MICHAEL JACKSON’S last home, number 100 North Carolwood Drive in Holmby Hills in Los Angeles, California, is up for sale but it remains to be seen if the property’s history affect the sale. The mansion sits on 1.26 acres of land and has an asking price of $23.9 million (€18.8 million).
Built in 2002 the property was purchased in 2004 by clothing company Ed Hardy’s chief executive Hubert Guez and his wife, Roxanne, for $18.5 million (€14.09 million). The three-story French “chateau-style” estate has eight bedrooms and 11-bath or throne rooms. It has a movie theatre, an entrance hall with curving staircase, formal living and dining rooms, a den with adjoining library, theatre room, family room, gourmet kitchen with eating area, wine cellar and heated swimming pool and a guesthouse.
However, given the property’s history as the place where Jackson died, Randall Bell, who has authored several books on the subject of real estate disaster economics and whose practice Real Estate Damages determines the diminution of value natural disasters and crimes have on properties, estimates the loss in value to the property to be in the region of ten to fifteen per cent.
Could an enterprising and wealthy fan recoup some of the value if he or she transformed it into Graceland for Thriller fans?
The house may still be a good bet for an investor with deep pockets. Although downturn has seen property values drop between 20 and 50 per cent in America, at the very high end house prices have risen, Bell says. “Properties that were valued at $45 million five years ago are now selling for $100 million and more.”
Also this week Rowan Hill, on Windgate Road in Howth – the former home of Eamonn Lillis and his late wife Celine Cawley – came to the market asking €1 million through Property Team JB Kelly.
Lillis was convicted two years ago of his wife’s manslaughter at their home in December 2008 and is serving a sentence of six years and 11 months. The High Court ruled last month that proceeds from the sale of assets jointly owned by the couple should be evenly distributed between the Cawley estate and Lillis after costs of a court action taken by their daughter Georgia, and Ms Cawley’s brother Christopher and sister Susanna, are deducted.
