The most expensive mansion in Beverley Hills (reputedly) glitters with glass atop a cascading hillside of manicured terraced lawns — its projected price tag is around US$45 million plus.
According to court depositions, however, a recent Arab guest at the property was unimpressed by a temporary lack of hot water in the Palumbo designed futurist fantasy, which has sparked a revealing row about its ownership.
When the house changed hands last year (following a total rebuild by top designer Michael Palumbo) the cash buyer was announced to have been a British born ‘nightclub mogul’ named Neil Moffitt. However, this was questioned.
Commentators at the time referred to raised eyebrows that even a man with the reported income of Mr Moffitt (it had just been announced he had sold his company Angel Management to the Hakkasan nightclub chain for some US$100 million) could have afforded such an expensive property.
After all, this was pretty much at the same time as he was also being identified as the buyer of yet another record breaking purchase, a US$50 million penthouse flat (now up for re-sale for US$70 million) in the Walker Building in New York.