Amazon’s record profits during the world’s by-necessity mail-order dependence have been much covered—the $5.2 billion quarter announced by the company just this week is a full 100% boost over last year—so Jeff Bezos has a bit more pocket change jingling in his jeans than most.
Not that he depends on it to buy real estate. The $10 million he dropped on a compound-expanding property next door to his new combined estate in Beverly Hills doesn’t come as too much of a surprise. Bezos purchased the big house adjacent to the auxiliary home this past winter; the house, which ran the Amazon founder $165 million, belonged to Jack Warner and David Geffen in turn. Bezos augmented his holdings by picking up Paul Allen’s ‘Enchanted Hill’ for $90 mil while he was at it, for a grand total of $255 million.
Bezos’ new property in Beverly Hills is a fixer-upper that went up in the early days of the Great Depression. The 4,615 square-footer features stone exterior walls on its lower level, a brick courtyard, and Juliet balconies.
The home’s interiors, which show renovations conducted in the last twenty years or so, feature dark plank hardwood and off-white walls and ceilings as a decorative foundation. Details include a kitchen with a Dutch-door pantry, many sets of French doors, steel-framed and casement glass, and a wall of built-in bookshelves finished with glass cabinets. The charming dining room with built-in shelving overlooks the courtyard on one side and the backyard on the other.
A gem of a guest cottage, in other words, for a $165 million estate.
Bezos’ East Coast purchased of last year and the year before include the much-covered museum in Kalorama, and the ‘mansion in the sky’ triplex with auxiliary condos in Manhattan; those purchases totaled about $180 million.
Bezos’ net worth is quickly approaching $200 billion.