The $3 million price chop did the trick; the Laguna Beach getaway home of influential billionaire and philanthropist Warren Buffett sold this month. Buffett had listed the home initially in the spring of 2017, asking $11 million, but slashed the price nearly thirty percent in the late summer of this year, relisting the property for just under $8 million.

When the dust settled this fall, Buffett had sold the home for $7.5 million. He had owned the home since 1971, and paid a paltry $150K for it, which makes his return nearly five thousand percent. That’s over nearly half a century, so the annualized return is around 8.7%, but it’s still very decent.

The home itself is an understated structure, lovely by virtue of its location. The renovations that have come and gone with the years give it a unique, accumulated feel; it isn’t always cohesive, but the result is pretty complex, considering how unadorned the interiors are. White and off-white, glass, carpet, and track lighting define the living style; a modest home, without much daring color outside of a children’s bedroom, but the master suite gets its own wing, and plenty of room to stretch out.

The exterior of the home is interesting, and seems to riff a little on streamline moderne, with a curving balustrade resembling a liner handrail; that’d make sense, as the house dates to the 1930’s. A porch, balcony, deck and master terrace provide a nifty series of outdoor living spaces. An idiosyncratic house with a built-in narrative subtext: very much a product of its owner’s lifetime.

As of 2018, Warren Buffett’s net worth is north of $90 billion.