The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is action packed with high drama—undoubtedly a key to its reality TV appeal. Now one of the show’s featured mansions comes to market, as dramatic as any of the blowups on Bravo TV’s hit trainwreck.
Beverly Hills conjures towering manicured hedges and iron-gated estates with chandeliers, grand staircases and privileged residents. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum David Gebbia’s palatial $22 million mansion in Beverly Ridge Terrace Estates is the latest high-maintenance curiosity coming to market in the coveted hamlet of “swimming pools and movie stars.” Aaron Kirman and Yawar Charlie of Pacific Union International have the listing.
To call this mansion grand is an understatement. Built in 2009, the seductive four-bedroom, seven-bathroom custom home is a bewitching Gothic marvel (with a colossal pool and burlesque room), a modern medieval homage to 14th century Italian Romanticism—attributes you wouldn’t expect to converge on a 75,000-square-foot lot in southern California, let alone Beverly Hills. Las Vegas, maybe.
Spanning more than 15,000 square feet of living space, the intriguing home is dominated by a majestic cathedral Great Room with vaulted beam ceilings, a central balcony bridge beneath a sky-high Gothic chandelier, and light-flooding Renaissance church windows that frame jetliner views. The Great Room also boasts a grand staircase, Lancet arched doorways, wrought-iron Juliet-style balconies, and a monumental stained glass Gothic fireplace worthy of Il Duomo di Firenze cathedral in Florence.
“We spent a lot of time in Venice, Italy and Paris,” says David Gebbia. “We were inspired by the best classic architecture in the world. At the time, we visited every high-end home in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles and we wanted to bring the best of both worlds from Renaissance Europe and the castles of Versailles, and incorporate the California lifestyle of indoor outdoor living.”
Developed by Gebbia Custom Estates, the family-owned construction company, it appears the mansion is another Beverly Hills divorce casualty. Carlton Gebbia once showcased the property on a Bravotv.com house tour.
“It’s a throwback to the estates of the 20 and 30′s in L.A. where the premium was on the detail and value of the workmanship,” says co-listing agent Charlie.
The striking estate showcases expansive, wide-open entertainment rooms highlighted by the centerpiece Great Room’s soaring 36-foot-high ceiling, Gothic crosses, and wrought-iron sconces, chandeliers and railings—upon which (as the Bravotv.com tour showed) a family cat can fearlessly tightrope 25 feet above the floor.
“The Great Room is overwhelming—jaw dropping,” says Gebbia. People who walk through the front door stop in their tracks, in awe of the grand scale of the view.”
The estate also includes the sparkling mega pool, spa, a viewing terrace, six-car subterranean garage, chef’s kitchen, home theater, and a full-bar lounge with TV’s, a shuffleboard and barbecue patio access. The custom bar lounge is lavished with an intricate coffered-ceiling and Gothic Tudor-style chandeliers. Sporadic Gothic gargoyle wood carvings also grace the home, presumably to protect it from evil spirits—just like European cathedrals.
The Bravotv.com tour revealed a master bedroom featuring a custom 11-by-12-foot Gothic-inspired bed and an antique Gothic fireplace, perhaps from the collection of royal prince Franz Archduke Ferdinand of World War I fame. The master bath includes an infinity spa bathtub topped by another hovering chandelier.
And then there’s the mysterious “burlesque room”—a red-hued, wood-laden nightclub with ornamental coffered ceilings (again), and an officially christened confessional where sober or inebriated partyers can loosen up and confess their “sins”—real or imagined.
“Back in the early 2000’s there was a great club in L.A. called Forty Deuce,” says Gebbia. “[The burlesque room] is an ode to the best of LA nightlife.”
From the Great Room to the panoramic pool, entertaining is the essence of this Beverly Hills estate. Forty Deuce is closed, and so is the Gebbia chapter here. Now the Beverly Ridge Terrace Estates mansion seeks a new owner (a Gothic architecture lover) to party on like its 1399 or 1999.
“What’s so unique about this house is it’s a conversation piece,” says Kirman. “It’s the perfect blend of European architecture with a modern California spin. You can throw the best party the city has ever seen (which has happened at this home), yet it also offers the privacy and safety that a buyer at this level requires.”
