According to Opendoor’s mission statement, “we empower everyone to move.” And it’s likely that Eric Wu, the founder and CEO of Opendoor, felt a lot empowered when he recently bought the Orum Residence, a Los Angeles mansion made of all glass, for $32.3 million. Like a three-pronged scythe, the boldly styled home slices through the clouds in the Bel Air hills.
The off-market deal closed last week, though the house had previously been on the market for years and was photographed and videotaped for numerous publications. Previously, Beyoncé and Jay-Z filmed Tiffany & Co. ads onsite. Zoltan Pali, a Los Angeles architect best known for his avant-garde buildings, designed the huge and idiosyncratic structure with nearly 19,000 square feet.
A large glass airplane propeller with three distinct wings jutting out from a single central node, the Bel Air home is not a stranger to Pali’s list of dynamic works. From certain angles, it resembles a giant glass airplane propeller. From the downtown high-rises to the Getty Center, residents enjoy panoramic views dancing across the Los Angeles skyline.
Despite its architectural pedigree and abundance of style, the mansion struggled to attract a buyer. It was completed in 2018 and languished on the market for nearly three years, and the price dropped from the original $56 million to $42 million. The final sale price represents a nearly 43% discount from the original asking price.
It took four years for the structure to be completed, which was built on speculation by Thai heiress and real estate developer Dang Bodiratnangkura, the wife of Olympic figure skating champion Evan Lysacek. A year after the existing home was demolished, permits were issued for the aggressively contemporary new construction. The property was purchased for .1 million in 2014.
With a muted color palette of white, gray, and taupe, the interior decor of the home is far more demure than it appears on the outside. The home also includes a cedar sauna, a massage room, a 1,000-bottle wine cellar, a home theater with Dolby Sound, and a state-of-the-art automation system that lets you control the lighting, HVAC, television, sound and motorized sliding doors using a touch pad. Two elevators connect the basement garage to the home’s various levels, and a central “floating” staircase leads up from the foyer to the penthouse.
The property’s grounds include a large swimming pool illuminated by LEDs, wraparound patios serviced by an outdoor kitchen, two fire pits, as well as a substantial motorcourt and grassy lawn for hosting galas and other large gatherings.
A longtime resident of San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood, Wu founded Opendoor in 2014. In December 2020, the company went public, briefly making Wu a billionaire.
