Malibu Beach Inn Sold

Hollywood studio mogul David Geffen has sold the Malibu Beach Inn for about $1.7 million per room, the highest valuation by this measure for any California hotel.

Geffen sold the inn for nearly $80 million to West Hollywood-based real estate investors Simon and Daniel Mani of the Mani Brothers Real Estate Group, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Bob Safai of L.A.-based broker Madison Partners coordinated the transaction, which wasn’t publicly marketed.

Geffen, who co-founded DreamWorks Studios with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, acquired the hotel in 2005 for around $29 million. He spent more than $10 million to upgrade the property, said a person familiar with the hotel, redoing all the rooms and altering the pink façade to have a more Mediterranean look. Geffen did not respond to request for comment.

The sale continues a trend of luxury or boutique hotels fetching record prices. In January, real estate investment trust Strategic Hotels & Resorts agreed to pay $360 million, or about $1.4 million a room, for the Montage Laguna Beach resort in southern California.

Last month, property investor Starwood Capital Group agreed to sell the Baccarat Hotel New York in midtown Manhattan for about $230 million, or more than $2 million a room, a new record on this basis. Hilton Worldwide Holdings also recently sold its flagship Waldorf Astoria on Manhattan’s Park Ave. for $1.95 billion, an all-time high for a U.S. hotel in total dollars.

The Malibu Beach Inn sale of nearly $1.7 million per room was the highest valuation for a hotel outside of Florida, New York or Hawaii.