Hearst's mansion in Beverly Hills goes on sale for record $165m

The former Los Angeles home of the media baron William Randolph Hearst has been put on the market for $165m (£81m), making it the single most expensive private residence ever listed for sale in the United States.

It is no modest getaway. The property, sometimes known as Beverly House Compound, occupies 6.5 acres in the heart of Beverly Hills. Hearst bought it in 1947 (for $120,000) and lived there with his silver-screen paramour, Marion Davies, until his death just four years later.

Aside from its many luxuries and the attached legend of its former owner, the house also boasts intriguing political connections. John F Kennedy and his new wife Jackie spent part of their honeymoon there and it was later to serve as Kennedy's California campaign headquarters.

The main house includes a two-storey library, a living room with several fireplaces and 22ft vaulted ceilings and statues from Hearst's better-known California retreat, the Hearst Castle at San Simeon. For your entertainment there is a disco, a private cinema, three swimming pools and two tennis courts.

Nor will accommodating friends from out of town pose much of a problem. Aside from the main house, there are five other residencies, giving a total of 72,000 sq ft of living space and 29 bedrooms.

"Very rarely does a house of this calibre come on the market," said Stephen Shapiro, co-founder of Westside Estate Agency, which announced the listing on Monday. "We feel that this is one of the premier properties one could buy, certainly the most premier property in Los Angeles at this point."

Designed by the architect Gordon Kaufman and built in the late Twenties for a Los Angeles banking mogul, Milton Getz, the estate has been in the hands of Leonard Ross, a local lawyer and property investor, since 1976. Apparently, a desire for a "change of lifestyle" has persuaded Mr Ross to pack up and sell. Finding that lifestyle should not be a problem with a cheque for $165m in his pocket.

That, of course, is assuming it will sell for anything like that much, even if prices for luxury properties across the US have been soaring. The second most expensive currently available is a newly-built estate in Big Sky, Montana, at $155m, while third place goes to the recently-listed Rocky Mountain retreat of Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, available for $135m.

But in reality, no single residence has sold for a nine-figure sum. The record remains the $94m which was paid for the Bel-Air home of the former telecoms mogul Gary Winnick in 2001. Most observers of the property scene think it only a matter of time before the nine-figure barrier is broken, however.

However, anyone thinking of adding the Beverly House Compound to their sight-seeing itinerary in Los Angeles can forget about it. There will be no open houses for the merely curious. Buyers expressing serious interest will be screened by Mr Shapiro before they are let through the gates. His rule of thumb: spending $165m should not dent their personal worth by more than 10 per cent.