Byron Allen created a media firm without investors at his dining room table in the early 1990s. The former comedian is chairman and CEO of Los Angeles-based Allen Media Group/Entertainment Studios, the largest privately held media company in the US, which is worth well over $4.5 B and has luxurious offices in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Charleston, S.C.
Allen owns several ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX network affiliate broadcast TV stations and is one of the major independent producers/distributors of first-run syndicated TV content.
Allen’s prosperity lets him pursue his goals. The 61-year-old Detroit native lost to Walmart heir Rob Walton’s group in the second round of Denver Broncos bidding. He owns more than $500 M in luxury houses in New York, Aspen, Maui, and Los Angeles, where he recently spent $32 M for two neighboring mansions in one of Beverly Hills’ most desired neighborhoods.
Allen’s latest? The Wall Street Journal reported the $100 M purchase of a luxurious Malibu vacation residence once held by wealthy Public Storage heiress Tammy Hughes Gustavson, the highest ever paid by an African-American buyer.
It is the most expensive residential transaction in Malibu this year, surpassing Kim Kardashian’s $70.4 M purchase of Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber’s former oceanfront estate on the Encinal Bluffs last month, and the third-most expensive California home sale in 2022, behind a $120 M Holmby Hills deal and Bel Air’s “The One” megamansion, which sold at auction for $126 M.
Allen got a big discount on the $127.5 M property. Gustavson’s father B. Wayne Hughes, a longtime USC trustee who co-founded Public Storage in 1972 and died aged 87 in August 2021, spent approximately $20 M for the property in 2003.
The huge estate, commonly known as “Baires Bluff,” is on approximately 4 acres overlooking Paradise Cove beach and boasts over 200 feet of ocean frontage. It’s right south of WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum’s $190 M compound. The 2001 Mediterranean-style main house, two guesthouses, and large terraces give magnificent coastal and ocean views.