Carbon Beach Neighborhood

The four-lot compound belonging to billionaire David Geffen, at the property value peak of Carbon Beach. The property fronts on Pacific Coast Highway where it is shaded and partially concealed by trees. Included is a nine-car garage, a swimming pool and large deck area.

Carbon Beach extends from Carbon Canyon Road on the east (just west of La Costa) to the area just east of the Malibu Pier, about a mile and a half. Just over 70 private residences line the beach wall to wall with only two access paths to the sand for the public. The quality of the beach is one of the finest in Malibu (and therefore, one of the finest anywhere in California). Carbon Beach is crescent shaped, tapering to shallower lots at each end. The best lots, with the most sand, are in the center of the arc.

Because of the fine beach, generally good location in Malibu, and other unexplainable factors, Carbon Beach is the highest value beach neighborhood on Pacific Coast Highway, a section where everyone has millions and surprisingly many even have billions of dollars. Homes here have been purchased for millions of dollars only to be torn down for their inadequacy or to have the property combined into something more suitably grand. This is definitely where "if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it." While not every home is inhabited by a celebrity, Carbon Beach has more than its share, names like Nancy Daly Riordan (wife of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan), Lou Adler (music mogul), Larry Ellison (software billionaire), Eli Broad (billionaire businessman), Haim Saban (another billionaire, producer of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and other TV programming), and David Geffen (Steven Spielberg's and Jeffrey Katzenberg's partner in DreamWorks), high ranking business people and Hollywood's upper tier.

Homes here tend to be carefully designed by leading architects and adhere to very tasteful standards. Privacy has a high value along with insulation from PCH noise. Money, of course, is no object. When billionaire entrepreneur Eli Broad planned his Carbon Beach house he employed Getty Center architect Richard Meier to design a home on two adjoining parcels. Broad paid $2.5 million for one lot, then owned by Freddy DeMann, Madonna's former manager. It had 45 feet of beach frontage -- the 1952 three-bedroom 3,000-square-foot house was demolished. Next door was another 55 feet of beach frontage Broad bought for $2.6 million, including an 1,800-square-foot house built in 1955, also demolished. The home Meier designed to utilize the combined space is a steller example of Malibu's finest architecture. How much is it worth? Not for sale at any price.

Access to Malibu's Carbon Beach

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