Gary Friedman, chief executive of the high-end furniture retailer RH, just quietly sold his half-built home in Beverly Crest for $24 million.
The off-market deal highlights the skyrocketing value of land in affluent pockets of L.A. since the pandemic. Records show Friedman bought the property in its half-finished state for $15 million in 2019, so the sale brings a profit of $9 million.
Even in its unlivable state, it’s no surprise the property fetched such a fortune. It sits at the end of a cul-de-sac and spans 2.8 acres — a rare amount of land for the neighborhood.
For reference, of the 105 properties currently on the market in Beverly Crest, only 15 include more than two acres. Of those, 14 cost more than $20 million.
The house was originally built in 2013 by Marmol Radziner, an L.A.-based architecture firm known for its contemporary designs and restoration work, including the 2007 restoration of Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann Desert House in Palm Springs.
The mansion spans four stories and takes in views from Downtown L.A. to the ocean. Its sleek, sharp exterior is still intact, but the living spaces have been hollowed out and boarded up. It was being marketed as either a tear-down or renovation project.
Friedman serves as CEO and chairman of RH, which was previously known as Restoration Hardware. The California-based company had $3.76 billion in revenue last year, and Forbes puts Friedman’s net worth at $2.2 billion.
Weston Littlefield and Alex Howe of the Aaron Kirman Group at Compass held the listing. Littlefield also represented the buyer.