David Matlin is no stranger to successful real estate deals. In 2020, co-founder of distressed investor MatlinPatterson Global Advisers and his wife Lisa set a record for the most expensive home ever sold in New York’s Soho neighborhood with the $35 million swap of their penthouse three stories and 8,000 square feet at the top of the Broome. Street building (incidentally, the same building where actor Heath Ledger was found dead in 2008).

Now the couple have done it again, buying a brand new Spanish-style estate in the Little Holmby neighborhood of Los Angeles. They paid $16.8 million; although this is a substantial $2.2 million discount from the original listing price, it still appears to be the biggest sale ever in the neighborhood pocket affluent, if a little understated, nestled between bustling Westwood and Holmby Hills, reserved for billionaires – topping $13 million recently. transfer of a renovated and extended house designed by Sumner Spaulding in 1942 on the same street.

Records show the seller of the Little Holmby home was David Binswanger of Lincoln Property Co., which acquired the property in 2017 for $5.5 million. He then razed the existing structure and commissioned A. Ron Builders and architectural firm Shepphird Associates to create a new custom home in its place over the next three years before ultimately deciding to leave the state.

“It’s definitely not like other spec houses, as it was originally built for an owner user,” says listing agent Josh Altman of Douglas Elliman. “This is one of the best finished houses I have seen in a long time. It’s super unique, not your modern box or your typical Mediterranean style home. Every square inch of this property is designer designed and finished to the highest standard.

Nestled on a gated plot of just over half an acre and protected by a security system, the white stucco and terracotta-roofed abode features six bedrooms and seven bathrooms spread over 9,500 square feet of living space. open-plan living space punctuated with Euroline steel windows and doors, century-old hand-hewn ceiling beams, hand-troweled walls, white oak hardwood floors and hand-painted tiles.

Pocketed glass doors spanning the entire ground floor lend themselves to an ideal indoor-outdoor lifestyle, while glitzy amenities range from an elevator and Crestron smart home technology to a gym, a cinema room, sauna and wine cellar. Other highlights include a gourmet kitchen fitted with an expensive French Lacanche range, two marble islands, a breakfast nook and doors opening onto a spacious loggia; and a lavish main retreat offers a showroom-style closet, as well as a sumptuous spa-inspired soaking tub fitted with two vanities, a soaking tub, and an oversized steam shower.

Elsewhere in the house is an adjoining guest bedroom with a kitchenette and its own entrance, and to top it all off, a resort-style courtyard with an alfresco dining and lounge area by the fire, a large swimming pool and a spa. There’s also an attached five-car garage, plus 500 square feet of unfinished basement space that could be converted into an art studio or used for storage, according to the listing.

Josh Altman held the list with Matt Altman of the Altman Brothers team at Douglas Elliman and Danelle Lavin of Compass; the buyer was replaced by Susan Smith of Hilton & Hyland.