Billionaire WhatsApp Founder Jan Koum Reportedly Buys Ron Meyer’s Gwathmey Contemporary in Malibu for $100 Million

Published: August 31, 2019 | By: American Luxury Staff

Charles Gwathmey’s ‘Malibu Residence’ changed hands this month for low nine figures.

According to public records, the property—which was until very recently owned by NBCUniversal Vice Chairman Ron Meyer, and which is crowned by a magnificently obsessive contemporary mansion—sold for $100 million against a $125 million ask set in early January of this year.

And, according to informed rumor, the buyer of the cliffside house is WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum. WhatsApp sold to Facebook for $19 billion in early 2014. Koum was in the news this past winter after putting 10 cars from his Porsche collection up for auction.

The house now reportedly owned by Koum features industrial- and modern-inspired exterior architecture. The glassy home’s façade features a massive, double-height segmented window. It also features the streamline curves that Gwathmey frequently uses to soften the severity of high modern designs, and to give his houses a bit of romance.

Within, the house is warm, with more softening curves and a fair amount of hardwood. A Gwathmey signature material is block windows, and the home contains many of the industrial panels, along with wood-framed windows, support columns and, in the open-concept living and dining area, a modern fireplace.

The rear of the house boasts an even greater sense of transparency than the façade, opening up the home to its setting, and co-opting it as a larger component of the living style. The lot extends to three acres—a whopping large expanse for this stretch of the California coast—allowing for abundant privacy, and nonexistent road noise from the PCH, located a long driveway away.

Koum’s net worth is in the neighborhood of $10 billion.

10738 August 31, 2019 Real Estate August 31, 2019