The Bel Air, California home once owned by “Willy Wonka” star Gene Wilder is on sale for $12.95 million. But if you think that’s the most interesting part of its history, you’re mistaken.
Wilder sold the home in 2007 for $2.725 million. Then in 2013, Tesla boss Elon Musk bought it for $6.75 million. In 2020, Musk said he was selling “almost all” of his possessions, but wanted to make sure the home wasn’t knocked down.
He sold it to Wilder’s nephew, Jordan Walker-Pearlman, and his wife, Elizabeth Hunter. Walker-Pearlman lived in the home as a child, but couldn’t afford the $9.5 million. Musk reduced the price to $7 million and also offered them a $6.7 million loan, the Wall Street Journal reported.
But Walker-Pearlman and Hunter reportedly fell behind on their payments to the billionaire and in July, Musk issued a notice of default.
The couple decided to put the home up for sale. “This is likely the closing of a very unicorn and beautiful chapter of our lives,” Walker-Pearlman told the Journal. Of Musk’s decision to file a notice of foreclosure, he said: “I’m not disgruntled at all.”
Check out the home that could be yours, if you have $13 million or so to spare.
