Mansion of Gagik Khachatryan’s sons in Los Angeles put up for sale: HETQ
In 2010, Gourgen and Artyom, the two sons of Armenian Minister of Finance Gagik Khachatryan, purchased a sprawling private house in the affluent Los Angeles neighborhood of Westwood. They paid $11 million for it. Now, they want to sell it for a cool $35 million. Readers will note that at the time Gagik Khachatryan was serving as the president of Armenia’s State Revenue Committee and controlled the country’s tax and customs services. Given his wealth and power, Khachatryan was nicknamed the ‘super minister’. The press in Armenia linked him with a number of companies that, conveniently, were registered under the names of relatives. A partial list includes Ucom, MegaFood, Apeyron, MegaMotors, MegaSport, Chronograph, Galaxy Concern and Chimeg. Gourgen (photo) and Artyom have a stake in some of them. The two young men, along with their wives, are registered as residing at 66 Teryan Street in Yerevan. It’s a high-rise apartment building near the HSBC branch opposite the Yeritasardakan Metro station. Compared with their house at 355 South Mapleton Drive in Los Angeles, 66 Teryan can be described as a hovel. South Mapleton Drive is considered prime real estate. Average people don’t live in the spacious houses lining the street, with their numerous bedrooms, baths and tennis courts. In 2014, Variety ran a piece, entitled South Mapleton Drive Houses a Bevy of the Rich and Famous, on the glitzy neighborhood. “For years, legions of Playboy models and wannabe bunnies were housed in dorm-like conditions in the illustrious “Bunny Hutch,” a shabby, ranch-style residence on 1.3 S. Mapleton acres that sold last year for $10 million to the same financier who, back in 2008, shelled out $16 million for the Colonial mansion next door. Hugh Hefner and ex-wife Kimberley Conrad owned another S. Mapleton manse they sold in 2009 for $18 million to one of the sons of billionaire C. Dean Metropoulos, owner of the Pabst Brewing Co.” In 2013, Hollywood legend Gregory Peck’s window Veronique sold their seven-bedroom mansion to Google zillionaire Eric Schmidt for $22 million. In January 2014, American TV luminary Ellen DeGeneres bought a stunning, 11,500-square-foot, A. Quincy Jones-designed mansion on 2.25 acres for $39.9 million and lucratively flipped in July to businessman Sean Parker for $55 million. For years, Candy Spelling (widow of TV producer Aaron Spelling) tried for years, and in vain, to sell their 55,000-square-foot house on the street for $150 million. It finally went, in 2011, for a much lower but still sky-high $85 million to Formula One racing heiress Petra Ecclestone Stunt. More on the source website
