In the early 1990s, Byron Allen sat at his dining room table and founded a media company without any investors. The former comedian is now chairman and chief executive officer of Los Angeles-based Allen Media Group/Entertainment Studios, the largest privately held media company in the United States, which is reportedly worth well over $4.5 billion and has opulent offices in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Charleston, S.C.

Allen is among the largest independent producers/distributors of first-run syndicated TV programming for broadcast TV stations, in addition to owning numerous ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX network affiliate broadcast TV stations.

Allen’s success has made it possible for him to pursue his pursuits. The 61-year-old Detroit native made it to the second round of bidding for the NFL’s Denver Broncos before losing out to a group lead by Walmart heir Rob Walton. His personal property portfolio contains more than $500 million worth of luxury residences in locations such as New York, Aspen, Maui, and Los Angeles, where he recently purchased two adjacent homes in one of Beverly Hills’ most desirable neighbourhoods for a combined $32 million.

Allen’s latest acquisition? The $100 million purchase of a lavish Malibu vacation property formerly owned by billionaire Public Storage heiress Tammy Hughes Gustavson — the most ever paid for a U.S. home by an African-American buyer — was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

It is also the most expensive residential transaction in Malibu this year, surpassing Kim Kardashian’s $70.4 million purchase of Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber’s former oceanfront estate on the Encinal Bluffs last month, and the third-most expensive California home sale in 2022, behind only a $120 million Holmby Hills deal and Bel Air’s infamous “The One” megamansion, which sold at auction for $126 million.

The property was originally listed for $127.5 million, but Allen secured a substantial discount. In 2003, Gustavson’s late father B. Wayne Hughes — a lifetime trustee of USC who co-founded Public Storage in 1972 and died at the age of 87 in August 2021 — paid nearly $20 million for the property.

Resting on what has become affectionately known as “Billionaires Bluff,” the sprawling compound encompasses nearly 4 acres overlooking the Paradise Cove beach and provides more than 200 feet of ocean frontage. It is located directly south of a roughly $190 million compound owned by WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum. Completed in 2001, the property features a Mediterranean-style main house with eight bedrooms and 12 baths distributed across nearly 11,000 square feet, as well as two guesthouses — all of which offer panoramic coastline and ocean views through walls of glass and expansive terraces.