$95M for a dream home

Plans for a 29,000-square-foot, three-story estate with a dozen fireplaces and commanding views of Upper Newport Bay come with a $95-million price tag.

Real estate broker Mark Whitehead believes that if plans for 2182 Mesa Drive materialize, the home would be the largest, and one of the priciest in Orange County.

“It’s a very unique property,” Whitehead said. “You can’t get this if you go to Pelican Hills — what you can’t buy in Newport Beach is land.”

The two-acre Back Bay lot with its existing 10,000-square-foot house was on the market for a day five years ago, the last time it was up for grabs, when it sold for $5.25 million, Whitehead said.

Whitehead hopes that plans for a mega mansion flanked with man-made waterfalls and fountains on the lot will attract a buyer who’s wealthy enough to finance the project.

“You’ve got some very wealthy Fortune 500 people who live in the same area and my guess is, it’s the same sort of person who is going to buy it,” Whitehead said.

Of course, the design can always be customized to fit a buyer’s needs, he said. Whitehead has already had a few inquiries into the property, including from a Taiwanese drill manufacturer. All of the interested parties are “extremely wealthy,” he said.

The large lot on Upper Newport Bay allowed Corona del Mar architect Andrew Goetz to create an expansive design with panoramic views from every room and a dozen fireplaces.

“Instead of making [a house] boxy, you can make it more amoebic in nature,” Goetz said of designing such a large estate. “You can really get a lot of breadth across the lot — you can’t do that up in Newport Coast where the lots are small and narrow.”

Designs were three years in the making, he said.

The rambling estate will feature a bevy of what Goetz calls “house toys,” including a theater, spa and bowling alley. There’s also plans for a disco sound studio, wine cellar, massage room and sauna, and a fur closet included in the designs. Two kitchens, an elevator, a 10-car garage, tennis court and three-hole chip and putt golf course round out the design.

There’s only a few places in Orange County with enough room to build such large estates, and financing is admittedly tough, Goetz said.

“But a person who could buy this might actually just be able to pay cash,” Goetz said.