Peter Thiel buys Bel-Air’s Casa Encantada for $130 million, about half its $250 million ask: what this foreclosure deal could mean for luxury home prices in Los Angeles
A mansion once listed at $250 million has sold for $130 million. Billionaire Peter Thiel bought Casa Encantada, a 40,000-square-foot Bel-Air estate, at a foreclosure auction in Pomona in July. The Wall Street Journal first reported the sale. Thiel...
Peter Thiel buys $130 million Bel-Air mansion after years of debt and failed sales
Tech billionaire Peter Thiel has bought Casa Encantada, one of the best-known mansions in Los Angeles, for $130 million. The Wall Street Journal first reported the sale. A company linked to Thiel won the estate at a foreclosure auction in July, and the buyer’s name had stayed secret until now. Thiel is the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir.
Thiel won Casa Encantada at a low-key auction in Pomona
The sale was not held in a grand hall. It took place in the open, next to a fountain at Pomona’s Civic Center Plaza. Thiel bought the house through a limited liability company. The venue has handled big deals before. A Beverly Hills plot listed at $1 billion once sold there for just $100,000.
The auction was the result of unpaid debt. The estate was pledged against a loan from CIM, and the debt had grown beyond $150 million. CIM ordered the mansion and a Winnick family home in Malibu to be sold. An auction planned for December 2025 was stopped at the last minute. The sale went ahead in July. Local agents were surprised by the foreclosure, given the Winnicks’ widely reported wealth.
<p>Peter Thiel’s $130 million Casa Encantada buy may show where ultra-luxury home prices in Bel-Air are heading next (Image: Yahoo News)<br></p>
How the price fell from $250 million to $130 million
The gap between the asking price and the final price is large. Businessman Gary Winnick wanted $225 million for the house in 2019 and $250 million in 2023. At that point, it was the most expensive home on sale in America. It was listed in June 2023, five months before Winnick died.
The price kept coming down after that. His family relisted the house at $170 million in April, and it went to auction three months later. Thiel’s $130 million is $40 million below that last asking price and about half of the 2023 figure. Still, it counts among the priciest home sales ever in Los Angeles.
The estate was built in the 1930s. It has seven bedrooms, a swimming pool and a tennis pavilion. It covers 8.4 acres and overlooks the Bel-Air Country Club. The house has a long list of owners and records. Hotelier Conrad Hilton bought it in 1950. David Murdock set a national record in 1980 when he paid $12.4 million. Winnick set another record in 2000 by paying $94 million. He and his wife Karen then spent more than two years renovating it, with interiors by designer Peter Marino.
Thiel is not expected to move in. A person familiar with the matter told the Journal that he does not plan to live there. He sees it as an investment and will renovate it. The same person said he shifted his main home from California to Miami late last year. He also owns property in Florida, Washington D.C., Hawaii, New Zealand and Argentina.
No public detail is available yet on the renovation budget or on what Thiel plans to do with the house once the work is done.
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