Game Maker’s House Home To Big Score

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When you’re a billionaire video-game developer looking to redecorate, what do you do with all the uber expensive furniture you’re ditching?

Donate it.

At least that’s what the creator of “Minecraft,” Markus Persson, has chosen to do with top-notch furnishings that came with his new $70 million home, according to interior designer Joseph Ferrugio, who worked with the developer of the Trousdale Estates mansion in Beverly Hills when it was being built on spec.

“When Markus purchased the house he decided he wanted to go a different direction and didn’t know what to do with the furniture,” said Ferrugio, chief executive of Ferrugio Design & Associates in Marina del Rey.

Ferrugio suggested that the L.A. charity he founded, Design by Donation, would be a good option. The nonprofit places in-kind furniture donations with charities in need and also auctions off higher-end pieces to buy furnishings for nonprofits.

“He loved it,” Ferrugio recalled. “He said, ‘Why don’t you take all the Bentley furniture you put into the house?’”

An 11-piece living-room set made by the same company that makes the Bentley luxury car, as well as a chandelier and other unique items, will be auctioned off between Jan. 25 and on estate sale website EBTH.com, which stands for Everything But the House.

The furniture set alone is worth $400,000, according to Ferrugio.

“I wanted to donate to a charity which focused on helping kids who are growing up in difficult conditions,” Persson said in a statement.

The Swedish video-game designer made his fortune selling the firm he co-founded, Mojang, to Microsoft Corp. for $2.5 billion in September 2014.

A few months later, Persson again grabbed headlines by snapping up the megamansion for a cool $70 million, outbidding Shawn Carter (Jay Z) and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter in the process.

While designing the tony pad’s interiors, Ferrugio explained he was trying to make them look more stimulating than the home’s sweeping views.

“We wanted the house to exude the utmost finest quality and that was why we needed the luxurious design of Bentley,” he said. “The whole concept of the house was to make it feel like a luxury car, yacht or airplane. Everything had to be an event.”

– Marni Usheroff

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