By Katherine Clarke

Casa Encantada, a circa-1930s estate in Los Angeles, is one of the most important private homes in the country. In 2023, it was also briefly the most expensive home for sale in the U.S., with an ambitious asking price of $250 million.

In a stunning reversal, the storied Bel-Air property is now slated to be sold in a foreclosure auction following the 2023 death of its longtime owner, the financier Gary Winnick.

At one time, Gary was said to be the wealthiest person in Los Angeles. He and his wife, Karen Winnick, purchased the roughly 8.5-acre Casa Encantada property for $94 million in 2000, the priciest U.S. home-sale on record at the time.

But in 2020, an entity tied to the Winnicks borrowed an initial $100 million from the real-estate investment firm CIM Group, and has fallen behind on payments, according to a notice of sale filed in September. To satisfy the debt, which has now grown to more than $150 million, CIM ordered Casa Encantada and a Winnick family home in Malibu to be sold at auction.

The unceremonious auction is scheduled to take place Dec. 16, behind a fountain in Pomona's Civic Center Plaza. CIM could end up taking title to the properties, or an outside bidder could win the property.

"We are assessing all appropriate legal actions and remedies in response to the announced foreclosure sale," Amjad M. Khan, an attorney for Karen, said in a statement.

Local agents said the foreclosure proceedings have taken the community by surprise, given the Winnicks' widely-reported wealth.

The Winnicks did receive offers on Casa Escantada after putting it on the market in 2023 but declined them, possibly because they didn't rise to a price high enough to satisfy the debt, according to people familiar with the situation.

Spanning about 40,000 square feet, Casa Encantada was built in the 1930s and counts hotelier Conrad Hilton and Dole Food billionaire David Murdock among its former owners. Located next to the Bel-Air Country Club golf course, the seven-bedroom estate has a swimming pool and tennis pavilion.

Gary and Richard Ressler, one of the co-founders of CIM, are both alumni of the investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert, a connection that may have helped facilitate Gary's loan from CIM. Gary worked at Drexel in the 1970s and 1980s.

Gary is perhaps best known as the founder of Global Crossing, which built a fiber-optic cable network across the world. The company made him a billionaire but imploded in the early 2000s under the weight of massive debt.

Casa Encantada, Gary's primary home, went on the market in June 2023, five months before his death. Now asking $190 million, it is still the most expensive residence listed for sale in the Los Angeles area.

Gary first visited the property in 1988 for a fundraiser luncheon Murdock hosted for President George H.W. Bush, and was immediately besotted with the home. When he eventually purchased it, he tapped interior designer Peter Marino to renovate and restore it. The process took about 2.5 years, with roughly 250 workers on site each day. "To me, this is a work of art, and I have been its steward," Gary told the Journal before his death.

The current listing agent, Jimmy Heckenberg of Rodeo Realty, didn't respond to a request for comment.

The Malibu property is a circa-1930s house located about a mile north of the Malibu Pier. It spans about 3,500 square feet with seven bedrooms, according to the real-estate data website PropertyShark. It is not publicly listed for sale.

The Winnicks' longtime New York City pied-à-terre, located at the Sherry-Netherland on the southeast corner of Central Park, is in contract to sell. It was last priced at $3.495 million, according to the listings website StreetEasy.

CIM, the developer of the embattled New York megatower 432 Park Avenue, is known as a major player in commercial real estate nationally.

The Winnicks also made headlines last year when their son, Matthew Winnick, filed a lawsuit against L.A.'s Hillcrest Country Club, alleging that he and his family were denied entry to the club because of his wife's Hispanic heritage. In the complaint, he dubbed the club a "racist aristocracy." Hillcrest, where Gary was a longtime member, has said the suit is meritless.

Write to Katherine Clarke at Katherine.Clarke@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 31, 2025 14:00 ET (18:00 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.