The Beverly House Beverly Hills, LA

Starring in movies The Godfather and The Bodyguard, and used by John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, The Beverly House, an 18 bedroom, 25 bathroom, 28,975 sqft private palace, is located in 3.5 acres of landscaped grounds and was originally designed by Architect Gordon Kaufmann and built in 1926 for banking tycoon Milton Getz.

In 1946 The Beverly House was acquired by Hollywood actress Marion Davies (1897-1961) who bought it for her lover media mogul William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951), with the couple using the estate as their Beverly Hills residence until Hearst’s death in 1951, the property owned by the Marion Davies estate up until 1967. It was here that the couple entertained the film and business elite of Hollywood.

In 1953 the estate served as a honeymoon destination for JFK and Jackie Kennedy and later served as Kennedy’s West Coast presidential election headquarters. Scenes from movies The Godfather and The Bodyguard were also filmed at the estate, and it was used by Beyonce for filming and visuals for her album Black Is King.

Accessed by high security gates and approached via an 800-foot driveway, The Beverly House is built in striking pink terracotta stucco, with the H-shaped mega-mansion designed in classic Italian and Spanish palatial styles, with features including long colonnades, wide balconies, several grand entertaining rooms, panelled walls, intricately carved ceilings, French doors and arched floor-to-ceiling windows.

The house opens onto the magnificent gardens, designed by landscape architect Paul Thiene and inspired by the Emperor Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli, with reflection pools linked by cascading waterwalls leading to a near Olympic-sized swimming pool bordered by pillared Roman temple facades, in the style of the famous Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle.

The house has an 82 ft long entry hall with

a loggia, a state room with a 22 ft high, handpainted arched ceiling and a two-storey library with hand-carved panelling and a wraparound galleried walkway. There is also a billards room with herringbone parquet floors and an intricately designed ceiling and carved fireplace, both virtually identical to ones at Hearst Castle in San Simeon. There is also a formal dining room, breakfast room and a family room with outdoor terrace.

The lower ground floor contains an Art Deco-style nightclub a wine cellar, one of two projection/cinema rooms and a spa with gymnasium and massage room. On the second floor is a grand upper hallway, more than 102 ft long and 40 ft wide with a 9ft tall Dennis Abbe mural, alongside double principal bedroom suites, VIP guest suites and separate staff quarters.

The estate also benefits from a commercial kitchen, terraces able to accommodate 400 or more guests for a seated dinner and grounds to accommodate more than 1,000 people. Other facilities include an owner’s and staff offices, floodlit tennis court, guest house above an eight-car garage and a gate lodge with its own kitchen and four bedrooms. Including all the auxiliary buildings the estate provides just over 35,000 sqft of living accommodation.