A peek inside this $32.5 million mansion in Southern California

Overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, this newly built cliffside mansion has an ambitious $ 32.5 million asking price. One of the most expensive homes for sale in San Diego County, its price tag helps break local records in La Jolla’s beautiful beachside community.

Perhaps more interesting than the record-breaking price is the fact that the house was designed and built by Las Vegas-based builder Blue Heron. Blue Heron designs and builds luxury mansions in the Mojave Desert almost exclusively.

Tyler Jones, the founder of Blue Heron and the fourth generation from Las Vegas, said:

According to Jones, building in the sea is more like building in the desert than you might imagine. In both environments, Blue Heron’s design focuses on blurring the line between indoor and outdoor life.

“The Mojave Desert is the perfect place to do that,” he said. “But definitely, La Jolla in San Diego is actually a much better place to do that.”

Over the last 18 years, Blue Heron has built hundreds of homes in the Las Vegas area, according to the CEO. Today, the starting price for one of the company’s more affordable desert homes is around $ 1 million, while the average selling price for one of the company’s newly built desert homes is around $ 8 million.Just last year, Blue Heron became a hot topic in one of its Sin City mansions. Break the record When sold to Anthony Hsieh, the founder of Billionaire’s Loan Depot, for $ 25 million.

About 300 miles from Las Vegas’ core business, Blueheron’s new coastal mansion spans four levels with vast decks and infinity pools on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

A glass bridge floats above the lounge area below, delivering visitors to the second floor of the house. Approximately 8,900 square feet, this house has 5 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms and 3 kitchens.

The mansion, known as the Ora House, is the second residence Blue Heron built outside of Las Vegas. The first is a spec house, also in La Jolla, which was on the market for about nine months before it sold for $ 20 million last year. According to data provided by real estate agent Compass, the average price of a Lahora single-family home in the second quarter of this year was $ 3.6 million.

So why did a builder making a big bet on luxury real estate in Las Vegas pay attention to breaking local records on the edge of the Pacific?

Jones said La Jolla has a soft spot and has lots of childhood memories of spending a vacation in a seaside town with his family. That’s just one of the reasons he turned to the area when he bought a $ 4.7 million oceanfront home on 5228 Chelsea Street in 2016. This was what the developers called “disassembly”. Blue Heron was more interested in the place than the existing house that was sitting there. The company demolished an old home and spent more than six years developing a $ 32.5 million new spec home in its place.

Its price puts the house at the top of La Jolla’s ultra-high-end market. According to title records, the community has recorded 11 sales for over $ 20 million since 2018. One of the most famous dates back to 2018, when singer-songwriter Alicia Keys and her record-breaking husband Swizz Beatz spent $ 20.8 million on waterfront homes. Razor house..

However, La Jolla’s highest selling price was achieved in 2019. 8466 El Paseo Grande According to public records, it sold for $ 24.7 million.

Blue Heron’s Ora House is the most expensive house sold in La Hoya at a price of $ 3,660 per square foot, but in fact compared to the price of over $ 4,000 per square foot achieved with the sale of El Paseo Grande. Is relatively bargain.

“People love the San Diego lifestyle,” said Brett Dickinson, a compass real estate broker who was involved in six of the more than $ 20 million transactions in the neighborhood. Dickinson is a co-listed agent of Sotheby’s Deborah Greenspan and Ora House. Dickinson told CNBC that the area’s appeal is underpinned by the high-tech boom that moves from the north to the south of the state.

Jones said the CNBC Ora House jumbo-sized price tag is part of the development cost on the California coastline, and strict regulations complicate development, so more time, effort, and more money. He said he would need it.

“Small projects aren’t worth it,” he said.

But there have been a lot of changes since Blue Heron bought the site in 2016, and the company’s beachfront homes are now facing three headwinds: rising interest rates, a sharp stock market plunge, and a sharp rise in inflation. I am.

Dickinson told CNBC that these were serious factors, but they were alleviated by La Jolla’s limited housing inventories. According to brokers, the number of homes available in the neighborhood is typically only around 150-200 units, but this month only 89 are listed. Focusing on high-end oceanfront inventories will make the market even tighter.

“Inventory is very low,” he said. “And building waterfront real estate is a six to eight year process.”

This could be one of the reasons La Jolla-based developers are convinced that La Jolla’s odds are piled up in his favor.

“We are confident that we can provide an extraordinary experience that speaks to people,” Jones said. “And we believe we will find wealthy people who are willing to pay for it.”

In Vegas, they say the house always wins, but over time it will be known if that is the case in La Jolla.