The $25 Million Beverly Hills Chateau of Late Philanthropist Glorya Kaufman Is Now for Sale!

She gave away over $100 million so others could afford what she never had as a child. Now the Beverly Hills chateau she called home for her final years is on the market for $25 million.

That timing matters. Glorya Kaufman passed away on August 5, 2025, at 95 years old, peacefully surrounded by family. Her estate listing arriving less than a year later is not just a real estate story.

It is the quiet closing of a chapter that shaped Los Angeles in ways most people never fully see.

The Woman Behind the Address

Glorya was born in Detroit in 1930, during the Great Depression. Her family could not afford dance lessons for her. That detail matters more than any listing price.

She fell in love with dance before she could even walk and spent her teenage years at Detroit’s local jazz clubs.

In the early 1950s she met Donald Bruce Kaufman, who co-founded Kaufman and Broad (now KB Home), the first homebuilding company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. She helped fund his early lots by selling her own car and jewelry.

Donald died in a plane crash in 1983. Glorya turned that grief into four decades of philanthropy. She donated $25 million to USC to establish the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, the largest donation in the school’s history.

She gave $20 million to the Los Angeles Music Center, launching the Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance series. She also donated to UCLA, Juilliard, Inner-City Arts, LACMA, MOCA, and the Geffen Playhouse.

The woman who could not afford dance lessons as a child made sure thousands of other children never faced that same barrier. She funded free dance classes for over 17,000 children annually through Inner-City Arts in East LA alone.

The Chateau on Laurel Way

In May 2012, Glorya purchased the Tuscan-style villa at 1140 Laurel Way in Beverly Hills for $18.2 million. She renamed it Château de Liberté, meaning “house of freedom,” to reflect the independence that defined her life after Donald’s passing.

Built in 1989, the single-story residence spans 5,889 square feet on 0.86 acres at the end of a long, gated private driveway on one of Beverly Hills’ most exclusive streets.

The home has a grand living room with towering ceilings and skylights, seven fireplaces, Venetian plaster walls, limestone floors, grand chandeliers, and oversized French doors opening to resort-level outdoor spaces.

There is a pool, a spa, a covered loggia, winding garden pathways, a three-car garage, and a detached two-story guesthouse.

The full listing details are available via Realtor.com.

She lived there for over 13 years until she passed. Before Laurel Way, Glorya and Donald had owned a sprawling 48-acre ranch in Mandeville Canyon called Amber Hill. She sold it at auction for $14.6 million in 2014, two years after buying Château de Liberté.

One thing worth noting: the proceeds from this sale will go directly to the Glorya Kaufman Foundation to continue supporting the arts. This is not an estate sale driven by family inheritance. The house is funding her mission one final time.

Perez Hilton recently listed his Las Vegas mansion after a serious health crisis forced him to reassess where he wanted to be but this listing carries a different weight entirely. The property itself becomes the last act of philanthropy.

Why Beverly Hills Estate Sales Are Never Simple in 2026

Here is what most articles skip entirely.

Beverly Hills in 2026 is a discerning buyer’s market. Buyers are patient, analytical, and negotiating hard. Well-priced, architecturally distinctive properties move. Everything else sits and accumulates stigma.

At $25 million, Glorya’s chateau enters a tier that requires the right buyer, not just any buyer. Legacy estate sales carry an additional layer of complexity.

The emotional weight of ownership history can attract exactly the right person, or it can quietly complicate every pricing conversation.

There is, however, one meaningful advantage this listing holds that most sellers at this tier do not. Beverly Hills, as an independent city, is exempt from Los Angeles’ Measure ULA transfer tax, known as the mansion tax.

That tax adds 4% on sales between $5.3 million and $10.6 million, and 5.5% on anything above that, on top of LA’s existing 0.45% transfer tax. A $25 million sale inside LA city limits would carry a tax bill of roughly $1.4 million for the buyer. At Château de Liberté, that number is zero.

Listing agent Rachelle Rosten of Douglas Elliman put it directly: “Beverly Hills continues to command the attention of the world’s most sophisticated buyers.

When they compare Beverly Hills to London, Monaco, or Manhattan, they quickly realize this is the rare world-class market where prestige and value still coexist.”

Her colleague Kelly deLaat added: “This is more than a real estate transaction. It is the opportunity to become the next steward of a truly elegant home.”

Ryan Seacrest’s $18.5 million Napa Valley estate sat on the market for nearly two years before finally closing, proof that even exceptional California properties at this price point need precisely the right buyer.

Christina Haack pulled her $4.5 million Tennessee farmhouse off the market again for the same reason, showing that buyer fit matters as much as the price itself.

How this listing performs over the coming months will tell you a great deal about where Beverly Hills luxury genuinely stands right now.

If you follow luxury real estate closely and want to catch these stories as they develop, the Build Like New WhatsApp channel covers moves like this in real time, usually before the broader news cycle picks them up.

Why This Matters

This is not just about square footage and a listing price.

Glorya Kaufman’s $20 million Music Center gift still funds world-class dance performances in Los Angeles today. The USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance has trained dancers now performing with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Royal Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre.

In 2023, she opened the Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center at Vista Del Mar. The Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance series continues to bring these companies to LA audiences every season.

Her legacy did not retire with her. The institutions she built are still running, still training, still giving children access to something their families might never have been able to afford.

The home going to market quietly closes the last private space that was entirely hers. Everything else she created is still very much alive.

And unlike almost any other estate sale at this level, the $25 million from this sale goes straight back into the work she spent her life building. The house, in the end, becomes part of the mission.

Key Takeaways

• Glorya Kaufman died on August 5, 2025, at 95 years old in Beverly Hills
• She purchased Château de Liberté in May 2012 for $18.2 million and lived there over 13 years
• The estate is now listed at $25 million, a 37% gain over her purchase price across 14 years
• All proceeds from the sale will go to the Glorya Kaufman Foundation to continue supporting the arts
• Beverly Hills’ exemption from LA’s mansion tax is a significant financial advantage for buyers at this price tier
• Her $25 million gift to USC remains the largest donation in the school’s history
• She funded free dance classes for over 17,000 children annually at Inner-City Arts in East LA

What do you think should happen to a home like this after a philanthropist of this scale passes? Should it be preserved in some way, or does it simply become real estate like any other? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.

Wrapping Up

The chateau at 1140 Laurel Way held the final private years of someone whose public impact will outlast any listing. Real estate moves on. The stages, schools, and communities she built do not.

If stories like this are your thing, Build Like New covers celebrity real estate, luxury market shifts, and the human side of big transactions regularly. Follow us on X and join the conversation on our Facebook community so you never miss the next one.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. All details are based on publicly available reports at the time of publication.