A Tech Entrepreneur Purchases Pharrell’s Skyline Residence

Currently, Pharrell does not own a property in California. A couple of years ago, the Grammy Award collector sold his rather bulbous glass mansion above Sherman Oaks for $14 million to a non-famous couple, and now he finally sold his second Tinseltown residence, an equally idiosyncratic, but much leaner and sleeker residence in the Hollywood Hills atop a narrow promontory. Although the $9.2 million sale price represents a steep discount from the $12 million asking price nearly two years ago, it’s still significant compared to the $7.1 million Pharrell paid in 2015.

Francis Davidson, CEO and founder of Sonder, a short-term rental management company arguably the biggest competitor to Airbnb, has purchased the home. Sonder was founded in 2012 by Davidson out of his Montreal college apartment as a way for students to rent out their empty apartments. After the business steadily grew, Davidson dropped out of college and moved to Silicon Valley with Sonder. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk backed venture capital funds that contributed $550 million to the company’s valuation today.

Davidson’s new Los Angeles home isn’t clear whether he plans to list it on Sonder, but it would certainly bring in a lot of money. In 2007, Hagy Belzberg designed and completed the vaguely boomerang-shaped architectural tour de force, which lords far above Laurel Canyon and offers incredible views of the city from jetliners. Just two years later, Belzberg and his wife sold the house to a semi-mysterious Russian businessman named Denis Mikhaylov for $5.9 million. A few years later, Mikhaylov sold the house to Pharrell.

And if you’re a Ryan Gosling fan and this hilltop home, known locally as Skyline Residence looks vaguely familiar, it could be because the place played Gosling’s bachelor pad in the 2011 hit romcom “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

Regardless, Pharrell and his family have moved from Los Angeles to Miami. In 2020, he invested $30 million in a luxurious estate in Coral Gables; he owns a 9,000-square-foot mansion in Virginia Beach, his hometown. Listed by Branden and Rayni Williams of The Beverly Hills Estates, the buyer was represented by Compass’ Sally Forster Jones

Although the lot spans some 1.5 acres, spacious by L.A. standards, most of that land is a nearly sheer cliff. Belzberg says the main house and separate guesthouse, which together span 6,000 square feet, had to be very long and narrow to fit the likewise long and narrow shape of the buildable pad.