Samuel Goldwyn Estate Sells to Mysterious Buyer

A historic Beverly Hills mansion, originally built in the 1930s for film industry trailblazer Samuel Goldwyn and owned since the mid-1970s by his namesake son, producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr., who died in January, has been sold for $25 million. So the stories go, the elder Goldwyn frequently used the property as collateral to finance his films, and regularly entertained a who’s who of Golden Age stars including Cole Porter, Frank Capra, Clark Gable, Bette Davis and Charlie Chaplin.

Listed earlier this year with a rose-tinted $39 million price tag, the nearly two-acre estate, discreetly tucked up behind the Beverly Hills Hotel with a city lights view, is anchored by a well-maintained if demode Georgian mansion that measures in at about 11,000 square feet, with six bedrooms and five bathrooms, plus a roomy guest apartment above the garage. A curved staircase defines the foyer, the formal dining room is lined with French doors that open to a brick terrace, and a paneled library does double-duty as a 35mm screening room. The gated and landscaped grounds include a double-motor court, broad sweeps of lawn, a sunken tennis court, swimming pool, and a pool house with kitchenette.

There is rampant speculation about the identity of the storied estate’s new owner, who is shielded behind an inscrutable corporate concern with a Nashville address. Our Fairy Godmother in Bel-Air says she heard Taylor Swift was the buyer, and certainly the pop-country phenom, who hauled in an estimated $64 million last year, can easily afford it. Trusted snitch Sandy N. D’Pantz had said he was certain the buyer was billionaire investor and philanthropist Nicholas Berggruen, but the always impeccably informed Peter Propertyseller told us Berggruen backed out of the deal at the last minute, and that the buyer might be television syndication tycoon Richard King, who has his Holmby Hills mansion up for sale at $65 million.

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