What Will $195 Million Buy?

A gated 25-acre estate in Beverly Hills has come on the market at $195 million, making it the most expensive home to be publicly listed for sale in the U.S.

The seller is real estate entrepreneur Jeff Greene, who owns properties in Florida, New York and California.

The Mediterranean-style villa, called Palazzo di Amore, sits on a knoll behind three sets of gates. Reached by a quarter-mile-long tree-lined drive, the mansion is approached through a vineyard and has canyon and cityscape views. Inside, the two-story marble entry features two sweeping staircases.

Palazzo di Amore, evoking pure love with its 23 bathrooms, quarter-mile driveway, and rotating dance floor, sits on 25 acres just off Coldwater Canyon (I imagine along Mulholland). The Palace of Love includes a 35,000-square-foot main house with 12 bedrooms, a 3,000-bottle wine cellar and tasting room, a separate 10,000-bottle cellar, a kitchen with walk-in fridge, a staff wing, and a Turkish spa; a 15,000-square-foot entertainment center with bowling alley, 50-seat theater, “a dressing room for live stage shows,” and a disco/ballroom with “state-of-the-art laser light system and revolving dance floor.”

Out Front

The grand entrance

The theater

The back yard

The view on a hazy evening

Description and photos from Los Angeles Times and Curbed LA

Beverly Hills Paper Warns About ISIS Attack on Unbuilt LA Subway

As reported on the Curbed LA website (la.curbed.com). One comment on the story caught my eye. Now it’s not just NIMBY it’s NUMBY (not under my back yard). For those of you not familiar with Los Angeles and Beverly Hills there is no space between the two. You have to watch the signs carefully to know you have entered Beverly Hills.

Here’s how the lead story begins in this week’s Beverly Hills Courier (“the Newspaper of Record for the World of Beverly Hills”): “Add terrorism to the list of woes future Beverly Hills High School students may have to deal with if the L.A. Metropolitan Transportation Authority doesn’t shift course on plans to run two subway tunnels beneath the City’s only high school.” Terrorism was actually added to the “list of woes” years ago, when Beverly Hills first began its rabid and expensive campaign to kill the Purple Line subway project (or at least change its course so it wouldn’t run under Beverly Hills High School), but it became front page news for them again yesterday when Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told reporters that there was “an imminent ISIS plot against United States and Paris subways,” as CNN described it. “Imminent” means “happening soon.” Construction on the Purple Line Extension is just beginning and will not arrive in Beverly Hills for years; the portion of the subway running through Beverly Hills is set to open in 2026.

The Courier, a frequent ally of the Beverly Hills Unified School District and Beverly Hills City Council in the war against the Purple Line, goes on to misrepresent the facts regarding the safety of Metro’s planned subway route and to imply that the billion-dollar subway route has been shaped purely for the benefit of a single Century City developer. The school district has spent $3 million in school repair funds to fight the project; together with the city, four lawsuits have been filed to stop the train (with one already lost). The city also stalled on issuing permits for work on the first section of the Purple Line, which extends just to the city limits.

Anyway, now that you have the backstory, please enjoy some Hall-of-Fame-Level, completely hypothetical Thinking of the Children from BHUSD Superintendent Gary Woods: “The symbolic nature of a school holding our children, our hopes and dreams for the future, if that is attacked, in essence they’re attacking the core of our being, of our culture.”

And this logical gem from Board of Education President Noah Margo: “By [building a subway tunnel underneath BHHS], we may then be eligible to join an elite group of international cities with easily accessible targets that will result in larger catastrophes. In this case, our student population … In the mind of a terrorist, placing a subway directly under a high school is like pushing a baby stroller into rush hour traffic.” That’s Beverly Hills, vigilantly fighting to keep Los Angeles from the terrible fate of becoming an elite international city.

Valley Rail Coalition on Track

From the San Fernando Valley Business Journal

By Mark Madler Friday, August 1, 2014

A coalition formed to bring light rail projects to the San Fernando Valley has added a significant number of members, the Valley Industry and Commerce Association announced this week.

Joining the Valley on Track coalition formed by VICA are L.A. City Councilmembers Mitch Englander, Tom LaBonge and Nury Martinez; Assemblyman Matt Dababneh, D-Woodland Hills; Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles; and Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian, D-Van Nuys. Institutional members joining were the North Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Greater San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce.

L.A. City Councilman Bob Blumenfield and Assemblymember Raul Bocanegra, D-Pacoima, were the only listed supporters when VICA first announced the coalition in June.

“The high speed and ridership potential of light rail, and low cost compared to heavy rail, makes it the best option for the desperately traffic-burdened Valley,” said VICA Chairman Coby King, in a statement.

The group is lobbying for three light rail projects in the Valley: converting the Orange Line busway into a railway and developing two wholly new routes – an East San Fernando Valley Transit Corridor north-south from Sylmar to Van Nuys and a Sepulveda Pass Corridor that would link the Valley to the Westside via a tunnel under the Santa Monica Mountains.

West Coast’s Tallest Tower Finally Getting Sky-High View Deck

photo from LA Curbed

Arrow points to planned new observation deck

This will be great for business. Tourists will be flocking downtown.

