A rare 3 acre oceanfront compound above the Pacific, on the stretch of coast a president once made famous.
Cotton Point is the stretch of San Clemente coast that most Californians know without knowing they know it. Richard Nixon bought a house here in 1969 and ran the country from it for 5 years, which is why the neighbouring bluff carries a name most estate agents avoid using.
What matters now is what the presidency incidentally protected: 3 acres of unbroken oceanfront in a county where the coast was subdivided decades ago.
The compound runs to 12,854 square feet across 7 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms, a ratio that tells you it was built for a household with staff and guests rather than for a family of 4.
At 43,000,000 USD that is roughly 3,345 dollars a foot, which in Orange County terms is not the outlier the headline number suggests. The land is what carries the price.
Why 3 Acres Is the Whole Story
Oceanfront parcels of this depth effectively stopped being created in southern California in the 1970s. Coastal Commission review, bluff setback rules and the simple arithmetic of a finite shoreline mean anything assembled before those constraints arrived cannot be replicated.
Buyers at this level are not comparing houses. They are comparing the handful of parcels that exist.
An hour and a quarter from Los Angeles on a good morning, 40 minutes from John Wayne, and considerably quieter than either Newport or Laguna.
The compound is offered at 43,000,000 USD through the listing agent.