MacKenzie Scott donated two Beverly Hills homes she bought with ex-husband Jeff Bezos; the $55 million gift helped fund affordable housing in Los Angeles

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott turned two luxury Beverly Hills homes worth about $55 million into a major affordable housing donation in Los Angeles.

Scott, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, donated the two properties to the California Community Foundation (CCF) in 2022. Instead of keeping the homes as private residences, the foundation planned to sell them and use most of the proceeds for affordable housing across Los Angeles County.

The two residences, valued together at roughly $55 million, had once been part of Scott and Bezos' private real estate holdings. Their value was later redirected toward people facing a very different housing reality in Los Angeles.

The two Beverly Hills homes had once been private estates

Scott and Bezos acquired the first property in 2007 for about $24.4 million, according to The New York Post. The Spanish-style villa had seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms.

A decade later, in 2017, they purchased another home on the same street for $12.9 million. The second property measured about 4,500 square feet.

When Scott donated the residences to CCF, the foundation valued the pair at around $55 million.

The plan was to sell both properties rather than convert them into affordable housing. About 90% of the eventual proceeds were earmarked for CCF's affordable housing grantmaking, while the remaining amount was intended to support programs helping immigrants settle and build opportunities in Los Angeles County.

The $55 million gift came as Los Angeles faced a housing shortage

The donation came as Los Angeles continued to struggle with a shortage of affordable homes.

CCF had already been supporting housing initiatives in the region for years. Since 2000, the foundation had awarded more than $30 million toward efforts aimed at helping Angelenos find safe and stable housing.

The foundation had also supported Proposition HHH, a Los Angeles initiative designed to finance 10,000 new housing units.

By the time of Scott's donation, 10,510 units across 178 projects had been funded, putting the city beyond its original target.

Scott had previously given $20 million to the foundation

The Beverly Hills properties were not Scott's first major gift to CCF.

In 2021, she donated $20 million to establish the LA Arts Endowment Fund, supporting small and mid-sized arts organisations across Los Angeles.

The later real estate donation shifted the focus to housing, while following a similar approach: giving the foundation substantial resources that it could distribute through its own grantmaking rather than restricting the money to a single organisation or project.

From luxury real estate to affordable housing

The striking part of the donation was not simply the $55 million valuation of the two homes, but what happened to that value afterward.

Properties that had once represented some of the most expensive private real estate in Los Angeles were converted into funding for organisations working on affordable housing and immigrant support.

For CCF, the donation provided another substantial pool of resources for its grantmaking. For Scott, it became another major contribution during a period when her philanthropic giving expanded rapidly following her divorce from Bezos.