LA fires destroy $125 million mansion featured in TV show Succession

The most expensive home in Pacific Palisades has been destroyed in the raging wildfires that have dealt their devastating path of destruction to wide swathes of Los Angeles, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Exclusive DailyMail.com photos show the $125m mega-mansion reduced to a smoldering shell, with exposed beams and piles of rubble in what were once glorious gardens.

The 18-bedroom house, which is owned by Luminar Technologies boss Austin Russell, 29, was available to rent when the conflagration took hold – for an eye-watering $450,000-per-month.

In 2023, the futuristic property had a starring role in HBO smash-hit Succession where it stole the show as the luxury pad occupied by the Roy siblings in Season 4.

The Palisades Fire, which destroyed large swathes of Pacific Palisades and Malibu, continues to burn and is still only eight percent contained at this writing.

It has already claimed more than 10,000 buildings and at least two lives, as well as reducing historic landmarks such as the Topanga Ranch Motel – which was once owned by politician and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst – to rubble.

Tech tycoon Russell’s now-destroyed pad is one of the most famous homes lost to the inferno and made headlines in 2021 when he snapped it up for $83m.

Before the blaze, the striking home had 18 bedrooms and six bathrooms, as well as a ‘Nobu-designed chef’s kitchen’ and its own 20-seater theater.

A temperature-controlled wine cellar occupied the basement, while the roof was retractable ‘for stargazing’ and the lush gardens were home to a state-of-the-art swimming pool.

The garden’s patio area, complete with spectacular ocean views, was the backdrop for multiple scenes featuring the Roy siblings Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin), Shiv (Sarah Snook).

Although the famous fire pit with its elaborate rattan bench remains intact, it has turned black with soot while the once-stunning hillside vistas are now a wasteland of charred chapparal.

The outdoor pool, once the focal point of the garden, is now a singed wooden pit filled with murky black water.

And of the famously elaborate interior, nothing remains – not even the retinal scanner installed outside the master bedroom.

The futuristic four-storey property has collapsed in on itself with the iconic decking reduced to smithereens along with the home’s two panic rooms.

Other amenities destroyed in the blaze include the mansion’s rooftop deck and luxury spa, and a state-of-the-art car gallery with a turntable that doubled as a ballroom.

The loss of the Succession mega-mansion comes as officials in LA face a reckoning over why a crucial reservoir that supplied water to the Pacific Palisades neighborhood had been emptied at the time of the fire.

Embattled mayor Karen Bass is also facing questions over why fire hydrants in the area failed in the early hours of Wednesday morning as the conflagration took hold as well as over her decision to cut funding for the LA Fire Department by $17.5m in the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has also been the focus of intense criticism in the wake of the fire, with his decision to slash wildfire resilience funding by $101m last June now causing widespread outrage.

Along with the Palisades Fire, five more blazes are still raging in the greater Los Angeles area, only two of which – the Lydia and Hurst Fires – are more than 70 per cent contained.

A seventh wildfire, named the Sunset Fire, sparked panic in parts of Hollywood on Wednesday night but has since been largely extinguished.

Of the remaining fires, the Eaton Fire which began in the northeastern Altadena suburb has consumed 13,690 acres and is just three per cent contained.

The Palisades Fire has destroyed 21,000 acres and is at eight percent containment while the Kenneth Fire in West Hills and Calabasas has scorched 1000 acres and is 35 per cent contained.

The final fire, dubbed the Archer Fire, flared up in northern LA County early Friday morning and is zero per cent contained. 

Russell initially kept his identity secret, with initial reports of the sale of the mega-mansion calling him ‘a mysterious crypto billionaire’.

He is one of the world’s youngest members of the mega-rich and became a billionaire at the age of 25 after floating Luminar Technologies on the stock exchange in 2020.

The entrepreneur founded the company in 2012 when he was just 17 and, after graduating high school the following year, attended Stanford for three months before quitting to focus on the business.

The company specializes in lidar and machine perception gizmos – technology that has made autonomous cars possible.

Although Russell, who grew up in tony Newport Beach, California, is no rags to riches tale, his now-destroyed mansion was an altogether grander affair than the home he grew up in.