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The Beverly Hills, CA, mansion where the Menéndez brothers infamously murdered their parents with a shotgun in 1989 has found a buyer for $17 million—exactly 28 years to the day after a jury convicted them.
The sale of the seven-bedroom, 9,063-square-foot, Mediterranean-style villa on Elm Drive closed Wednesday, listing agent Amy Vertun, of Rodeo Realty, told Realtor.com.
The home in the elite 90210 ZIP code had been listed for $19,999,500. Details about the buyer were not immediately clear. The seller, telecommunications executive Sam Delug, had owned the house since 2001, when he purchased it for $3.7 million.
Forensic appraiser Orell Anderson, the president of Strategic Property Analytics, estimates that the mansion’s $17 million sale price is roughly 25% below prevailing market values.
Typically, homes where highly publicized murders have occurred sell at a discount, as many prospective buyers are uneasy about living in these properties. The discounts can range from 10% to 15% for violent crimes that receive only local news coverage, or even more for nationally-publicized murders, according to Anderson.
“It really is the bad voodoo that comes in when buying a house to live in with your family, that can creep out people,” Anderson tells Realtor.com of the typical discount on murder homes, also known as stigmatized properties. “There tends to almost always be a discount, but sometimes it’s purchased by people who are not bothered by these things.”
(Realtor.com)
The former Menéndez family mansion had been on the market since Dec. 1, when it was listed by Delug. The listing came months after a Peacock docuseries, “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” renewed interest in the notorious murder case.
Brothers Lyle and Erik Menéndez were convicted on March 20, 1996 of murdering their parents, José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menéndez, in the family’s Elm Drive home. At the time of the killings, Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18.
At trial, the brothers admitted to the killings. But they claimed they had acted in self-defense, out of fear their music executive father would kill them after they threatened to expose his alleged history of sexual and physical abuse.
Prosecutors argued the brothers had fatally shot their parents in the den of the family’s Beverly Hills mansion in order to inherit their father’s multimillion-dollar estate, including the home itself. A jury found the brothers guilty of first-degree murder, and they are both serving life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole.
The mansion was originally constructed in 1927 and redesigned in 1984 by real estate mogul Mark Slotkin, who sold the home to José for $4 million in 1988.
Slotkin, who remained a Menendéz family friend and apparent confidant of the killer brothers, testified for the defense. He insisted that soundproofing he had installed in the home cast doubt on a maid’s claims to have overheard the family’s screaming arguments.
Following the murders, the Elm Drive home languished on the market for years, unable to find a buyer despite amenities including a pool, private tennis court, and two-story guesthouse.
Lawyers for the estate of the slain parents lamented in court filings that “it was widely believed by the home-buying public and the real estate brokers and agents that this house had bad ‘karma,’ and was one to be avoided,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
In 1991, the mansion finally sold for $3.6 million, far below the $4.8 million it had been appraised at prior to the sale, according to the Times. Television mystery writer William Link, a co-creator of “Murder, She Wrote,” reportedly acquired the home by 1993 for an undisclosed sum and lived there for eight years.
Link tried unsuccessfully to sell the mansion in 1997, listing it for $3.9 million. But after failing to find a buyer, he removed the listing a few years later.
The home was again listed in April 2001 for $4.15 million. Delug, the telecommunications executive, purchased it later that year for about $3.7 million.
He tackled major renovations to the home’s interior in 2002, but the exterior remains very similar to its appearance at the time of the murders. Tour buses still roll by the mansion, which is easily visible from the street, allowing sightseers to catch a glimpse of the notorious home.
Delug’s recent asking price of nearly $20 million equates to $2,207 per square foot, while the actual sales price clocks in at $1,876 per square foot. Both are more than the median listing price of $1,707 per square foot for other homes in the 90210 ZIP code, according to Realtor.com data.
The wealthy ZIP code’s current median listing price stands at more than $9.1 million, which is down 0.13% from one year ago.
Keith Griffith is a journalist at Realtor.com. He covers the housing market and real estate trends.
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EXCLUSIVE: Menendez Brothers Murder Mansion in Beverly Hills Finds a Buyer for $17M – Realtor.com News
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