edition.cnn.com
Bank seizes 'world's most expensive' house
July 25, 2001 Posted: 4:12 AM EDT (0812 GMT)
YUP, 2001, TRUTHSEEKER RUBBING OFF ON ME..WEEEEEEEEEE
The $70 million Genesis sits on Victoria Peak, Hong Kong's top neighborhood
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By CNN's Alex Frew McMillan
HONG KONG, China -- The bank has foreclosed on one of the world's most-expensive homes. It will likely force its sale.
Genesis set a record for the most paid for a single house when it sold for $70 million in 1997.
The six-bedroom home sits in Hong Kong's most prestigious neighborhood, Victoria Peak.
The sale of Genesis in 1997 came at the height of the property market in Hong Kong. The buyer, high-flying property developer Wong Kwan's Pearl Oriental Holdings Ltd., has since fallen on hard times.
The Bank of East Asia has now seized Genesis, Pearl Oriental said this week. The bank can force a sale, which it may do to pay off a portion of Pearl's multi-million dollar debts.
Talks are continuing this week, Pearl said. Pearl hired an independent financial adviser last week to sort out its problems.
But the company didn't realize the bank had called the receivers in. They've since taken hold of Genesis.
China turned down overtures
In all, Pearl owes its bankers $177 million on its property holdings, which also includes Skyhigh, a five-building luxury residential complex on the Peak, and several office towers.
Selling off the properties would help it pay off its debts, Pearl says.
Wong bought Genesis and all the mansion's contents, hoping to sell it to the Hong Kong government as the home for Hong Kong's first chief executive.
But the government of the Chinese special administrative region decided the six-bedroom, 40-room Genesis, with its indoor swimming pool, Italian trimmings and Greek statues, was too lavish.
Hong Kong's first post-colonial leader, Tung Chee Hwa, stayed in his apartment instead.
Genesis has stood empty since, bar the odd dinner party. No one lives there, and Wong has struggled to find buyers.
Wong's costly gambit fails
With the double whammy of Hong Kong's handover to China in 1997 and the Asian financial crisis, property prices plummeted in Hong Kong. Its housing bubble burst, hurting its whole economy.
Six-bedroom Genesis has stood empty since its sale
Wong's costly gambit hasn't paid off. All the while, his debts have grown, and Pearl Oriental -- briefly dubbed Pearl Oriental Cyberforce -- took a disastrous foray into dot.coms.
Genesis has risen little in value in the four years since its sale. At the end of 2000, the home at 23 Severn Road was worth $70.5 million (HK$550 million), Pearl stated in its filing on the seizure.
A lucky buyer may now be able to snap Genesis up at a "bargain" price. Oil-rich Arabian princes are the target market.
Pearl says it has been negotiating with potential buyers but hasn't reached a deal. Wong is traveling, and attempts to contact him for this story were unsuccessful.
There are other lavish properties around the world. Bill Gates' lakefront mansion near Seattle cost $53 million just to construct. Restaurant franchiser Nelson Peltz is asking $75 million for his Palm Beach mansion, Montsorrel, which is the highest priced-home on the American market. But it has yet to sell.
This June, an unidentified head of state paid $99 million for a 30-apartment, four-story mansion and estate in Surrey, England. Rumor has it the crown prince of Dubai snapped up the 90-acre property, which features a heated marble driveway.
The $30 million it cost William Randolph Hearst to build Hearst Castle in California makes it the costliest home to construct, according to Guinness World Records, coming in at $277 million today.
For a one-building home, though, $70 million is still thought to be the most paid.
It also tops the charts on the price-size equation. Genesis is a modest 28,000 square feet and the property a miserly 56,430 square feet.
Pearl Oriental says the home's "small" size means it still holds the dollar-per-square-foot title paid for a home, at $1,240. |
