One Of The Largest Homes In The D.C. Area—Neighboring Many Of Washington’s Inner Circle—Sells For Record $45 Million

This morning tens of thousands of commuters heading into the nation’s capital from northern Virginia are going to drive right past the latest highest-priced home sale for the entire D.C. area. Two adjacent homes belonging to the estate of AOL cofounder James Kimsey—one of which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1950s—sold for a combined $45 million as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The properties initially listed for $75 million, then $62.95 million, starting several years ago.

Kimsey, who died of melanoma in 2016 at the age of 76, bought into a street where some of the most elite members of D.C.’s inner circles have lived. Decades earlier Senator Edward Kennedy owned a house just a few doors down. Multiple members of royalty from several Middle Eastern countries own at least half a dozen homes on this street or very close by. The current home of former Vice President Dick Cheney is within a ten-minute drive and former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Alexander Haig also had homes within the same small radius. When Kimsey was dating Queen Noor, she rented a home about two streets away also overlooking the Potomac River. (That home sold for $11 million about ten years ago and in developer circles was also considered an ambitious sale for its small enclave at the time.)

Also not far away is the home that previously held the local price record, a $43 million estate sold by another AOL cofounder, Steve Case and his wife Jean. (It had been listed for $49.5 million.) That home, with a 23,000-square-foot main house called Merrywood, had been where Jackie Onassis spent some of her teenage years when her mother was married to Hugh Auchinloss, heir to the Standard Oil fortune.

Kimsey had a nine-bedroom, 20-bathroom house measuring nearly 50,000 square feet of living space built on the first parcel he purchased (both parcels combine to over three acres of land). The home was designed to entertain both large and small crowds, with four different kitchens, one of which has direct access to a loading dock for deliveries. The wing for the master bedroom comes with a steam and dry sauna, jacuzzi, private kitchen, exercise and massage room. A 30-car garage, infinity pool, tennis court and guard house make up the outdoor amenities.

Kimsey bought the first parcel for $7.6 million in 1999 and didn’t know that the dilapidated home right next door had been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright—or that he would end up purchasing the Wright house for about $2.5 million and embark on an extensive restoration process.

As he told the Washington Post in 2005, the state of the interior was so far gone that even the cushions, which had been custom designed to fit Wright’s built-in furniture, had become infested with mice. Kimsey spent about another $1 million in restoration efforts for the home, more commonly referred to as the Marden House since it was commissioned by National Geographic photographer and explorer Luis Marden and his wife Ethel.

The Mardens had the 2,500-square-foot home built in the late 1950s for a cost of about $76,000. Per Wright’s signature style the concrete home blends in seamlessly with the surroundings. In this case it is the clifftop views over the cascading Potomac River that inspired the design, even down to the detail of a roof profile that follows the curved shaped similar to that of a fish.

The rear of the main house is nearly floor-to-ceiling windows to take advantage of the views over the river. A double-height living room uses wide wood beams to frame the views and create a visual transition between the contemporary feel of a full wall of glass and the rustic views of the woods outside.

The sale was represented by Mark Lowham and Russell Firestone III of Sotheby’s International Realty. No details about the buyer have been released.

This post first appeared on Forbes.com. To see the original, click here.