Spec developer Ardie Tavangarian buys Elizabeth Taylor’s Bel Air residence

It may be curtains for Elizabeth Taylor’s famed residence in Bel Air.

Spec developer Ardie Tavangarian paid $11 million for the 7,000-square-foot home at 700 Nimes Road, the home where Taylor lived the last 30 years of her life, according to Dirt.

The builder hasn’t announced his plans for the chunk of Bel Air dirt, but it’s safer to assume he plans to redevelop it than preserve it.

Tavangarian has sold two massive spec homes in as many years. One of those was in Bel Air — that 25,000-square-foot behemoth sold for $75 million in mid-2019.

In July, Tavangarian sold a 20,000-square-foot spec home in Pacific Palisades for $83 million.

He’s got other irons in the fire as well. Last July, he purchased four adjoining properties across Bel Air from Elon Musk, surely with plans to combine them for a spec project.

Tavangarian’s new property on Nimes Road totals about 1.3 acres. Taylor bought the property in 1981 for $2 million and lived there until her death in 2011. It was previously owned by Frank Sinatra’s ex-wife Nancy and got an overhaul in the late 1970s just before Taylor purchased it.

Businessman Rocky Malhotra bought it a few months after Taylor’s death for $8 million. The house has six bedrooms and six bathrooms. The grounds look largely the same and there is still a guardhouse out front, although the interiors may have been renovated.

Photographer Catherine Opie shot a documentary photo series of the home over the last six months of Taylor’s life, although they never met, according to LA Magazine. The photos were published in the book “700 Nimes Road” in 2015.

[Dirt] — Dennis Lynch