After more than a decade of ownership, former Uzbek diplomat Lola Karimova Tillyaeva has sold her Beverly Hills house for about $36 million, making it the 90210’s biggest transaction of the year—so far. The Wall Street Journal first reported the big deal, which was inked off-market earlier this week. The buyer’s name has not yet been revealed, and records do not yet reveal exactly how much they paid.
Tillyaeva, 45, is the glamorous and jet-setting daughter of the late politician Islam Karimov, the autocratic president who ruled Uzbekistan for some 30 years, until his 2016 death. She bought the 90210 mega-mansion—it reportedly boasts some 48,000 square feet of living space, making it one of the largest homes in the city—in 2013 from controversial real estate developer Mohamed Hadid, paying just under $33 million.
Known as Le Palais, the enormous house is uncommonly lavish by even Beverly Hills standards, with indoor and outdoor swimming pools and 48,000 square feet of living space.
Google Earth
Since the house was never officially listed for sale this time around, we don’t know what decor changes Tillyaeva made to the place in her nearly 11 years of ownership. But the 1.09-acre property, known as Le Palais, appears to have been immaculately maintained—at least judging by its exterior and the grounds, which boast some of the tallest hedges and most intricately beautiful landscaping in all of Beverly Hills.
The property is also something of a local landmark, as it sits directly across the street from the Beverly Hills Hotel at the uber-busy, six-way intersection of Sunset Boulevard, North Crescent Drive and North Beverly Drive. A shiny chrome donut art piece—installed by Tillyaeva a few years ago—greets the thousands of cars that race past the house on any given day.
A shiny donut sculpture on the property faces one of Sunset Boulevard’s busiest intersections.
Google Earth
Tax records indicate the giant mansion contains a total of 7 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms, plus three additional bathrooms that serve the outdoor areas. There’s also two more bedrooms and one additional bathroom sequestered in a staff apartment atop the outdoor garage.
Off the gated motorcourt, Lalique-style glass front doors swing open into a soaring entrance hall that stretches 90 feet long and some 30 feet high. Elaborate wood paneling surrounds the door frames, while formal entertaining spaces include a very large but well-scaled formal living room with 14-foot ceilings and a fireplace hewn from Italian marble. There’s another marble fireplace in the formal dining room that can comfortably seat 20-plus guests at a burled olive wood table.
Also on tap are a library with paneled walls and built-in bookcases, plus a ballroom-sized bar/lounge also equipped with 14-foot ceilings, a third marble fireplace and direct access to multiple outdoor terraces. The colossal kitchen/family room combination, which spans some 5,000 square feet on its own, has a coffered ceiling and is complete with a sumptuous lounge area.
The sprawling lower level, accessed by stair or elevator, is a 15,000-square-foot treasure trove of resort-style recreational amenities. A grand ballroom that seats up to 200 is serviced by a commercial-grade catering kitchen and flanks a movie theater for 40 guests and a state-of-the-art-gym. Also downstairs is a Turkish-style hammam with elaborately tiled 30-foot long indoor swimming pool, steam and sauna facilities, and a private massage room. Rounding out the lower level are a laundry room, several storage room, and a secured underground garage for 10-12 cars.
On the second floor, the main master suite includes a private sitting room/study with a curving wall of glass, an adjoining bedroom with a fireplace, two behemoth bathrooms—plus a powder room, and dual dressing rooms. One bathroom has a fireplace and the other has a hidden staircase that ascends to a 3,800-square-foot rooftop terrace with impressive sunset-facing views. It’s worth noting that Hadid, who began building the house in the late 2000s, reportedly ran afoul of the Beverly Hills city government by making the house some 10 feet taller than legally allowed.
The home’s landscaping is some of the most intricate in Beverly Hills, with giant hedges, hundreds of poinsettias and dozens of mature magnolia trees.
Google Earth
The grounds aren’t particularly expansive—this is a massive home on a 1-acre property in the heart of Beverly Hills, after all—but there are expansive stone terraces, an al fresco dining area warmed by a fireplace, a full outdoor kitchen with a barbecue, and a row of curtained cabana lounges just like you might find at a Ritz-Carlton. Also on tap are the aforementioned rose gardens, multiple fountains and mature magnolia trees lining the long sides of a 60-foot swimming pool and a 20-person spa.
No word yet regarding whether Tillyaeva plans to buy another L.A. residence. But the perfume entrepreneur and her businessman husband Timur Tillyaev also maintain homes in Paris and in Switzerland, where they own a $41 million estate sited on one of the most expensive streets in Geneva. More