Close, But $165 Million Short: Most Expensive House In U.S. Flops

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — The owner of the most expensive house in the country defaulted on more than $165 million in debt, putting the house into receivership, CNBC reported.

The Los Angeles County Superior Court ordered the 105,000-square-foot house dubbed "The One" into receivership in July after developer Nile Niami's largest lender, Hankey Capital, served him with a notice of default in March over a $115 million loan.

The property is expected to be listed soon at a lower price, CNBC reported. The receiver in charge of getting the house listed is Ted Lanes of Lanes Management, a group that has handled many other expensive cases.

The house came from one of the biggest names in the megamansion building game, who has had his fair share of flops in and around Beverly Hills. Eccentric owner Niami has been developing the house since he bought the property in 2012.

The property was expected to hit the market in 2017, but was delayed because of financial and other problems. But Niami has been doing theatrical promotion ever since. In a promotional video with Michael Buckley, Niami said he thought the property could change the world.

The size of the house is nearly double the size of the White House and was originally intended to be priced at $500 million, about three times the price of most expensive house ever sold in Los Angeles. It has 19 bedrooms, five swimming pools, a movie theater that can sit 50 people, art galleries and its own nightclub with a separate entrance.

The house never hit the market, but there is a Google form for interested buyers who have to drop the name of whatever influencer from whom they heard about the house.

Architectural Digest reported in 2017 that after the Great Recession, the market for megamansions boomed, creating a race for developers to create the most extravagant homes they could. The One took the crown. "Few developers have ridden the spec-home wave with more success than Nile Niami," the 2017 said.

This isn't Niami's first megamansion. He had built 23 homes by 2017, The One being his 24th, Architectural Digest reported. But it's also not the first time he got in hot water over high levels of debt.

In 2020 alone, Niami defaulted twice on properties, the Los Angeles Times reported: a $10 million loan on a Hollywood Hills property and a $23.4 million loan on a home in Bel Air that sold in April.

Real estate company Compass sued Niami in 2019 over a $200,000 loan on a different Bel Air property.

A Niami company filed for bankruptcy protection last year in connection with loans on a West Hollywood property. He also ended up selling a Beverly Hills mansion called Opus to one of his lenders ... who relisted it and sold it for a profit shortly after, the LA Times reported.

All the while, Niami was carrying debt on The One.

He also owes more than $1 million in back taxes and unpaid bills to various contractors, according to CNBC.