The mystery buyer behind a sleek modernist manse in Bel Air is a discreet tech CEO named Hideki Tomita.
Tomita paid $85 million for the property, after it was first listed in September for $125 million, according to the news blog, Yolanda’s Little Black Book. The listing was never public. Tomita purchased the property through a Japanese entity called EKYT Co. Ltd, which is registered in Hawaii.
The property includes a 19,000-square-foot main house and a 6,600-square-foot guest house by famed L.A. architect Paul Revere Williams. The main house was designed by John Pawson and built in 2009. It features a theater, gym, and spa. Both homes have five bedrooms. The grounds include a pool and tennis court.
Jeff Hyland of Hilton & Hyland listed the guest house as a rental for $45,000 a month in 2016.
Tomita founded DIP Corp in 1997. It’s a job search and recruitment company that operates a handful of sites in Japan. The company went public in 2004 and was valued at $1.2 billion with $306 million in sales and around 1,100 employees last year, according to Forbes.
The sellers were Ellen Bronfman Hauptman and her husband Andrew Hauptman. Bronfman is the granddaughter of Canadian mogul Samuel Bronfman, who built up the Seagram Company over the first half of the 20th century. [Yolanda’s Little Black Book] — Dennis Lynch