Billionaire venture capitalist superstar Tim Draper, who once advocated dividing California into six separate states, is leaving Hermosa Beach.
A Draper-affiliated LLC sold a 7,900-square-foot oceanfront mansion at 2826 The Strand in Hermosa Beach on May 5 for $18.5 million, according to property records. The price equates to $2,346 per square foot.
In March, the beach house was listed for $18.9 million. It was last listed in 2011. The $18.5 million sale could set a record for the most expensive home sold in Hermosa Beach, said Evan Haug, a broker with Always Buyers real estate listing platform in Manhattan Beach. Bryn Stroyke of Bayside Stroyke Properties Group has been selling homes in the Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach communities since 1992. He also confirmed that the Draper sale would set a record for the most expensive home in Hermosa Beach.
The four-story home has 39 feet of frontage on The Strand, a popular walkway and bike path in the South Bay, along with a gym and movie theater, according to the Zillow listing.
Tad Thormodsgaard, of Palm Realty Boutique, represented the buyer and seller in the transaction. Thormodsgaard did not respond to a request for comment. The identity of the buyer is not yet known.
Luxury home sales in Hermosa Beach and neighboring Manhattan Beach are up as the spring home-selling season kicks into gear. On April 27, former NHL Los Angeles Kings captain Dustin Brown sold his home at 522 24th Place for $14.5 million. On April 28, 3000 The Strand in Manhattan Beach, just a few blocks from Draper’s beach mansion, sold for $13.5 million.
According to Redfin, the median home price in Hermosa Beach was $2.1 million in March, down 1.8% from March 2022. The median home price in Manhattan Beach in March 2023 was $2.7 million, down 6.5% from March 2022 and a year earlier.
Tim Draper comes from a family well-established in venture capital and politics. His father, William Henry Draper III, was the founder of the investment firm Draper & Johnson.His grandfather, William Henry Draper, served as the first ambassador to NATO, beginning Draper, Gaither and Anderson, is considered the first venture capital firm in Silicon Valley.
During his career, Tim Draper has made major investments in companies such as Hotmail, Tesla, Twitter, DocuSign, Robinhood, and Twitch. He also advocated dividing California into six separate states, arguing that the state had grown too large to govern. He failed to gather enough signatures to pass a measure on the 2016 statewide ballot.
In 2018, he gathered enough signatures to enact a measure that would split California into three states. But the California Supreme Court blocked the measure before bringing it to a vote. According to the Los Angeles Times, Draper backed the measure with $1.2 million.
