If house-flipping is a lucrative industry, hotel-flipping must be an even bigger money maker, especially in a town with the hot property values and jaw-dropping beachfront locations Malibu has to offer.
Just ask entertainment executive David Geffen, who last week sold the Malibu Beach Inn, a decade after purchasing the property, closing an $80 million deal with investors Simon and Daniel Mani on Feb. 26.
Geffen, 71, is known as the co-founder of DreamWorks Studios, along with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Early in his career, he founded Asylum Records, which signed notable artists like The Eagles, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. He is now reportedly worth $6.9 billion. Geffen is also a longtime Malibu resident.
The hotel, located on Pacific Coast Highway near the Malibu Pier, was sold to Geffen as a “fixer-upper” in 2005 for $29 million, and, since then, Geffen has poured resources into the luxury hotel.
Geffen’s improvements include the 2006 construction of a beachfront restaurant in the hotel complex, which overlooks Surfrider Beach and the Malibu Pier.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Geffen’s total investment in the property since its 2005 purchase tops $10 million, including a total update to each of the 47 rooms.
The $80 million price tag forked over by the Mani brothers breaks down to roughly $1.7 million per room, which, according to the WSJ, is the highest price-per-room in any hotel in the State of California. Summer season standard room rates at the Malibu Beach Inn start at $675.
When the then-modest hotel was sold to Geffen in 2005, the price broke down to about $617,000 per room, prior to the extensive facelift of the property.
In total, Geffen more than doubled his reported $39 million investment in the property.
Simon and Daniel Mani are brothers and real estate moguls based in West Hollywood. Together they run the Mani Brothers Real Estate Group.
In an email to the WSJ, Simon Mani reported he and Daniel are “very excited about our new acquisition of the Malibu Beach Inn.”
According to a report by The Hollywood Reporter, the brothers do not plan to make any immediate changes to the property or to hotel management.
The Wall Street Journal cites statistics that say the $1.7 million-per-room price tag is the highest valuation for a hotel in the country, outside of Florida, New York and Hawaii.