In 1998, Armenian-American businessman Kirk Kerkorian, father of the modern Las Vegas megaresort, bought a 1.3-acre lot on North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills for $4 million. He built a roughly 9,700-square-foot Mediterranean-style villa behind two gates, with a home theater, an elevator, two master suites, and a tennis court out back. According to the Los Angeles Times, the estate sold for $19 million seventeen years later.
That’s a $15 million gap between purchase price and sale price, though it isn’t quite the same as $15 million in pure profit, since it doesn’t account for what it cost to actually build a 9,700-square-foot villa from scratch, plus permitting, upkeep, and taxes over 17 years. Still, it’s a notable gain on the underlying real estate, and it’s a story with a strange twist: the house didn’t survive long enough to see its new owner move in.
