Real estate developer Bruce Makowsky’s ‘eighth wonder of the world’ targets a narrow market. ‘I’ve found a niche. I’m trying to build houses only for billionaires’

Bruce Makowsky does not believe in underselling, which is just as well because he’s listed a house in Los Angeles for $250m – America’s most expensive home.



“I wanted to build the most spectacular house in the United States,” said the developer. “I wanted to have every spectacular thing in that house, in one place. This house is the eighth wonder of the world.”

That may sound brash even for real estate speak, but 924 Bel Air Road is designed for a modern pharaoh.

Perched in the rarified hills of Bel Air, which make Beverly Hills feel ghetto, the 38,000 sq ft property boasts panoramic views, 12 bedrooms, 21 bathrooms, five bars, a massage studio, a fleet of luxury cars and motorbikes, an 85-foot Italian glass infinity pool, an outdoor hydraulic theater-sized screen, a James Bond-themed indoor cinema, a bowling alley, 130 art installations and, as a roof adornment, the helicopter from the 1980s TV show Airwolf.

Oh, and a crocodile-embossed elevator, a Hobie Cat sailboat, glass ping pong and billiard tables, two wine cellars, 56 TV screens, Willy Wonka-style cylinders filled with sweets and an interactive digital work starring Disney’s Seven Dwarfs.

The aim, Makowsky said in an interview, is shock and awe. “It’s purely emotional. Someone walks through here and thinks, ‘I have to have it’.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The view from the Bel Air mansion. Photograph: Photos Courtesy of Bruce Makowsky/ BAM Luxury Development

Someone, that is, with a spare quarter-billion dollars. “I’ve found a niche. I’m trying to build houses only for billionaires.”

Makowsky, 60, created this California xanadu on spec – all built, designed and furnished without any buyer lined up. It went on sale last week, priced far above the record $147m paid for an East Hampton estate in 2014.

Is he worried about finding a buyer? “Absolutely not. I’m not worried at all because there’s so much super-wealth in this world. It’s getting crazy. There are probably 100 new billionaires every single year. Super-yacht manufacturers are slammed with orders.”

Forget the 1%. Billionaires are a caste so select (estimates range from 1,800 to 3,000) you could fit them all in the Royal Festival Hall.

Makowsky made his first fortune selling purses and handbags on QVC, a home shopping television network.

He got to know the Riviera crowd and noticed something that struck him as odd: billionaires would spend up to $200m on yachts and planes but live in homes worth far less. “I thought: nobody’s toy should be more expensive than their house.”

So Makowsky – who lives in a 27,000 sq ft estate once leased by Prince – started building increasingly lavish mansions in Bel Air and Beverly Hills, where buyers commonly buy impeccable properties and demolish them to make way for newer ones.

Jaws dropped when he sold a $70m property to Markus Persson, the founder of Minecraft, in 2014. It seemed an absurdly high figure at the time but the developer was already working on what would become 924 Bel Air Road.

Tonnes of marble and other stone from Italian quarries, Lamborghini wall clocks, champagne-filled fire extinguishers – it is a temple to luxury and whimsy. The house comes with a staff of seven – including a masseuse and yoga instructor – whom Makowsky will pay for two years. Southern Californian sunshine completes the package, he says.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The James Bond-themed indoor cinema. Photograph: Photos Courtesy of Bruce Makowsky/ BAM Luxury Development

“When you put all those things together that’s pretty much the magic. It’s the best of everything put into one home. It’s like you’d never want to leave.”

The developer’s website casts luxury in metaphysical terms: “Opulence without substance has no meaning. Nor is luxury a synonym for unimaginable comfort. Indeed, luxury is an art – the art of living well … true luxury is rebellious, above the status quo – it is lofty, it is life amplified by reverie, it is boundless beauty.”

To some critics what is boundless is the extreme inequality of Kubla Khans inhabiting ever plusher redoubts while 43,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles County, a policy failure which leaves human misery on display in streets, doorways, parks and beaches.

Steve Lopez, a Los Angeles Times columnist, seethed at mega-mansions in 2015, comparing one to a “giant tombstone marking the death of humility”.

Widening inequality is global. Makowksy’s mega-home went on sale the same week that Oxfam published a report saying eight of the richest people on Earth own as much combined wealth as half the human race, and that a plutocrat moved into the White House on a promise of tax cuts for the wealthy.

“All this growing hyper-wealth chases trophy assets in a few places – the hills north of LA, Manhattan, London, driving up prices to stratospheric heights,” said Walter Scheidel, a Stanford history professor and author of The Great Leveler, a history of wealth inequality from ancient times to the present.

“Prospective buyers come from all over the world, which is not surprising since inequality in many countries is higher now than it has ever been – China, India, Russia, not just the US. In this context of globalization and rising inequality it would be odd if the value of such trophy assets wasn’t going through the roof; and as long as these two trends continue, there is no ceiling in sight.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Inside the Bel Air mansion. Photograph: Photos Courtesy of Bruce Makowsky/ BAM Luxury Development

Edward Kleinbard, a USC law professor and author of We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money, said the US undertaxed the very wealthy and underfunded education and other public services which could help the poor to move up. “Because we do that, those with great wealth can accumulate even more. We are drifting towards neo-feudalism. We’re making wealth a hereditary gene.”

Makowsky bristled at mention of inequality and its cousin, excess. Bel Air’s eighth wonder was many things, but not vulgar, he said. “I don’t think it’s garish. It’s not a palace. We don’t have a lot of gold in it. It’s more contemporary, it’s like a resort, an oasis.”

The opulence merchant espoused a hope Marx might have applauded. “I didn’t create this [inequality]. I think it’d be great if everyone had the same amount of money.”

Instead of sitting on his fortune, Makowsky said he had created 300 jobs during the house’s construction. Now, all going well, a buyer will fork out $250m. “Hopefully in my own little way I’m helping the US economy. I’m trying to unleash some of the wealth that the super-wealthy have.”

He has competition. Nile Niami, a film producer and property developer, is reportedly building a 100,000 sq ft mansion with its own casino and 30-car garage with a target price of $500m.