The cobblestone driveway winds through three sets of gates before arriving at a circular motor court anchored by a substantial limestone-cased fountain, and even at that point, the house itself still manages to stop you cold. This is the Estates at The Oaks in Calabasas, California, where a 28,827-square-foot estate priced at $35.5 million currently holds the title of the most expensive home for sale in the entire San Fernando Valley. The homeowners spent nearly a decade designing and building it, and the reason they are selling is quietly human: when construction began, their children were in primary school. Now those children are heading to college, and two people rattling around a French chateau felt like the wrong fit.
A castle where every door has a story
The exterior sets the tone immediately. Limestone panels, copper gutters that have already begun developing their patina, slate-covered dormers, and Corinthian capitals on precast columns were all custom fabricated offsite and assembled piece by piece on site. The steep roofline that reads as pure chateau theater is actually a disguise: those pitched walls hide a working flat roof loaded with solar panels, air conditioning units, and precisely engineered drainage slopes. From the motor court, you see beauty. From the roof, you see craft.
Inside the foyer, a domed ceiling ringed with intricate molding glows softly from mood lighting hidden behind crown molding, and marble floors carry an inlaid border pattern that repeats in different forms across all three levels. The office alone would justify a separate visit. Minotti, the Italian furniture house, designed the entire room in Italy, assembled it there to confirm it worked, then disassembled it and flew the materials and their installation crew to Calabasas to rebuild it. The desk surface features recessed leather panels where a person’s arms and hands rest while working. Three concealed doors dissolve into the wall paneling, one of them opening to a private bathroom accessible only from behind the desk.
Yilmazer, who spent months trying to arrange access before finally walking through, put the lower level’s medieval great room simply: ‘Welcome to my castle.’ The space earns it. A full-size decorative suit of armor stands near the staircase, a hand-painted chess set occupies a corner table, leather chairs are wrapped and button-stamped by hand, and a Gothic wrought-iron chandelier carries LED fixtures shaped to mimic candlelight. The wine cellar holds a Lamborghini-branded box containing three bottles; the connection traces back to Ferruccio Lamborghini, who founded a winery alongside his car company.
The theater that costs as much as a house
The movie theater on the lower level was inspired by the Paris Opera House, and the construction budget for that room alone reached nearly two million dollars. Two balcony sections with velvet-upholstered built-in seating flank the main floor, Swarovski crystal wall sconces are engineered specifically to resist vibration during playback, and a starlight ceiling above delivers a Dolby Atmos commercial-grade sound environment. The seats themselves are Lamborghini units with cooling, reclining, massage, and a lock function that freezes all settings so a stray elbow during a film changes nothing.
Outside, the infinity edge pool stretches 120 feet and uses an ozone treatment system supplemented by a minimal salt-based chlorine top-up, with speakers built directly into the pool structure. A full-size tennis court is lined for two pickleball courts as well. The subterranean garage measures 5,225 square feet and can accommodate ten to twelve cars on display or more than twenty parked tightly. At the time of the tour, a Ferrari 458 Italia sat alongside a Lamborghini Urus and a Range Rover. Flags representing the historic districts of Siena, Italy, line the back wall, a quiet nod to the Italian influence running alongside the French one throughout the property.
The HVAC system, a variable refrigerant flow unit made by Mitsubishi and typically reserved for commercial buildings and hotels, allows each room to be set to its own temperature independently. That system cost nearly one million dollars on its own.
The detail nobody planned to find
A Lamborghini-branded wine box sitting open on a marble table in the wine cellar, three bottles arranged inside, the founder’s lesser-known winery quietly responsible for all of it.
On a second-floor balcony off the primary bedroom suite, a copper chimney top caps a gas fireplace, and the Santa Monica Mountains fill the horizon from one railing to the next. Right behind the nearest ridge, Yilmazer noted, is Malibu. The homeowners built the view into every room they could. Whoever inherits the property inherits that argument for staying home.
