When you sell your life’s work for billions of dollars to Microsoft, you can only really celebrate one way: by getting in a bidding war for a huge mansion with music-industry royalty.
Markus “Notch” Persson, who made his fortune by creating block-building blockbuster Minecraft, is paying $70 million for a new home in Beverly Hills, Calif., according to realty website Curbed. The mansion features eight bedrooms (each with a $5,000 toilet), a movie theater, apartment-sized closets, and … a candy room (no word on whether Persson will hire Oompa Loompas to maintain his new home). This is the highest price ever paid for a home in Beverly Hills — and Notch had to outbid Jay-Z and Beyonce to nab it.
— notch (@notch) December 18, 2014
“Marcus fell in love with the house, its sleek contemporary design and its spectacular panoramic views that sweep from downtown L.A. to the Pacific Ocean,” John Aaroe Group Realtor Katia De Los Reyes said in a statement. “The fact that the house also was completely furnished in such great style was another major selling point for him.”
The home was apparently highly coveted, and Persson wasn’t the only one after it. He apparently had to get into a bidding war with married music moguls Beyonce and Jay-Z. To help close the deal, Persson apparently had to throw in several cases of Dom Perignon champagne.
Of course, for $70 million, Persson isn’t just getting four walls and a roof. The home comes with piles of M&Ms, a replica of the Triumph motorcycle James Dean rode in The Wild One, and a wall made up of three 90-inch televisions that pipes in a live feed of the Los Angeles skyline into the basement.
While that $70 million figure might seem exorbitant, Notch may have actually gotten a good deal.
“Overseas buyers are an increasingly important market for ultraluxury trophy properties in Los Angeles,” a spokesperson for John Aaroe Group said in a statement. “Trophy properties in L.A. are underpriced compared with other world cities, so buyers can enjoy the lifestyle now and know they will make a solid profit in the future.”
In September, Microsoft announced that it was buying Minecraft and developer Mojang for $2.5 billion. That made Persson, who owned a majority share of Mojang, a billionaire.