[imagesource: YouTube / Drone World]
In 2017, mega-mansions were out and giga-mansions were in.
Or at least that was the case according to Nile Niami, a rather ballsy 53-year-old property developer who at that point was building what he touted as America’s most expensive home.
He called it “The One” and was using up around 105 000 square feet of space, twice the size of the White House, on a hill in Bel Air, Los Angeles.
Niami has been marketing “The One” for years, hoping to sell the whopper for $500 million.
Interviews and photos released to the media made the house seem like a dream, including a special video tour in April with YouTube personality Michael Blakey.
He called it “the biggest and most expensive house in the world ” during the 35-minute tour:
The mega-mansion, as per CNBC, “stretches like an ultra-modern palace”:
[It] has nine bedrooms, multiple kitchens, a nightclub, four-lane bowling alley, salon, gym, 50-seat theatre, a running track, and an underground garage for 50 cars, with two auto turntables.
Its seven water features include multiple pools, a jacuzzi, and a moat that surrounds the house. The master bedroom suite is 4 000 square feet. Every door in the house is electric, along with all the toilets.
Niami had planned a “jellyfish room” and ice bar but both proved too costly.
Here’s a shorter video for those of us who can’t bother to spend 35 minutes looking inside:
A beaut of a property, but now things have taken an embarrassing turn.
“The One” has gone into receivership (basically property foreclosure) after Niami couldn’t pay more than $165 million in loans and debt back, according to court filings by the Los Angeles County Superior Court:
The largest lender is Hankey Capital, founded by Los Angeles billionaire Don Hankey, which has over $115 million in loans on the property.
Yogi Securities Holdings, led by doctor-turned-real-estate-investor Joseph Englanoff, has loaned “The One” over $36 million.
Two other entities, Inferno Realty and Maybach Corporation Holdings, have provided loans of $7 million each.
“The One” also has over $1 million in unpaid taxes and debts from concrete, air conditioning and tool companies.
It is expected to be relisted at a far lower price in the coming months so as to pay off all these debts, but nobody is sure that the sale will bring in nearly enough to cover all of it.
Niami, in his prime:
Perhaps he should have stuck to the film industry, because the property business is hitting him hard:
Niami put his West Hollywood home in bankruptcy last year, and a spec mansion in Beverly Hills, which he had marketed for $100 million, wound up selling for $38 million to Englanoff, who was one of the lenders on the California property.
Once the court-appointed receiver, Ted Lanes of Lanes Management, gets the proper permits and certificate of occupancy for “The One” it will be listed for sale.
The price and timing have yet to be determined.
[source:cnbc]
