The house seems so luxurious, I really liked it!"“I’m finally not putting up with [paying] 60% to 70% of my gross to the government,” says Simmons. “I am going to a much more welcoming state where there is no income tax, no local and state taxes. Federal taxes are enough.”
___________________________________________________________________
Rock Legend Gene Simmons Kisses His California Estate And High Taxes Goodbye
KISS bassist Gene Simmons lists his beloved 16,000-square-foot California estate for $22 million.
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
Hall of Fame rocker Gene Simmons is kissing his sentimental home of 36 years goodbye. The tongue-taunting, fire-breathing KISS bassist is unloading his palatial Benedict Canyon estate with a catch—a $22 million ask price and a personal meeting with the next owner to ensure his homestead is left in good hands.
Purchased in 1984, Simmons fully renovated the residence in 2000 by leveling the grade and importing ... [+]
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
Simmons won’t just sell to anyone. His majestic Beverly Hills-area mansion represents a life well lived, and loved. He’ll leave behind fond family memories and a part of himself. So unlike most celebrities who fade into the background during a sale, Simmons will be intimately involved—approving the beneficiary of his precious memories.
The 16,000-square-foot estate includes a backyard pool and spa.
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
“This is the place [where] our kids Nick and Sophie were born and grew up,” says Simmons. “This is where we filmed our reality show, Gene Simmons Family Jewels. It’s difficult to think of it any other way—home. Which is why, I am insisting on meeting the family who wants to buy it. We need to be okay emotionally, with passing our home to someone else. It will always be our home.”
Interiors include a domed entry foyer, grand staircase and 40-foot-high great room
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
That sentiment can’t be measured by six zeroes on a certified check. But like he implied in 1997’s “Childhood’s End”, loss is hard but a memory lasts a lifetime. Simmons, 71, purchased the 1.84-acre hilltop property in 1984 and resided there with his actress-model partner Shannon Tweed and his kids.
KISS rocker Gene Simmons (second right) with son Nick, partner Shannon Tweed and daughter Sophie at ... [+]
PA Images via Getty Images
Originally, it was a 3,500-square-foot hillside farmhouse made of wood. Simmons’ five-year, $11 million overhaul flattened the hillside, transplanted trees from Northern California, and dramatically transformed the estate into a level, secluded 16,000-square-foot compound.
Great room
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
“I bought it from a previous couple who had lived there for many years,” says Simmons. “Then I found out the previous owner was a gentleman named Irving Azoff, one of the most prominent music managers. He continues to manage the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and others. I’m told the Eagles were put together on the property.” Better here than on a dark desert highway.
Balcony overlook
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
Like Simmons, the 16,000-square-foot majestic estate rocks—offering seven bedrooms, a 60-foot pool, 35-car parking, a regulation tennis court, and 40-foot-great room. Douglas Elliman’s Josh and Matt Altman have the listing.
Family room with fireplace and meticulous ceiling detail
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
A winding driveway serpentines toward the estate’s striking façade—framed by privatizing trees, the large car courtyard, exterior double-grand staircases, viewing terraces, and triple-height windows above triple wood-door garages.
Large island kitchen with built-in cabinets
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
French doors and windows frame the domed entry and grand staircase which leads to a soaring, light-filled great room with balcony overlooks. A fireplace family room with built-ins and meticulous ceilings sits adjacent to a large island kitchen and formal chandelier dining room. Tasteful bedrooms feature chandeliers dangling from double-height ceilings.
Formal dining room
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
The residence displays the softer side of Simmons, who apparently has impeccable taste. Simmons has headlined KISS with bandmates Paul Stanley, Ace Freely and Peter Criss (among others), since the mid-1970s.
Gene Simmons of Kiss performs at Tons Of Rock festival in Oslo, Norway. (Rune Hellestad - ... [+]
Corbis via Getty Images
Disguised by glam makeup, macabre costumes, and hard rock alter egos, they charted with “Beth”, “Black Diamond”, and the smash hit “Rock and Roll All Nite.” During their decade-long unmasked era, the band scored again with hits “Lick It Up” and “Heaven’s on Fire,” before induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.
The 1.84-acre property includes a serpentine driveway, large car park, pool and tennis court.
