Billionaire spends 15 years building cliffside ‘Versailles’ mansion — and lists for $108M
Perched on the cliffs of La Jolla Bay, Darwin Deason’s mansion isn’t your typical California beach retreat. Locally dubbed “The Sandcastle,” the estate is an architectural marvel reminiscent of Versailles, sitting high above the Pacific.
Now, it’s about to smash records as it hits the market for an eye-watering $108 million, according to agents Brett Dickinson and Ross Clark from Compass.
If the lavish property sells for its asking price, it would obliterate the current San Diego County real estate record, set earlier this year when billionaire Egon Durban dropped $44 million on a Del Mar oceanfront property.
Deason’s Sandcastle boasts nearly 13,000 square feet of opulence, with intricate stone columns, expansive balconies, and its own private, elevated beach.
Inside, it’s a full-on ode to old-world Europe, with extravagant mosaics, marble floors, and rooms gleaming with solid gold accents. The guesthouse is modeled after Versailles’s Le Petit Trianon. Deason, who founded Affiliated Computer Services and sold it to Xerox for more than $6 billion in 2009, picked up the Sandcastle and a neighboring parcel for $26 million the same year.
Though based in Dallas, Texas, where he’s a prominent Republican donor, he uses the La Jolla estate as a vacation getaway.
Originally built in 2005 by San Diego developer Doug Manchester, the mansion offered Deason exactly what he was looking for—sweeping views in three directions.
But for the billionaire, that wasn’t enough. He stripped the house down to its bones and rebuilt it, adding the Versailles-inspired guesthouse.
His vision? A fusion of French elegance and the iconic Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, a spot he’s long admired. To make the interiors match his grand vision, he hired top designer Timothy Corrigan, whose clientele includes Hollywood elites and royalty.
The compound spans 0.8 acres and includes 10 bedrooms.
The grand living room in the main house features elaborately coffered ceilings and a wall of arched windows overlooking the bay, leading to a massive wraparound terrace. A dining room seats 16 under a crystal chandelier, with gold-leaf detailing and antique cabinets to match.
The guesthouse comes with a twist: a nautically themed bar that mirrors the one on Deason’s yacht, complete with sea-inspired paintings and a pair of 18th-century mermaid statues.
Outside, the mansion’s grounds boast a pool, a fitness center, and even a wood-paneled office tucked near the primary suite.
Every piece of furniture was custom-made for the estate, from rugs to drapes. And Deason didn’t stop at just the house.
Not a fan of California’s gritty beach sand, he had about $40,000 worth of sand imported — from the same source used by Georgia’s Augusta National Golf Club.
“Everyone who watches the golf tournament knows it is a spectacular shade of white,” he told the Wall Street Journal, who first reported on the listing.
There are two cabanas and a beachfront boathouse with a kitchen. The slate roof tiles for the boathouse? Deason imported them from a Chinese quarry after selecting the perfect color and pattern, securing as much material as could be mined.
“I bought as much of the material as could be extracted,” he said.
As if that weren’t enough, the base of the property boasts two natural caves.
In total, Deason estimates that he’s poured around $60 million into the property’s construction, not including the land costs. Despite all the effort and money, Deason says it’s time to let go of the Sandcastle, admitting he doesn’t use the property as much as his other homes, which include a Dallas mansion, a lake retreat near Cedar Creek Lake, and a vacation home in Cabo San Lucas.
“In the history of La Jolla, there has never been and will never be another property built on the waterfront like The Sand Castle due to the present oceanfront construction standards established by the State of California,” the agents told The Post in a statement.
“The opportunity to adjoin the two parcels in this location is so rare, and this fact, coupled with the seller’s no-expense-spared vision to bring the French Riviera to La Jolla’s oceanfront,” they added.
