Three multimillion-dollar Los Angeles investment properties have simultaneously popped up for sale, all of them with dazzling views of the L.A. skyline and pricetags that range between $5.995 and $6.495 million, Variety reported. All three are owned by businessman Timur Tillyaev and his philanthropist wife Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, the famously glamorous and jetsetting younger daughter of Uzbekistan’s late dictator Islam Karimov, via a series of shell companies.
In January Daily Mail reported that Lola Karimova's elder sister Gulanara was set to lose her vast property empire as anti-corruption investigators attempt to seize her assets.
Back in summer 2014, Tillyaev and Karimova acquired the three homes in three separate transactions for a total just north of $16.1 million, according to public records, although it appears the couple never actually occupied any of the premises themselves. Instead, the sublimely-located properties — one lies in the coveted Bird Streets neighborhood, while the others are nearby, set just above Sunset Plaza — have occasionally been used as high-end rental homes over the past few years.
The most expensive property, asking nearly $6.5 million, was owned from 2007 until 2014 by former NFL star Reggie Bush, who briefly shared the home with former flame Kim Kardashian West. Current listing notes make no secret of the property’s celebrity provenance, boasting that the 1953-built, heavily modified structure was “remodeled by Reggie Bush & Kim K.”
Notable amenities in the three-story contemporary villa include an elevator, a movie theater, kitchen with high-end stainless appliances, and a pill-shaped swimming pool with inset spa. But the most valuable feature is undoubtedly the property’s 360-degree views, which drink in the surrounding hills and the entire L.A. basin, including the Century City skyline and Pacific Ocean.
The second house, listed for about $6.4 million and nestled in the Bird Streets neighborhood, was “rumored to have been remodeled by John Lennon and Yoko Ono,” per the listing. Offbeat and vaguely Moroccan in style, this luxe nest includes an atrium entry and stunningly hand-carved parquet hardwood floors.
There’s also a 1,200-bottle wine cellar, a vast great room lined by curved colonnades, and floor-to-ceiling walls of glass that overlook the backyard, which is dominated by a vaguely Millennium Falcon-shaped swimming pool. Other features include a spacious covered patio, a Grecian-style master bath and jetliner views of the city.
The third and cheapest piece of the couple’s real estate puzzle, asking just a hair under $6 million, is the only property without a purported celebrity provenance. “Don’t judge this book by its cover,” the listing warns, although the gated and remodeled 1960 spread is not unattractive — while admittedly far from sexy — and includes plenty of desirable amenities.
Besides a backyard swimming pool with clear views of the ocean and Century City skyline, the kitchen has luxe stainless appliances, there’s an outdoor BBQ center plus a firepit, and a dual-sided fireplace bisects the den and dining room.
When they’re not out managing their Hollywood Hills real estate portfolio, Tillyaev and Karimova reside at Le Palais, their palatial Beverly Hills home. Famously purchased by the couple for nearly $33 million in 2013, the 48,000 sq. ft. monster mansion was built by Mohamed Hadid and is chock-full of bespoke features that include an indoor swimming pool, a grand ballroom that seats 200, a screening room that seats 40, an underground garage for a dozen automobiles, and a massage room.
The Beverly Hills mansion is just minutes away from The Harmonist, Karimova’s exclusive perfume store on L.A.’s Melrose Place. The stylish shop offers high-end fragrances that were “composed with the rarest and most precious natural ingredients from all over the world,” per the company’s website, all packed into gorgeously curved bottles and supported by a teaser video starring Karimova.
But nice as that 90210 home may be, it’s not even the most expensive property in the couple’s portfolio. The family splits their time between Beverly Hills, Paris, and Switzerland, where they own a posh estate on one of the Geneva area’s most prestigious streets that was purchased for an amount of Swiss francs roughly equivalent to $47 million USD, according to local reports.
Tillyaev and Karimova’s immense wealth, which has been the subject of investigative research and traces to offshore accounts in Abu Dhabi and Switzerland, derives primarily from their former ownership of Abu Sahiy, a sprawling marketplace which was — during the time of Islam Karimov’s iron-fisted rule — Uzbekistan’s biggest retail operation. In 2013 and 2014 alone, the business reportedly generated $127 million USD in profit for the couple.
