Newport estate sells for nearly $40 million, breaking city record

A nearly 12.5-acre Newport Beach property known as the city’s largest private home parcel has sold for nearly $40 million, breaking the city’s record and placing second all-time in Orange County.

The eight-bedroom gated Newport Coast estate at 1 Pelican Hill Road North was listed for $55 million and sold Thursday for $39,999,999, according to the Multiple Listing Service.

It was $5 million shy of beating the county’s $45-million record set with last year’s sale of the Twin Points seaside property in Laguna Beach.

The Newport Coast property — first listed in February — includes various Italian architectural touches, a roughly 18,000-square-foot house, pavilion, gardens, a 1-acre lake, indoor and outdoor pools, a tennis court, vineyards and a horse stable. It overlooks the Pacific Ocean and The Resort at Pelican Hill.

John Stanaland was the listing agent.

The estate, formerly known as Villa del Lago, traces its beginnings to 2003, when real estate agent John McMonigle headed a partnership for it, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It was sold unfinished for $18.5 million at auction in 2012 to Toshiaki Ogasawara, an industrialist and publisher of the Japan Times, according to the Orange County Register.

Ogasawara, who died last year at age 85, ended up finishing the home and modifying it.

Newport’s previous record home price was $35 million, reached in 2008 for a property once owned by actor Nicolas Cage at 2692 Bayshore Drive, according to Arbor Real Estate, based in Newport Beach.

This year has been profitable for high-end Newport real estate.

In January, an eight-bedroom mansion at 8 Mystique in the Crystal Cove neighborhood sold for $28 million, breaking what was then the city record for most expensive home not on the ocean or harbor.

This summer, two homes in Corona del Mar associated with the Irvine family sold for a combined $55 million.

Both were along Avocado Avenue and owned by heirs of James Irvine, whose Irvine Ranch once encompassed some 100,000 acres in Orange County. The family eventually founded the Irvine Co. real estate firm.

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