For 90 years, several of the world’s richest and most powerful lived at the Wehbas’ prime piece of Beverly Hills real estate. The list includes one of the city’s founders, a local business owner, an Italian tycoon and a controversial Middle Eastern sheik.
The 3.6-acre Sunset Boulevard property was first developed in 1917 by Max Whittier, one of the founders of Beverly Hills. Whittier built a two-story Spanish mansion that received several makeovers until it was heavily damaged in a 1980 fire and torn down five years later.
After Whittier died in 1925, the Berch family, founders of Arden Farms dairy, purchased the house, according to Jeff Hyland, president of high-end real estate brokerage Hilton & Hyland, who is writing a book called “The Legendary Estates of Beverly Hills” that will be published in October.
The descendents of the Berches retained the home for years until it was sold to Italian publishing mogul Dino Fabbri in 1974. He made the home over before selling it in 1978, ushering in the headline-making ownership of Saudi Sheik Mohammed al Fassi.
Al Fassi boldly redecorated the house, adding wild furnishings such as a gold bathtub in the master bathroom and a mirrored ceiling in his bedroom. He also painted the property’s classical statues, visible from the street, in flesh tones genitalia and all. That turned the mansion into a tourist attraction.
When the home burned in 1980 to the literal cheers of neighbors it was ruled arson, leading to reports it had been torched in an insurance scam.
Al Fassi, an in-law of the Saudi royal family, left the country and died in Cairo in 2003.
The property languished for years and was sold several times. In 2001, Andy Heyward, chairman of DIC Entertainment Holdings Inc., an animation production company, purchased the property for about $8.6 million, according to Kurt Rappaport, a longtime high-end residential broker and president of Westside Estate Agency, who brokered the sale.
After his purchase, Heyward commissioned famed architect Robert A.M. Stern to build a 40,000-square-foot home on the lot. But Heyward decided against the plan, and divided the 3.6-acre lot into two parcels and sold them separately in 2003.
Mogul Arthur Chang bought the two-acre parcel at 9577 Sunset Blvd. for $6.5 million, but never built on it and sold the property less than a year later to the Wehbas for about $6.7 million, Rappaport said.
Meanwhile, the smaller, 1.6-acre lot at 901 N. Alpine Drive has traded owners a couple of times since 2003. A large house is under construction on the property, which was sold again just weeks ago.