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
Why move now? Simmons picks a bass guitar but the outspoken musician is emphatically finished taking licks from California’s excessive taxes, which left him “Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell.”
Tasteful bedroom with high ceiling and chandelier
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
A band of rebellious intellectuals will only take so much sh*t, especially this one. So Simmons is relocating, trading sun for the overcast, low-tax northwest. He’s moving to a 24-acre estate in Washington state, in the shadow of gorgeous Mount Rainier.
The residence has seven bedrooms
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
“I’m finally not putting up with [paying] 60% to 70% of my gross to the government,” says Simmons. “I am going to a much more welcoming state where there is no income tax, no local and state taxes. Federal taxes are enough.”
Simmons leaves behind 36 years of memories as he relocates to Washington state.
CS8 Photo - Christopher Amitrano
In Washington, Simmons will bank the fond California memories and the extra cash—”Come Hell or High Water.”
Home of the Week
- Thread starter elderado
- Start date
This apparently just went into contract.
Why it came up on my news scanner is anybody's guess.
Guy that built it did well though.
New beachfront ‘spec’ house priced at $140 million, a record in Palm Beach
New house at 535 N. County Road stands on land President Donald Trump once sold to a Russian billionaire, who no longer owns it.
Darrell Hofheinz
Palm Beach Daily News
Palm Beach has just seen a new record set — at $140 million — for the asking price of a mansion marketed through the island's multiple listing service.
The listing for the just-completed contemporary-style beachfront residence at 535 N. County Road went public in the MLS on Friday. The price includes the furnishings.
Facing 150 feet of shoreline, the mansion was developed on speculation on 2 acres on the North End. The lot was one of three carved from a larger estate that President Donald Trump sold in 2008 — six years before his election — for $95 million, the price recorded in courthouse records.
An ownership entity linked to developer Mark Pulte of Mark Timothy Inc. paid a recorded $37 million for the lot at No. 525 in 2018 and built the just-listed house. Real estate broker Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates, who holds the listing, also has an “investment interest” in the property, according to the local multiple listing service.
The house and its separate guest house have a total of nine bedrooms and 21,066 square feet of living space, inside and out, of which 15,350 is under air conditioning, the listing shows. Just south of the estate owned by billionaire Nelson Peltz, the property lies on a stretch of beachfront sometimes called the North End’s Billionaires Row.
A trust associated with Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev bought the property from Trump and in 2016 razed a mansion there to subdivide the land. Rybolovlev sold the lot at No. 535 in April 2018 to the developers of the new house. The parcel was the second of three adjacent vacant lots the Russian ultimately sold for a combined $108.74 million, according to property records
>>FROM THE ARCHIVES: Palm Beach board OKs houses, including one for former Trump property.
Designed by architect William M. Boyle of Boyle Architecture, the new house’s exteiror features crisp lines, a white-stucco exterior, coral Key stone details and large expanses of glass. The east side of the two-story main residence if roughly L-shaped, with many of the rooms facing an expansive oceanfront swimming pool.
Overlooking the pool and ocean, the master bedroom’s second-floor terrace — with a glass-railed balcony — has an outdoor fireplace with a television above it, photographs show. The separate one-story guesthouse on the west side of the property has its own pool.
>>MORE: Trump’s former estate: The story behind the $95-million mansion tear-down
Generously proportioned rooms have floors and columns of polished stone in some areas, and paneled columns and hardwood floors in others. Some ceilings are covered in wood, including those in the poolside lounge and loggia.
On the ground floor of the main house, the formal living room features an oversize fish tank near the staircase. A club room with a pool table is open to a sunken media room, while a prominent bar fashioned of stone is adjacent to a lounge area. The layout also includes a family room and formal dining room, along with an gym area with a sauna and hair salon.
Marc-Michaels Interior Design of Winter Park and Boca Raton decorated the house
>>MORE: Palm Beach lot with Trump history sells for $37 million at 535 N. County Road
Moens handled both sides of the 2018 lot sale, just as he did when the two adjacent lots sold. The southernmost lot at 515 N. County Road fetched a recorded $34.35 million in November 2016, a few months after the land was cleared, and is today the site of a custom home finishing construction. The center lot at No. 525 changed hands for a recorded $37.29 million in July 2019.
