, Florida, profiled in The Queen of Versailles. Whether or not the home and its accoutrements will get Niami’s proposed $500 million asking price remains to be seen.

“I’m skeptical,” Jonathan Miller, president of appraiser Miller Samuel Inc., told Bloomberg. “My first reaction is laughter. But we’re in this perpetual state of surprise as new thresholds are broken.”

Thus far, the record for most-expensive U.S. home ever sold is held by a Hamptons residence, which went for $147 million in May 2014, while the world record goes to a $221 million penthouse in London.

Editors' Recommendations

Jenny McGrath
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jenny McGrath is a senior writer at Digital Trends covering the intersection of tech and the arts and the environment. Before…
Amazon will give you $5K in free smart home tech and more when you buy a house
smart home trends ring beams

You can now get up to $5,000 in Amazon credit if you buy a house through Amazon’s new TurnKey real estate partnership. 

The $5,000 incentive was announced Tuesday and includes smart home and home theater equipment along with services like unpacking and cleaning.

Read more
The Dyson Pure Hot + Cool cools, warms, and purifies the air in your home
dyson pure hot cold purifies air controls temperature hp04 whsil 025 cmyk wintervalvepurificationlivingroomlightbluechuff a4

People often overlook the importance of air quality, but the recent fires in California have brought the hazards of dirty air to the forefront of everyone's minds. While many people already own an air purifier, it often gets set to the side, but with the advent of winter, pure air is more important than ever as long-dormant HVAC systems rumble to life and expel built-up dust and other irritants into the air. Dyson hopes to make your air purifier just as important to everyday life as your heater or air conditioner by combining them all into one.

The Dyson Pure Hot + Cool is an all-in-one unit designed to keep a home warm and cozy in winter, cool and comfortable in summer, and to purify the air inside the home no matter what season it is. The Dyson Pure Hot + Cool is a whole-room unit. While it won't replace a traditional system for the house, it can be a great addition for keeping a specific space at a certain temperature. Best of all, it can detect airborne particles and it reports this information through an LCD screen on the unit.

Read more
Move over, Amazon Echo. Google Home now sits upon the smart speaker throne

Google Home has been coming for Amazon Echo's crown ever since it launched the competitive smart speaker in 2016, and now, it looks like we have a new reigning champ. As per a new report from Canalys, Google beat Amazon for the first time in smart speaker shipments, ultimately sending out 3.2 million Google Home and Google Mini devices in the first three months of 2018. Compare that to just 2.5 million Echo devices shipped by Amazon.

“Google has several advantages over Amazon that have helped it move ahead,” said Canalys Analyst Ben Stanton. “But its biggest advantage is in the channel. Operators and retailers tend to prioritize Google’s speakers over those from Amazon, as Amazon is in the tricky position of being a direct competitor. But Amazon is fighting back hard, and the sheer quantity of Alexa Skills and smart home integrations will be tough for any competitor to match.”

Read more