Multimillion-dollar homes dot the beachfront of Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, California.
A large waterfront property in the Balboa Peninsula Point neighborhood of Newport Beach recently sold for $25 million. The selling point? It wasn’t the house.
In this small, tight-knit beach enclave in California’s Orange County, large lots on the water command lots of attention, especially from the boating crowd.
Balboa Peninsula Point sits at the end of a 3-mile-long peninsula in a neighborhood of vacation and year-round homes. Funky cottages built in the 1920s, Spanish Revival haciendas, contemporary luxury homes and everything in between share the sandbar-like space that faces Newport Harbor on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other.
On the Balboa Peninsula, large lots on the water command lots of attention.
“There are few large, bayfront home sites available,” says Tara Shapiro of EQTY , who represented the buyer in the recent sale. “Not only is the location superb but it’s also on the harbor. You’re close to the harbor entrance, so it doesn’t take you an hour―if you’re a boater―to get out to open water.”
The property at 2104 East Balboa Boulevard sits on 15,000 square feet with 73 feet of waterfront. It also has unobstructed views of the water, unlike some homes on the harbor that face boat moorings. It’s a ferry ride away from Balboa Island, one of eight islands in Newport Harbor, and close to The Wedge, the surfing hot spot known for its shore-breaking waves.
“Bayfront on one side, oceanfront on the other,” Shapiro says. “But no matter what side you’re on, you have easy access to boats.”
So what about the house?
The sellers, who bought the property in 2020 for $14.85 million, considered the four-bedroom home a teardown. Shapiro contacted them before the project broke ground and structured the sale. The new owner has engaged Bob White of Forest Studio in Laguna Beach to develop plans for a dwelling that meets the needs of their family. The firm specializes in private homes, estates and ranch properties.
Still, the existing home built in 1975 has an interesting history. It once was the home of pharmaceutical businessman and one-time politician Milan Panic.
Balboa Peninsula viewed from Corona Del Mar.
Panic, 94, started ICN Pharmaceuticals after earning a degree from the University of Southern California in 1960. The company began in a Los Angeles garage and grew into a global drug developer and manufacturer.
The Serbian-American businessman played on the international stage during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. He served as prime minister in 1992 and ran against Slobodan Milosevic for president.
Panic lost to the man charged with ethnic cleansing and human rights violations in Kosovo, part of the former Yugoslavia. Milosevic died in 2006 while on trial for war crimes by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
