Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Real Estate Tycoon Donald Abbey Lists Bradbury Behemoth With Beastly $78,000,000 Price Tag

SELLER: Donald Abbey
LOCATION: Bradbury, CA
PRICE: $78,800,000
SIZE: 47,182 square feet (total), 5 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The 90210—that's Beverly Hills butter beans—may get heaps of press and glory as one of Southern California's most expensive and exclusive communities but it's the much lesser known 91008 community of Bradbury where some of the country's most expensive properties are bought and sold.

Believe it or not my little ponies but itty-bitty Bradbury, nestled into the rolling foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains a bit east of Pasadena and surrounded by far less affluent communities that include Duarte, Monrovia, and Azusa, is consistently ranked by the fine folks at Forbes as among the most expensive zip codes in all of the U-nited States of America. Although we did not spot the 91008 among the top 50 most expensive zips in the list compiled by Forbes for 2011, in 2009 Bradbury came in at #4 with a median home price of $3,44,773 and in 2010 the zip code ranked in at the #1 spot in 2010 with a staggering median home price of  $4,276,462.

Earlier today, thanks to The Bradbury Barker Your Mama learned what is easily Bradbury's largest and most lavish estate, built over the last 8 years by a real estate tycoon named Donald Abbey, hit the market to screams of flabbergast and a crash of cymbals with an whopping $78,000,000 price tag. No, puppies, Your Mama did not drunkenly add an extra zero. Mister Abbey's palatial pile actually carries a price tag of more than seventy-eight million bucks.


Let's run this opulent beast by the numbers and otherwise let the listing photographs speak for themselves: somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 landscaped acres; a 600-foot long gated driveway and double circular drive; Three-story, approximately 32,000 square foot mega-mansion main house with two-story library, behemoth reception hall/ballroom with 40-foot ceiling and built-in bar, and a colossal kitchen with copper range and barrel vaulted ceiling (that is perhaps lined with copper sheeting).

Listing information shows there are five bedrooms including two titanic master suites in the main house, one completely swaddled in a rather disturbing green (or maybe it's blue) stained wood paneling and the other with a gargantuan rotunda ceiling with trompe l'oeil architectural detailing and hand-painted frescos.

Other features of Mister Abbey's great estate in Bradbury include a 2,000 bottle wine cellar; six fireplaces; 3D theater and poker lounge; 10 car garage, a cross-shaped infinity-edged swimming pool (that may or may not be meant to make some sort of religious statement) and party-sized 15-person spa; sprawling house with lavish lounge, fitness and spa facilities; guest house, tennis court, temperature controlled trout pond with two-story waterfall, and a subterranean firing range.

And, let's not forget, a jaw-dropping price tag of $78,800,000, a number that may or may not be realistic—we don't know—but certainly guarantees to set all the property gossips tongues a-waggin'.

For the full photographic monty, listing agent Bob Hurwitz at the Hurwitz James Company set up a virtual tour sure to delight and/or mortify anyone interested the real estate affliction known in Your Mama's circle as Real Estate Size Queenery.

listing photos: Hurwitz James Company