Moens also represented Trump in the 2008 sale, opposite agent Carol Digges of Brown Harris Stevens, who represented Rybolovlev.
Moens, who couldn’t be reached, has consistently declined to discuss the three lots or any of the parties who bought them. A spokesman for Rybolovlev also previously declined to comment about the lots. Pulte also couldn’t be reached.
Trump bought the 6.26-acre estate in 2004 from the late nursing-home magnate Abe Gosman for $41.4 million at a bankruptcy auction and then carried out renovations. He initially set a price of $125 million for the property, although an online search of MLS records does not show that the property was ever listed.
The second-most-expensive price for a Palm Beach residential property in the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing was entered in 2017 at $115 million for 1500 S. Ocean Blvd., when the landmarked estate was owned by Internet pioneer Jim Clark. But that 5.5-acre ocean-to-lake estate at 1500 S. Ocean Blvd. had been marketed outside the MLS for $137 million beginning in August 2016 by Sotheby’s International Realty. Il Palmetto today is home to Leo and Kathryn Vecellio.
Pulte’s Boca Raton company has been involved in the development of several other Palm Beach spec houses, including a lakeside residence at 446 N. Lake Way, which sold in April for a recorded $33.2 million to an entity controlled by New York Jets owner Woody Johnson. Moens had the listing, and agent Jim McCann of Premier Estate Properties was on the buyer's side of that deal.
Pulte also built an oceanfront house at 6 Ocean Lane that sold furnished for $36 million in September 2016 to the late Fox News chief Roger Ailes. Agent Susan Turner of Waterfront Properties and Club Communities in Jupiter represented the buyer in that deal opposite Moens as listing agent.
Other Palm Beach houses built by Pulte’s company include a lakeside house at 1330 S. Ocean Blvd., which sold furnished for $31.59 million in April 2017, with Moens representing the seller and broker Linda Gary of Linda A. Gary Real Estate acting for the buyer. The Pulte-built house next door at 1340 S. Ocean Blvd. sold in July 2018 for $32.496 million. Moens had the listing, and agents Dana Koch and Paulette Koch ofthe Corcoran Group handled the buyer’s side.
Why it came up on my news scanner is anybody's guess.
Guy that built it did well though.
New beachfront ‘spec’ house priced at $140 million, a record in Palm Beach
New house at 535 N. County Road stands on land President Donald Trump once sold to a Russian billionaire, who no longer owns it.
Darrell Hofheinz
Palm Beach Daily News
Palm Beach has just seen a new record set — at $140 million — for the asking price of a mansion marketed through the island's multiple listing service.
The listing for the just-completed contemporary-style beachfront residence at 535 N. County Road went public in the MLS on Friday. The price includes the furnishings.
Facing 150 feet of shoreline, the mansion was developed on speculation on 2 acres on the North End. The lot was one of three carved from a larger estate that President Donald Trump sold in 2008 — six years before his election — for $95 million, the price recorded in courthouse records.
An ownership entity linked to developer Mark Pulte of Mark Timothy Inc. paid a recorded $37 million for the lot at No. 525 in 2018 and built the just-listed house. Real estate broker Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates, who holds the listing, also has an “investment interest” in the property, according to the local multiple listing service.
The house and its separate guest house have a total of nine bedrooms and 21,066 square feet of living space, inside and out, of which 15,350 is under air conditioning, the listing shows. Just south of the estate owned by billionaire Nelson Peltz, the property lies on a stretch of beachfront sometimes called the North End’s Billionaires Row.
A trust associated with Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev bought the property from Trump and in 2016 razed a mansion there to subdivide the land. Rybolovlev sold the lot at No. 535 in April 2018 to the developers of the new house. The parcel was the second of three adjacent vacant lots the Russian ultimately sold for a combined $108.74 million, according to property records
>>FROM THE ARCHIVES: Palm Beach board OKs houses, including one for former Trump property.
Designed by architect William M. Boyle of Boyle Architecture, the new house’s exteiror features crisp lines, a white-stucco exterior, coral Key stone details and large expanses of glass. The east side of the two-story main residence if roughly L-shaped, with many of the rooms facing an expansive oceanfront swimming pool.
