Malibu Blufftop Mansion From Austin Powers and The O.C. Lists for the First Time in Decades

Some homes sell a postcode. Venezia Pacifica sells a story that no buyer can replicate, legally or otherwise.

This 17,700-square-foot blufftop estate in Point Dume, Malibu just hit the market for $90 million. First time ever listed. Thirty-five years in one family. And the man who built it started with nothing.

That context matters more than the price tag.

The Man Who Built It

Ken Harges grew up poor in rural Tennessee. He joined the Marine Corps straight out of high school, moved west to California, and built a plastering business from scratch before becoming a real estate developer responsible for over 70 projects.

In 1988, he paid $1.7 million for a bluff lot on Cliffside Drive in Point Dume. Three years later, his family had a home. Not a spec build. Not a flip.

A home his wife Lorelei shaped around their love of Italy, with classical columns, a symmetrical floor plan, a two-story ballroom at the center, and a name that stuck: Venezia Pacifica.

Ken died in 2016. His daughters, Bonnie Furgurson and Wendy Geweke, grew up inside these walls. They are now the sellers, acting as successor trustees.

Thirty-five years. One family. One address.

The Hollywood Resume Nobody Covers in Full

Every outlet leads with The O.C. and Austin Powers. That is the shortcut version.

The full list is something else. Venezia Pacifica served as a filming location for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Last Action Hero (1993), The O.C., The Brady Bunch Movie, Showgirls, Bulletproof, CSI: Miami, The Pretender, and several other productions.

In 1998, Jay-Z chose this house for his “Money Ain’t a Thang” music video.

That is not a house with a few cameos. That is a private family home with a decade-long Hollywood career that its owners never chased.

“Our parents genuinely enjoyed watching a little bit of Hollywood come to life at their home,” Furgurson and Geweke told the Wall Street Journal.

The Angle Most Buyers Miss

Here is what almost no coverage has spelled out clearly.

Venezia Pacifica was completed in 1991, before California implemented its current coastal height restrictions and building regulations.

Listing agent Chris Cortazzo of Compass has confirmed the property carries a scale and interior volume that would be legally impossible to build today on this same bluff.

Nine bedrooms. Fifteen bathrooms. A double-height ballroom with a barrel-vaulted glass ceiling. A 9,500-square-foot underground garage with parking for 20 vehicles. And 176 feet of direct bluff frontage over the Pacific.

If a future buyer demolishes this and tries to rebuild, California law will not allow it anywhere near this size. That is not a sales pitch. That is a regulatory fact.

The sale also includes a Riviera III beach key, one of only three private gated beach access points in all of Point Dume.

That kind of access has a way of quietly compounding value over time, much like the Vanity Fair photographer who bought a Sag Harbor mansion for $3 million and is now listing it for $9.3 million, proof that the right property in the right location does its own work.

If you want to follow stories like this as they move, there is a WhatsApp channel worth checking out that tracks luxury real estate in real time. Low noise, high signal.

Why This Matters

This listing does not exist in isolation.

According to Redfin data cited by the Wall Street Journal, the median sale price in Point Dume for the three months ending May 31, 2026 was $14 million.

That is more than double the same period the year before. A multi-parcel property near Little Dume Beach changed hands for $80 million in 2025.

Malibu’s upper tier has been rewriting its own records. Beyonce and Jay-Z paid $200 million for a Paradise Cove compound in 2023. The Oakley founder’s estate sold for $210 million in 2024, setting a California residential price record at the time.

Tech billionaires, media executives, and former politicians have been quietly building out Point Dume portfolios for two years running.

Venezia Pacifica enters that market carrying something no new construction can buy: a grandfathered footprint, a family origin story, and a Hollywood resume that spans three decades.

Not every high-profile home story plays out cleanly, though. Michael B. Jordan is currently selling his Encino home at a $2 million loss after his Oscar win, a useful reminder that fame and market timing rarely move together.

And sometimes the story that drives the headlines has nothing to do with architecture at all, the way a secret family member living in Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s home became the real story before their wedding. Behind every big address, there is always something more going on.

Key Takeaways

• Venezia Pacifica is listed at $90 million and has never been on the open market before
• The 17,700 sq ft estate sits on 1.16 acres at Point Dume with 176 feet of direct bluff frontage
• Ken Harges paid $1.7 million for the land in 1988 and completed the home in 1991
• The property appeared in The O.C., Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Last Action Hero, CSI: Miami, The Brady Bunch Movie, and Jay-Z’s “Money Ain’t a Thang” music video
• California’s current coastal regulations mean this home cannot be legally rebuilt at this scale if demolished
• The underground garage spans 9,500 sq ft and fits 20 vehicles
• Point Dume median sale prices more than doubled year-over-year as of mid-2026, per Redfin
• Chris Cortazzo of Compass holds the listing. Sellers are Ken Harges’s daughters as successor trustees

Would you pay $90 million for a home that cannot be rebuilt, has a Hollywood career longer than most actors, and has never once been listed before? Or does the price make the story irrelevant? Drop your take in the comments.

Wrapping Up

On paper, this is a real estate listing. $90 million, nine bedrooms, Pacific views, famous address.

But the actual story is a man from rural Tennessee who built something permanent, a family that held onto it for 35 years, and a home that Hollywood kept finding on its own. None of that shows up in the square footage.

If this kind of story is your thing, Build Like New covers celebrity real estate, luxury market moves, and the human side of big transactions regularly. Worth keeping in your rotation if you want more than just the headline.

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