With no buyer stepping up to scoop up his $160 million, stem-to-stern version of The Summit on Loon Point, Caxton Associates founder Bruce Kovner is trying a different tack this spring: listing one of the two mansions on the compound. The Carpinteria home surfaced on the open market recently with an asking price of $55 million.
Kovner spent years assembling the retreat — fourteen years, apparently, with several properties being swallowed up in the venture along the way. The property that’s come up for sale piecemeal is an 11,000 sq. ft. Mediterranean-style estate with five bedrooms and nine baths; the grounds measure in at well over five acres. The promontory setting overlooks the Pacific, with Loon Point Beach below.
Kovner had the home custom built. It was completed in 2018. Like its companion on the estate, it is chock-a-block with reclaimed and antique materials and fixtures, which collectively resonate into a very convincing vision of transplanted Aegean aristocracy. The landscaping on the property is particularly lush, but follows from romantic garden design, with the layout oriented toward an ideal nexus of nature and art.
Inside the house, a contemporary spin on Mediterranean predominates, and though there are graceful arches, hand-scraped hardwood and stone tile floors, Spanish Colonial chandeliers and other evocative details, the overall feel is of a spacious, clean-lined, uncluttered living style that’s undeniably contemporary. The reclaimed ceiling timber of the home’s library and formal dining room is a bit of a departure into more extravagant rusticity.
Patios surround the house, with access granted frequently through fold-away steel-framed glass and French doors. A pool and cabana are positioned across the gardens.
Kovner’s net worth is estimated by Forbes at $6.6 billion.