Just off California’s Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles County, where residential land is scarce and home costs are high, a regenerative farm has hit the market.
The 10-acre Malibu property includes the usual agriculture accoutrements — 800 fruit and nut trees, an orchard business, an apothecary — and a midcentury modern home.
The two-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom residence “has been just beautifully redone,” according to real estate agent Brenda Hayward.
The home includes original floors, high-beamed ceilings, hand-carved sinks, a large stone fireplace, a sauna and an ice bath, as well as an outdoor bathtub and shower. Plans also include more than 10,000 square feet of greenhouses designed by Marmol Radziner.
Now, the Malibu farm, including the home, is on the market for $22 million, according to a listing on Homes.com.
Hayward, an agent at Compass, holds the listing alongside Britt Elizondo of The One Luxury Properties.
It's a hotspot for artists and creatives
The farm has a storied history, according to the agents.
“There have been so many artists that have put their hand in,” Hayward told Homes.com.
There’s Stan Bitters, a well-known ceramic sculptor, for example, who crafted the tiles throughout the mid-century modern house. And author Joan Didion, who wrote part of “The White Album” while on the property.
Most recently, the property has served as “a space to educate and do farm-to-table,” Hayward said. That said, it could serve an end-user as its next steward.
“It lends itself to someone who has a creative mind…I think it could be somebody who wants a passion project,” she said.
“The people that we’ve shown it to so far … they come in with one idea and then by the time a two-hour showing goes by, they’re kind of like, ‘oh my gosh my mind is blow with what I should do,’” Elizondo added. “It went from being more of like kind of a business venture to, no, forget it, I’m going to my family in here.”
What does it take to maintain a farm?
Of course, maintaining a property of the farm’s magnitude takes work.
“The kind of stewardship that has taken place on the property, I think, is pretty unparalleled,” Hayward said. “They’re very into the regenerative farming and the stewardship of the land…It’s really been a labor of love — fully organic, no chemicals.”
The current owners, for example, have a property manager who runs the farm operations.
There’s also the orchid farm, a roughly 50-year-old family-run business that operates from the property. Hayward and Elizondo said the family hopes to keep leasing the space.
Even with that upkeep, though, the duo is confident in selling the farm.
“When you’ve got something that is so incredibly unique, it takes one buyer to see the vision,” Hayward said. “Whether that buyer is somebody who lives around the corner or across the globe, it’s just a question of them seeing it – and if they can envision the potential.”