After a half-decade of criminal charges and court battles, the half-finished mega-mansion of developer Mohamed Hadid has sold at auction for $5 million. Next, it will be destroyed.
Hadid, a reality TV regular and father to models Bella and Gigi, bought the property in 2011 and quickly got to work cramming a 30,000-square-foot house onto the 1.22-acre lot, which was both bigger and taller than city rules allowed. At the time, he claimed the house would last forever.
Bel-Air neighbors feared the code-violating estate would slide down the hill and crush the homes below and took him to court, where an L.A. County judge declared the hulking structure a “danger to the public” and ordered it to be torn down.
After a failed attempt to stop the destruction by declaring bankruptcy, the company tied to Hadid was eventually forced to put it on the market for $8.5 million. With no takers, the price was eventually lowered to $5.5 million before it was auctioned off for $5 million by Premiere Estates Auction Co.
Mohamed Hadid’s 30,000-square-foot mansion in Bel-Air.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Records show the buyer is Sahara Construction Co. Proceeds from the sale were originally supposed to fund the property’s demolition, but because the winning bid came in short of the listing price, Sahara agreed to foot the bill.
Todd Wohl, co-founder of Premiere Estates, estimated a complete tear-down will take four months.
Dubbed “the Starship Enterprise” by disgruntled neighbors, the four-story mansion features a curved exterior that swoops across the steep hillside lot. Hadid’s original plans called for a 70-seat IMAX theater and huge wine cellar, as well as a series of bedrooms and decks that were never approved by the city.
The FBI has looked into possible wrongdoing by a city inspector who received “items of value” in connection with his work at the Bel-Air site, according to a city investigator who testified in a 2018 civil case.
A year later, after the home was ordered to be torn down, Hadid’s lawyer claimed he couldn’t afford a $500,000 fee tied to the home’s demolition. Earlier this year, he listed an 80,000-square-foot compound on 38 acres in Beverly Hills for $250 million.