Mansion for Sale: $165 Million, Horse Head Not Included

The housing market may be in a bit of a funk, with prices for houses falling in many parts of the country. But the very rich are very different indeed.

Leonard Ross, a lawyer and investor, has put Beverly Hills's iconic Hearst mansion on the market with an asking price of $165 million, according to the Los Angeles Times.

That makes it the most expensive residential listing in U.S. history. It outstrips the $155 million developers want for an estate in Montana, and far exceeds the $135 million price tag a Saudi prince recently put on his property in Aspen. And of course, it's quite a premium on the $120,000 that newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst paid for the 1920's-era mansion when he bought it in 1947.

If you're curious how far $165 million takes you these days: the Beverly House Compound, as it's known, includes four houses, three swimming pools, an apartment, a "staff cottage," and tennis courts spread over 6.5 acres, the Los Angeles Times says. The central pink stucco mansion has nine bedrooms, a two-story library, eight fireplaces, and two movie-projection rooms. The property may be best known as a backdrop for a scene in The Godfather, when a movie producer discovers a severed horse's head in his bed.

But Ross shouldn't start counting his cash yet; just because the market is ready to list nine figure properties, that doesn't mean that people are willing to buy them. While half a dozen homes that exceed the $100 million mark have been listed in the past two years, none of these has yet sold. In fact, the record sale price for a residential property dates all the way back to 2001, when former telecom titan Gary Winnick picked up a Bel-Air estate for $94 million.

Westside Estate Agency, the broker breaking records with the Hearst listing, is banking on the Hearst estate's sale price setting a new high, too.

Liz Gunnison