Billionaire spends 15 years building cliffside ‘Versailles’ mansion — and lists for $108M

Perched connected nan cliffs of La Jolla Bay, Darwin Deason’s mansion isn’t your emblematic California formation retreat. Locally dubbed “The Sandcastle,” nan property is an architectural marvel reminiscent of Versailles, sitting precocious supra nan Pacific.

Now, it’s astir to smash records arsenic it hits nan marketplace for an eye-watering $108 million, according to agents Brett Dickinson and Ross Clark from Compass.

If nan lavish spot sells for its asking price, it would obliterate nan existent San Diego County existent property record, group earlier this twelvemonth erstwhile billionaire Egon Durban dropped $44 cardinal connected a Del Mar oceanfront property.

Deason’s Sandcastle boasts astir 13,000 quadrate feet of opulence, pinch intricate chromatic columns, expansive balconies, and its ain private, elevated beach.

Inside, it’s a full-on ode to old-world Europe, pinch royal mosaics, marble floors, and rooms gleaming pinch coagulated golden accents. The guesthouse is modeled aft Versailles’s Le Petit Trianon. Deason, who founded Affiliated Computer Services and sold it to Xerox for much than $6 cardinal successful 2009, picked up nan Sandcastle and a neighboring parcel for $26 cardinal nan aforesaid year.

Though based successful Dallas, Texas, wherever he’s a salient Republican donor, he uses nan La Jolla property arsenic a picnic getaway.

Originally built successful 2005 by San Diego developer Doug Manchester, nan mansion offered Deason precisely what he was looking for—sweeping views successful 3 directions.

But for nan billionaire, that wasn’t enough. He stripped nan location down to its bones and rebuilt it, adding nan Versailles-inspired guesthouse.

His vision? A fusion of French elegance and nan iconic Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc successful Antibes, a spot he’s agelong admired. To make nan interiors lucifer his expansive vision, he hired apical designer Timothy Corrigan, whose clientele includes Hollywood elites and royalty.

The compound spans 0.8 acres and includes 10 bedrooms.

The expansive surviving room successful nan main location features elaborately coffered ceilings and a wall of arched windows overlooking nan bay, starring to a monolithic wraparound terrace. A eating room seats 16 nether a crystal chandelier, pinch gold-leaf detailing and ancient cabinets to match.

The guesthouse comes pinch a twist: a nautically themed barroom that mirrors nan 1 connected Deason’s yacht, complete pinch sea-inspired paintings and a brace of 18th-century mermaid statues.

Outside, nan mansion’s grounds boast a pool, a fittingness center, and moreover a wood-paneled agency tucked adjacent nan superior suite.

Every portion of furnishings was custom-made for nan estate, from rugs to drapes. And Deason didn’t extremity astatine conscionable nan house.

Not a instrumentality of California’s gritty formation sand, he had astir $40,000 worthy of soil imported from Georgia’s Augusta National Golf Club.

“Everyone who watches nan play tourney knows it is simply a spectacular shadiness of white,” he told nan Wall Street Journal, who first reported connected nan listing.

There are 2 cabanas and a beachfront boathouse pinch a kitchen. The slate tile tiles for nan boathouse? Deason imported them from a Chinese quarry aft selecting nan cleanable colour and pattern, securing arsenic overmuch worldly arsenic could beryllium mined.

“I bought arsenic overmuch of nan worldly arsenic could beryllium extracted,” he said.

As if that weren’t enough, nan guidelines of nan spot boasts 2 earthy caves.

In total, Deason estimates that he’s poured astir $60 cardinal into nan property’s construction, not including nan onshore costs. Despite each nan effort and money, Deason says it’s clip to fto spell of nan Sandcastle, admitting he doesn’t usage nan spot arsenic overmuch arsenic his different homes, which see a Dallas mansion, a reservoir retreat adjacent Cedar Creek Lake, and a picnic location successful Cabo San Lucas.

“In nan history of La Jolla, location has ne'er been and will ne'er beryllium different spot built connected nan waterfront for illustration The Sand Castle owed to nan coming oceanfront building standards established by nan State of California,” nan agents told The Post successful a statement.

“The opportunity to adjoin nan 2 parcels successful this location is truthful rare, and this fact, coupled pinch nan seller’s no-expense-spared imagination to bring nan French Riviera to La Jolla’s oceanfront,” they added.