The priciest home now listed in Orange County has just hit the market: a sprawling 18,717-square-foot Newport Coast estate that’s “better described as a resort,” notes listing broker Rob Giem of Compass.
The price for the home, not far from The Resort at Pelican Hill? A cool $68 million.
That figure, which would also shatter county records for the most expensive residential transaction, is justified upon viewing the house, on a nearly 1-acre double lot on the front row of Del Mar street, notes Giem, among the top brokers for luxury homes in the county.
“The home has had a great response,” Giem said. “Anyone who has had the chance to view it recognizes its value, and the ownership opportunity.”
The estate includes six bedrooms and 13 bathrooms throughout a main residence, plus a guest house and expansive gardens.
It also counts a 6,800-square-foot garage that can accommodate at least 12 cars and touts a panoramic ocean view from “all of Newport Harbor all the way up to the Los Angeles coastline.”
“It’s open, modern, impeccable and barely lived in,” Giem said.
Custom Team
The undisclosed current owners bought the land in 2013 and assembled a team to custom build the resort-like estate, which wrapped construction in 2017.
The design team included Irvine-based EBTA Architects, Newport Beach interior designer Jan Turner Hering and builder Mark Falcone. They helped make the house “unlike anything I’ve ever seen in Newport Coast,” Giem said.
The owners are based outside of the state, and after they realized they weren’t going to be in the area as much as they had planned, they decided to sell.
Potential buyers are likely to already own a high-end property in the county, notes Giem.
“That’s been the case for previous large transactions, where a buyer will take a test drive here and then buy up.”
Due to the investment that went into the property, and the lack of available vacant lots in the area, Giem said he expects “the replacement cost would exceed the asking price” for 15 Del Mar.
“There are many houses in Orange County where people have spent that much or more in building them, and they just haven’t been sold yet,” Giem said. “That’s the unknown fact of Coastal Orange County, where almost all of the most valuable homes have never been sold.”
Priciest Deals
Pricey deals are still occurring in Newport Coast, despite the effect of COVID-19 on the housing market.
A new record for the priciest local home sale was set earlier this month, when best-selling author Dean Koontz sold his Newport Coast compound for a reported $50 million in an off-market transaction.
Stearns Lending LLC founder Glenn Stearns is the buyer of the Newport Coast estate. Stearns now runs Kind Lending, a new mortgage company in Santa Ana’s Hutton Centre. Brokerage reports indicate the firm is leasing some 22,000 square feet of space at the South Coast Metro office complex, once used by Stearns Lending.
The Newport Coast home he bought from Koontz, on 2.5 acres, runs about 30,000 square feet, according to reports.
Koontz now lives in Irvine’s Shady Canyon.
Evan Corkett and Steve High of Villa Real Estate represented the Koontz in the sale, while Rex McKown and Marcy Weinstein of Compass represented the buyer.
The deal bests the previous record for an OC homes sale, set in 2016 when the landmark Twin Points property in Laguna Beach was bought by Patrick Soon-Shiong for $45 million.
Giem handled both sides of that deal.
