Kauai property sold for $28 Million

The main house on the 174-acre parcel formerly owned by Hollywood’s Peter Guber has six bedrooms, eight bathrooms, and unobstructed views of Papa‘a Bay on the North Shore. The parcel sold earlier this month for $28 million to a limited-liability corporation. The new owners have not been publicly identified. Papa‘a Bay Ranch LLC/Contributed photo

By Paul Curtis - The Garden Island

Published: Sunday, November 29, 2009 3:10 AM HST

LIHU‘E — The “Tara” sign is gone. A 174-acre parcel fronting Papa‘a Bay on the North Shore, formerly owned by Mandalay Properties Hawai‘i LLC (whose principal is Hollywood movie executive Peter Guber), sold earlier this month for $28 million, according to a real estate agent representing the new owner.

The new owner is also a limited-liability corporation, not a developer, from the United States, said Hannah Sirois of Kaua‘i Heritage Properties LLC. The principals of the new owner’s company have not yet been publicly identified, but they are a man and a woman, Sirois said Friday.

The combined parcels, with frontage from Kuhio Highway between Anahola and Kilauea down to the high-water mark at Papa‘a Bay, contain a 13,154-square foot, six-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion near the water’s edge, two guest houses, a caretaker’s quarters, stables, swimming pool, tennis court and other amenities.

The “Tara” sign along Kuhio Highway had been a familiar landmark of the property, dubbed “Tara Plantation” (his wife’s first name) by Guber. The sign has been taken down, Sirois said.

It made history as being the most expensive for-sale parcel on Kaua‘i when it was first listed for $46.5 million four years ago. The asking price at the time of the sale was $39.5 million, Sirois said.

Guber bought the property in 1998 for around $7.5 million.

The property made headlines as the center of a beach-access lawsuit between Guber and Kaua‘i County, with the two sides disputing whether an access road on Guber’s property leading to the beach was public or private. Courts ruled it private in the suit first brought when the late Mayor Bryan Baptiste was in office.

For Sirois and the new owners, the sale culminated a multi-year search for the perfect Hawai‘i getaway, involving properties on O‘ahu, Maui, the Big Island and Kaua‘i, said Sirois.

“The buyer was on a statewide search for the premier real estate in Hawai‘i, affirming that the property had to be at a world-class level, and found that no other property, despite abundant listings on the market, compared to Papa‘a Bay Ranch,” she said.

The buyer thought a downward-spiraling economy might make for a good time to secure what Sirois called “priceless real estate,” and purchased the property “for the serenity of the site.”

The new owners intend to keep the existing local caretakers and expand the property’s sustainability through alternative-energy installations, and movements into organic farming, said Sirois.

“They are soulful, caring people,” she said of the new owners.

“(The) buyer is not a developer and intends to maintain the pristine nature of the site. The desire is to improve the ranch sustainability by increasing farming, alternate-energy sources, and relying more on native plants,” she said.

“Guber did a masterful job maintaining” and improving the property, and added substantial “assets” including the main house, guest homes, stables, tennis court and other “extraordinary improvements,” she said.

To date this year, no property has been sold in Hawai‘i for this kind of money, she said.

“It’s the strongest sale in the state right now, and rightfully so,” said Sirois, unwilling to reveal how much she made on the sale.

“Ironically, I represented the seller of Papa‘a Bay Ranch at the time that Mr. Guber purchased the property in early 1998. After Mr. Guber’s purchase, and over a three-year period, he significantly improved the property by adding four homes, a tennis court, workshop and pool,” Sirois said.

Guber is chairman and chief executive officer of Mandalay Entertainment Group. Malia Powers, Barbara Sloan and John Ferry of Coldwell Banker Bali Hai Realty represented the seller.

The architect of the main home and two guest homes is Alwyn Trigg Smith of Honolulu, and the interior designer is Waldo Fernandez of Beverly Hills, said Sirois.

With the sale of the Papa‘a Bay parcels, the largest asking price of a for-sale residential parcel on Kaua‘i is $23.5 million for two adjacent parcels being marketed together on Weke Road on Hanalei Bay. People have been making offers on these parcels, said a real-estate professional familiar with the properties.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING !!

Proclamation of Thanksgiving
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[Signed]
A. Lincoln

You may qualify for the Homebuyer's Tax Credit

The newly revised First Time Homebuyer’s credit expanded the credit to include buyers who are replacing their primary residence.

Did you know you may qualify for the credit even if you are DOWNsizing?

Did you know that if the cost of the new home exceeds $800,000 you do NOT qualify for the credit?

So...if you are buying or considering buying a house that will be your principal residence, I suggest you talk "story" with your accountant/CPA.



The following chart summarizes the original and revised regulations to help you determine if you qualify for the Homebuyer's Tax Credit.

Government Affairs Tax Credit Ext Chart 110409