Hearst's House for Sale, Just £82m

A 29-bedroom Beverly Hills mansion that can boast the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst as a former owner is believed to have become the most expensive property listed on the US market, with an asking price of $165m (£82m).

The Beverly House Compound, close to Sunset Boulevard, was the home of Hearst and his long-time mistress, the film star Marion Davies, for four years until his death in 1951. He decorated the property with statues brought north from his famous Hearst Castle in San Simeon and with life-size paintings of Davies. The couple entertained lavishly there. When Hearst died, Davies kept the property, marrying a film extra 10 weeks later.

John and Jackie Kennedy spent their honeymoon there in 1953 and he ran part of his 1960 presidential campaign from there. The house has been owned by an investor, Leonard Ross, since 1976. According to Stephen Shapiro, the estate agent handling the sale, Mr Ross is selling it because he wants a "lifestyle change".

The 2.6ha (6.5 acre) estate has four houses in pink stucco and arranged in the shape of an H. There is a cinema, disco and three swimming pools, the largest of which is fed by waterfalls and cascading ponds. Beverly House Compound was built in 1927 for the banker Milton Getz, who sold it to Hearst 20 years later for $120,000. The architect was Gordon Kaufmann, who designed the Hoover Dam.

The price tag indicates how buoyant the top end of the property market remains on the west coast. But the list price may be wishful thinking: of the six residential properties on sale in the US for more than $100m, none has been sold.