If you thought the Benson mansion was huge, you ain’t seen nothing yet! 🙂 Just down the street is another immense property – one that actually has the distinction of being the LARGEST home in Pasadena!!! The 31,415-square-foot home has 15 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms!!!!!, and sits on close to five acres. I mean, come on, does any one person honestly need that much room???? 19 bathrooms???? When I first moved to Southern California, in the year 2000, this mansion was actually under construction. The building was finally completed about two years ago and has sat empty ever since. So strange! Sadly, the original residence that sat on this site, which was featured featured as the Clampett’s new upscale digs in the 1993 movie The Beverly Hillbillies, burned to the ground in a massive fire in 1998. The monstrosity pictured above is what was built in its place.
However, all is not lost, as the newly built mansion has a Hollywood resume of its own. Besides being featured in an LG commercial, the property showed up in a 2006 episode of CSI: Miami. I am fairly certain that the episode which filmed on the property was Season 4’s “Driven”, in which a group of rich women are robbed at gunpoint at an upscale hotel spa. I think the mansion’s indoor pool and spa stood in for the hotel and spa in the episode. It’s easy to see why producers chose to use this home as the hotel, as the mansion and surrounding property are so unbelievably huge and ornate that they could easily pass for a resort.
From what I understand the mansion has never been lived in and has been on the market for the past two years for the meager asking price of $52 million. You can take a look at its now-defunt real estate website here. According to this article, the mansion is one of the ten most expensive homes in the United States! And this article has some great pics of the unbelievable dwelling and its five acre property.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: The largest home in Pasadena is located at 1288 South Oakland Avenue.
I meet Dovie once at that residence,I was there for work.
Years latter I was passing by,the new residence was under construction….Two men,one of whom was very dapper were standing at the south gate…I stopped and talked to them..Dapper man said he was the new owner and offered to give me a tour of the place which of course I excepted….when he opened the south gate I was blown away…the landscaping was complete long before the residence…he said a staff of 3-4 full times gardeners took care of the property….I think I must have said “oh wow” like 100X…The stained glass gazebo was still there but everything had changed…I’ve been around and I’ve yet to see anything like that before or since.,,that is crazy insane money
I remember I commented that capitalism is REALLY GOOD to which the man smiled wide.lol
I was curious how anyone could afford this so I asked the man
He said he came from old money made if finance if I recall and lived around the area
I remember he was anxious for it to be completed which was still a few years away..
I may have gotten his name and have since forgotten…
Does anyone know who that man was?He was probably around 40 then and was clearly seriously refined and also why was the house never occupied and who owns it now?
Was it Sergio Villagran? He owned it for many years, that was back in the 80s.
Rhonda,I’m not sure…if owned it and rebuilt it after the fire,that may well have been him..he was a nice man,real down to earth and showed me the property and the interior of the house that was yet to be completed….he was proud of that place and wasn’t a braggart at all ..,he said if I recall,that the new windows were hand crafted in Europe and cost I believe around $100,000 A PIECE!!!
The grounds were already established and completed,landscaped….it was mind blowing….he took me to what was to be the master bedroom,swing open the French Doors onto a balcony and you had a view of the whole property looking South..,,incredible….this man wasn’t messing around or cheap out on ANYTHING!
I researched it and as far back as I can find two different Chinese guys owned it and one still does
Poor Dovie…I remember an article in the Pasadena Star News with a pic of her standing outside the property with two suitcases in her hand.She had it all,then lost it all ..,She had a hell of a life!!
I am 100% sure that was Sergio. Too let people know he died May 2019. He was before the fire I have all his pictures of him rebuilding the Mansion. He added all the landscape the pool which is the best I have ever seen. He loved to show the pictures to anyone that would listen. Now that he has passed I can say he started the fire.
Hi Lindsay– This is another location that i got a hoot out of seeing on your site. For about 3 or 4 months at the endof 2003/beginning of 2004 i worked on a movie called ‘The Princess Diaries 2’ and we filmed for about 2 or 3 weeks at this house. The sheer enormity of it was breath-taking, but at that time the house was simply a giant shell, with a beautiful exterior and grounds, but basically nothing but sheetrock and concrete on the inside. The rumor (which seemed to be generally accepted as fact on the set) was that the home had been built by a wealthy Middle Eastern royal of some sort, a prince or king perhaps, for his daughter in anticipation of her wedding, so that she and her fiance would have an acceptable ‘starter home’, ha. Well apparently, shortly before the wedding, the daughter found her soon-to-be husband in bed with a man, called off the wedding and construction immediately ceased on the house, therefore leaving it the unfinished shell that it was at that time. In any event, i’m sure that you can see a good bit of the home and the gardens if you watch PD2, though i haven’t watchedit in a while so i’m not sure exactly which parts take place there. Thanks for finding the house, i’d been trying to track it down for the last couple of years!!
This house was built as the Western Whitehouse back in 1906 for President Woodrow Wilson, then changed owners till Sergio Villagran purchased and rebuilt and desingned. He designed it after the Whitehouse it tok him almost 14 years to create. Bringing statues, tiles most everything from Europe. This is his master piece and his alone. He did rent to thr film industry from Dynasty to Beverly Hillbillys and much more. I just wanted you to have the facts.
Spell check would help
Lmfao….was this a Hugh Hefner property, it shows up on Gta5 as a playboy mansion.
I Just commented on this and any insight you have would be appreciated
Dovie is a very interesting woman
I know Dovie, she was married to Sergio Villagran.
this is where gwen stefani’s video, “what you waiting for” was filmed. My friend lives across the street and they let us in while they were filming and we got to see them shoot the scene where she’s running through the maze.
Does anyone know where I may find pictures (especially aerial views) of the original Clampett Mansion from the “Beverly Hillbillies” TV show?
look for perenchio estate – bel air
the property in the movie the Beverly Hillibillies was once owned by the American actress Dovie Beams Deviligran Mistress to Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos in the 80’s. Dovie was kicked out of her home, forgot the reason. Also, that house was burned in a fire and later rebuilt. Now, from reading the above article it has been torn downe for a larger home. When Dovie lived there, she kept that place up, lot of movies are filmed in Pasadena. I know my city, and the homes, and streets while in movies they are portrayed in another state or country.
This home was owned by Sergio Villagran, his wife at the time was Dovie Beams Villagran. They lived in the house over 10 years, it was built and designed by Sergio Villagran. He went to Spain and brought all the statues and tile that is his art work, and it is a masterpiece. I had been there many times.
Lindsey, thanks for the mention! What a great expose on this home. I didn’t realize that there was a home there before which was featured on Beverly Hillibillies. And, yes… it does look very much like a hotel. Very cool post!