$24.75 Million for Five Buildings and a Perch in the Branches: The DeMille Compound Changes Hands

Angelina Jolie has let go of the estate that carries Cecil B. DeMille's name, and the price is on the record: $24.75 million. The buyer gets more than a single house. The property is a compound, a small cluster of buildings on one piece of land. The principal residence sits at the center. Around it are separate quarters for visitors, a building that serves the pool, and a pavilion set aside for taking tea. Somewhere on the grounds, out of plain sight, there is also a treehouse, and a visitor could walk right past it without knowing it was there. A property at this level is expected to have guest quarters and a building by the pool. A dedicated place for tea is less common, and a concealed room up in the trees is rarer still. Together the five buildings describe an estate meant to be lived in across the whole property, not only inside four walls. This is the kind of sale this desk exists to record: a public price, a name that comes with the place, and buildings that show how the place was meant to be used.

With reporting from Architectural Digest.