Billionaire investor Ron Burkle has listed the restored Bob and Dolores Hope Estate in Toluca Lake for $29 million.
Looking to nearly double his money, Burkle paid $15 million for the property in 2018 to restore it after an effort to designate it as a Historic-Cultural Monument failed, according to news reports at the time.
The nearly 15,000-square-foot, English Traditional-style compound sits on a 5-acres-plus lot surrounded by mature trees. It was designed by noted architect Robert Finkelhor for the Hopes in 1939.
In the 1950s, the couple brought in “King of Hollywood Regency”-style architect John Elgin Woolf for a remodel.
Many of those “gorgeous, well-preserved architectural elements,” as the listing reads, remain while high-end fixtures and finishes like Carrera marble in the bathrooms serve to elevate the home.
A stone-clad fireplace anchors the main house’s open living area, featuring wide-plank white oak floors and glass walls.
There’s a large dining area, a breakfast area, a home theater and a gym that features a steam and infrared sauna.
The property also holds a guest apartment above the four-car garage, staff quarters in the courtyard off the main house. Another structure contains a tennis pavilion, original walk-in fireproof safe and Hope’s meticulously restored oak library.
Also original is a one-hole golf course that Hope designed.
The golf course has two tee positions and shares the grounds with a tennis court, saltwater pool, large dining area, and a large barbecue kitchen.
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Kevin Dees of The Agency holds the listing.
Hope, who died in 2003 at age 100, made his mark on stage, radio and big and small screens. Born Leslie Townes Hope in southeast London, he and his wife, who died in 2011 at 102, settled in Toluca Lake as his film career started to take off.
The “Road” films made from the 1940s to the early-’60s with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour “helped to establish Mr. Hope as a major film personality in his own right,” read the New York Times in the entertainer’s obituary published on July 28, 2003.
For nearly 50 years, he traveled the world to put on USO shows for the military.
This isn’t Burkle’s only Hope property.
The Pomona native, who co-owns the National Hockey League’s Pittsburgh Penguins, paid $13 million in 2016 for the 1980 futuristic Palm Springs home that modernist architect John Lautner designed for the Hopes.