Hedge Fund Founder Daniel Nir Asks $7.3 Million for Freshly Rehabbed Encino Estate
East Coast-based hedge fund fat cat Daniel Nir, founder and CEO of Gracie Capital, and philanthropist Jill Braufman have hoisted a freshly rehabbed manse in the affluent and sought-after foothills of L.A.’s increasingly expensive Encino community on the market with an asking price of nearly $7.3 million. Devoid of any personal belongings and staged with generic furniture for the selling process, it’s not clear if the low-key and deep-pocketed couple, property gossip column regulars who maintain even more expensive homes in Florida and the Hamptons, ever occupied the residence that tax records show they scooped up as a major fixer upper in 2018 for $2.525 million.
Listings held by Asaf Betesh at Rodeo Realty generously describe the transitional traditional home as Cape Cod in style with six bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms in a tad under 7,500 square feet. Tucked privately up a long driveway shared with just one other home, fortified behind gates and fitted with a slew of smart-home accouterment, the brand-spanking new one-acre estate offers a comprehensive security system with surveillance cameras, beefed up wifi capability and an integrated indoor/outdoor sound system.
An oversized and unconventionally shaped entrance gallery showcases pale wood floors that run throughout the home’s public and private living spaces that include an eight-sided formal dining room with fireplace and glassed-in wine closet and a great room that combines the living room and the high-end kitchen that’s configured around a 14-foot-long island and complete with a built-in dining banquette. The main floor also includes an octagonal study/office, a home theater with three rows of tiered seating, a small fitness room with attached bath that is also accessible from the swimming pool and a guest or staff bedroom with private bath.
Designed for family living, the upper level includes what marketing materials call a “teen lounge” and three en-suite guest bedrooms plus a principal suite that showcases an 18-foot-high ceiling, a 300-square-foot private terrace, a couple of walk-in closets and a huge bathroom sheathed in white marble.
Outside, the estate offers plenty of options for al fresco entertaining with a built-in grill alongside a pergola-shaded dining terrace and a great sweep of evergreen synthetic lawn that surrounds the swimming pool. There’s also a four-hole putting green and a sunken and lighted full-sized basketball court.
Nir and Braufman made international headlines about five years ago when they sold a full-floor co-operative apartment in one of the most exclusive buildings on New York City’s Fifth Avenue for a staggering $52 million. (Even more stunning is that the 7,500-square-foot spread was bought by their upstairs neighbor, fellow hedge fund billionaire Chase Coleman and his wife Stephanie Erklentz Coleman, who added it to the similarly sized unit they bought in 2008 for $36.5 million.) The Nir-Braufmans also keep a more-than-13,000-square-foot Alexander Gorlin-designed oceanfront contemporary set on several prime acres along one of the most prestigious and pricey streets in Southampton, N.Y., as well as a 5,200-square-foot penthouse atop the ritzy Four Seasons Surfside hotel and condo complex in Surfside, Fla., just north of Miami Beach, that they scooped up in late 2017 for exactly $12 million.
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