It has definitely been a tough year for ski bums, massage therapists, and black jack dealers at Incline Village, Nevada. After getting a prodigious eight feet of snow over one weekend at Christmas, there has been nary a flake since then. Hats off to the Diamond Peak ski resort for trucking down enough snow from the higher elevations to keep the bunny slope running.
However, the real estate business is another kettle of fish. After a six-year hiatus, business is now booming in the High Sierras, as it is throughout the West. Until December, my real estate agent had only sold one house since 2007, and that to me, a nice little foreclosure deal where I picked up a beachfront estate for pennies on the dollar. Since then she has sold six residences, half to Chinese buyers for cash, and has another three in escrow. I guess when it rains, it pours.
I was surprised to learn that my neighbor, Oracle mogul, Larry Ellison, has placed on the market his nearby Glenbrook compound for $28.5 million. The property includes a six bedroom, eight bathroom 9,242 square foot main house on 2.6 acres, with 230 feet of frontage on the east shore of Lake Tahoe (click here for the listing).
I guess his existing 7.6 acre estate with 420 feet of beachfront next door is enough. Larry has been accumulating ultra high-end properties all over the world for the past two decades, more than he could ever possibly live in. Who knew these were investments, and not conspicuous consumption? This is the first time I have ever seen Larry sell anything. Is this a tell?
You can?t swing a dead cat in Incline Village without hitting a billionaire, so the public events are incredibly well funded. Junk bond king, Michael Milliken, pays for the Fourth of July fireworks, as the celebration falls on his birthday. On Sunday, the ski slopes were amply planted with plastic eggs, some containing candy, others, free lift tickets. Even the pet hospital here is better equipped than most public hospitals.
So I knew the Easter egg hunt would not disappoint. Perhaps, the eggs contained real gold coins. I have to tell you that it was a total blast wading through 500 hyped up children. Click here for the video of the event and hit the ?PLAY? arrow, if for no other reason than to admire the spectacular Lake Tahoe scenery.
This Can Be Yours for $28.5 Million