The owners of the 72-story US Bank Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast (for now), will open up a public viewing deck like a real Empire-State-building-style tourist trap. The building is 310.3 m (1,018 ft). Top floor, 294.92 m (967.6 ft). Maybe next they’ll light the Hollywood Sign! The 1989 building, formerly known as the Library Tower, will stay an office building, but get a new observation area on the sixty-ninth and seventieth floors, which will be connected by a new stairway; existing terraces on the sixty-ninth will be opened up as well, reports the LA Times. Meanwhile, the seventy-first floor, which has 18-foot ceilings and 360-degree views of Los Angeles, will get a new restaurant.

Plus new entry for tourists and a very high price. >>

US Bank visitors will enter through a new second-floor portal with upgraded elevators and newish owners Overseas Union Enterprise Ltd. will also give the US Bank sign a “modernization” and add a curb cut at the Fifth Street entrance for passenger loading and unloading. Local mega-firm Gensler will design all of the changes.

Tourist traps do not come cheap: OUE will charge $25 a head, but thinks it can pull in half a million visitors a year. Broker/blogger Brigham Yen found that pricing is in the range for similar attractions: Chicago’s Willis Tower costs $19, the Empire State Building is $29 to the eighty-sixth floor. CN Tower in Toronto Canada costs $28.80 – LookOut Level at 346 m (1,136 ft.).

Not too far away from the US Bank building, however, the Wilshire Grand hotel/office building is under construction and set to be the new tallest tower in the West when it’s finished in 2017. It will have an observation deck, infinity pool, and restaurant on its roof, which according to Yen will still be lower than the US Bank Tower’s new deck.

source http://la.curbed.com US Bank Bldg from 5th and Fig

my photo taken with Panasonic FZ150

US Bank Tower 633 W. Fifth St., Los Angeles, California

What’s Wrong with Los Angeles?

The answer is simple. Our elected officials take no chances. Their primary objective is re-election.The majority of electorate doesn’t care who holds office as long as it is a Democrat. Thus the city and county continue down the same beaten path. I am not alone in my opinion.

The mayor started his administration with a bang by discharging department heads that did not meet his performance expectations. More here.

Los Angeles Union Station Reaches 75

It was August 1948 when I arrived in Los Angeles. My first view of this city was the parking lot lined with the tall Mexican Fan Palm trees. Thousands celebrated the 75^th anniversary of the iconic Union Station in L.A yesterday. I was there once again.

It’s not the most beautiful building but for many it evokes memories. If nothing else the anniversary celebration provoked a cleaning and polishing of the facility. Recent add-ons to the station have made it a far more attractive site.

Public transportation has received a very big boost in Los Angeles over the past 20 years. This facility has become a significant transit center for that development. Freeways have not provided the transit solution that many believed would be the future for this metropolitan area.

More photos on Los Angeles Photo Gallery link.

Another Los Angeles Earthquake

The Southern California Earthquake Data Center (SCEDC) operates at the Seismological Laboratory at Caltech and is the primary archive of seismological data for southern California. They list 233 significant faults in this area. The Puente Hills fault is not listed. How many more faults are not identified? Obviously no one knows.

The Los Angeles metropolitan area is built on an active earthquake zone. I live in the west end of the San Fernando Valley. A distance of about 55 miles (Yes, Los Angeles Metro area is even bigger than that!) The 5.1 quake in La Habra resulted in a two to three second jerk motion at my home. If you were in motion you most likely did not even notice the movement. ABC television network news gave the impression that the entire city was impacted. That is an incorrect report.

Are earthquakes frightening? YES. Are earthquakes memorable? Rarely.

Los Angeles – It’s A Time For Truth

Year by year, Los Angeles, which “once was a beacon of innovation and opportunity to the world” has become a city of despair. Poverty now dominates all other issues. A lack of decent jobs, poor schools, and overwhelming congestion are a daily fact of life.

Early in 2013 Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson asked Mickey Kantor to establish an independent, private commission to study and report on fiscal stability and job growth in Los Angeles. (Former) Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also endorsed the establishment of the Commission.”

Following is part of the initial report. A link at the bottom of this post takes you to a PDF for the complete report.

A TIME FOR TRUTH

Los Angeles is barely treading water while the rest of the world is moving forward. We risk falling further behind in adapting to the realities of the 21st century and becoming a City in decline.

For too many years we have failed to cultivate and build on our human and economic strengths, while evading the hard choices concerning local government and municipal finance presented by this new century. Like the hapless Mr. Micawber in Dickens’ “David Copperfield,” our wishful response to continued economic decline and impending fiscal crisis has become a habitual: “Something, my dear Copperfield, will turn up.”

The City where the future once came to happen has been living in the past and leaving tomorrow to sort itself out.

As a consequence, Los Angeles is sinking into a future in which it no longer can provide the public services to which our people’s taxes entitle them and where the promises made to public employees about a decent and secure retirement simply cannot be kept.

City revenues are in long-term stagnation and expenses are climbing.

Link