Overlooking the pool and ocean, the master bedroom’s second-floor terrace — with a glass-railed balcony — has an outdoor fireplace with a television above it, photographs show. The separate one-story guesthouse on the west side of the property has its own pool.
>>MORE: Trump’s former estate: The story behind the $95-million mansion tear-down
Generously proportioned rooms have floors and columns of polished stone in some areas, and paneled columns and hardwood floors in others. Some ceilings are covered in wood, including those in the poolside lounge and loggia.
On the ground floor of the main house, the formal living room features an oversize fish tank near the staircase. A club room with a pool table is open to a sunken media room, while a prominent bar fashioned of stone is adjacent to a lounge area. The layout also includes a family room and formal dining room, along with an gym area with a sauna and hair salon.
Marc-Michaels Interior Design of Winter Park and Boca Raton decorated the house
>>MORE: Palm Beach lot with Trump history sells for $37 million at 535 N. County Road
Moens handled both sides of the 2018 lot sale, just as he did when the two adjacent lots sold. The southernmost lot at 515 N. County Road fetched a recorded $34.35 million in November 2016, a few months after the land was cleared, and is today the site of a custom home finishing construction. The center lot at No. 525 changed hands for a recorded $37.29 million in July 2019.
Moens also represented Trump in the 2008 sale, opposite agent Carol Digges of Brown Harris Stevens, who represented Rybolovlev.
Moens, who couldn’t be reached, has consistently declined to discuss the three lots or any of the parties who bought them. A spokesman for Rybolovlev also previously declined to comment about the lots. Pulte also couldn’t be reached.
Trump bought the 6.26-acre estate in 2004 from the late nursing-home magnate Abe Gosman for $41.4 million at a bankruptcy auction and then carried out renovations. He initially set a price of $125 million for the property, although an online search of MLS records does not show that the property was ever listed.
The second-most-expensive price for a Palm Beach residential property in the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing was entered in 2017 at $115 million for 1500 S. Ocean Blvd., when the landmarked estate was owned by Internet pioneer Jim Clark. But that 5.5-acre ocean-to-lake estate at 1500 S. Ocean Blvd. had been marketed outside the MLS for $137 million beginning in August 2016 by Sotheby’s International Realty. Il Palmetto today is home to Leo and Kathryn Vecellio.
Pulte’s Boca Raton company has been involved in the development of several other Palm Beach spec houses, including a lakeside residence at 446 N. Lake Way, which sold in April for a recorded $33.2 million to an entity controlled by New York Jets owner Woody Johnson. Moens had the listing, and agent Jim McCann of Premier Estate Properties was on the buyer's side of that deal.
Pulte also built an oceanfront house at 6 Ocean Lane that sold furnished for $36 million in September 2016 to the late Fox News chief Roger Ailes. Agent Susan Turner of Waterfront Properties and Club Communities in Jupiter represented the buyer in that deal opposite Moens as listing agent.
Other Palm Beach houses built by Pulte’s company include a lakeside house at 1330 S. Ocean Blvd., which sold furnished for $31.59 million in April 2017, with Moens representing the seller and broker Linda Gary of Linda A. Gary Real Estate acting for the buyer. The Pulte-built house next door at 1340 S. Ocean Blvd. sold in July 2018 for $32.496 million. Moens had the listing, and agents Dana Koch and Paulette Koch ofthe Corcoran Group handled the buyer’s side.
I was always surprised by large-scale projects. People say this mansion is being marketed as a luxury individual home. Although it looks more like an integrated hotel complex. Have you noticed this photo?
This is not the only pool. Any homeowner knows that too much open space for water is very inconvenient to clean. This may not worry only billionaires and commercial property owners. But I myself am not ready to hire special staff to care for the pools on a permanent basis)) I am using the lightweight version for quick cleaning (gadgets), look at this article. It is more environmentally friendly, does not take much time, and has eliminated chlorine.
P.S. By the way, if we talk about individual projects, then there are a lot of examples of smart construction. When comfort comes first, rather than an exponential luxury. I like Bill Gates' house (for example)
The homes they buy in Florida are probably 1 of many homes that they already own.
How many does Oprah own, 6, 7 ?
I try to limit my mansion ownership to one per major metropolitan area. It's all about the restraint.
