Mia Malkova Buys Portland’s famous Blackberry Castle for $4 million

Blackberry Castle, the fanciful, gem-colored mansion in Northwest Portland’s Forest Park neighborhood that’s famous for being for sale, has new owners who are able to promote the storied property as a new kind of playground.

Porn star Mia Malkova and Eli Tucker, along with a silent partner, offered $3.9 million to make the gated and guarded estate a home film studio for content production.

They paid about $3 million less than the original owners poured into their make-believe French chateau before immediately putting it up for sale six years ago.

With a $500,000 down payment and a $25,000-a-month mortgage, according to public records, the new owners closed the deal on Dec. 18, 2020, and took possession of the castle’s 13,000 square feet of living space last week.

They are eager to use the themed rooms, from a spa with Roman columns to a 1940s-style Buenos Aires theater, as film sets. Videos will appear on YouTube and Instagram and live streams on Twitch, all intended for mature audiences.

The sale included furnishings and fantasy elements such as life-size suits of knights’ armor standing guard inside illuminated alcoves near the grand stairs.

Mia Malkova, 28, plans to pose as Rapunzel on one of the wrought-iron Juliet balconies; her 30-foot-long, blond wig dangling down the side of the stone façade.

Eli Tucker, also 28, who’s a fan of the classic novel, “Treasure Island,” and its cinematic prequel, “Black Sails,” has designed a pirate ship to rise from the floor of the glass-ceiling atrium.

Water from the hull of the faux shipwreck will flow into a koi pond. A grotto, inspired by pirates and Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion West, will connect a new indoor pool to the outdoors.

“We’re looking to make it an adult Disneyland for content producers,” says Tucker, who quickly adds that the 6.4-acre property in unincorporated Multnomah County will not be open to the public or be an event space.

Like homeowners who rent on Airbnb, Etsy craft makers, or people who have a home music studio or art studio in which they produce something for commercial gain, these part-time filmmakers would need to comply with county ordinances such as observing quiet time and not blocking streets or sidewalks.

Homeowners who rent to film crews in the city of Portland adhere to a rule of downtime between filming contracts and permits are required, according to the Portland Film Office, which is part of the city’s Bureau of Development Services.

Even before Blackberry Castle was sold to Malkova, a Penthouse Pet of the Month who’s the focus of the documentary “God, Sex and Truth,” and her equally media-savvy partners, the towering stone-and-timber structure was well known.

In 2015, the trophy home, which fronts sloping vineyards of pinot noir and chardonnay grapes, was put up for sale at $7,175,000. The sellers, Andrei and Leslie Lupenko, also known as Andre and Leslie Mon Belle, who founded the on-demand translation service Telelanguage, said they wanted to move back to the city.

Real estate photos of the castle’s secret, a 400-bottle wine cellar that’s concealed behind boulders, and other over-the-top features were shared around the world.

Blackberry Castle has an entry in Wikipedia, and public comments on Reddit range from “looks like a Medieval Times franchise run by Barbie” to “it’s so crazy that I love it.”

Tucker of JMR Media Group based in Portland says the castle is “way bigger” than he realized. “My dogs keep getting lost when they wander,” he jokes.

On Friday, he was in the circular library that consumes two levels of a turret. A massive, working clock, billed as the Northwest’s largest, hovers 20 feet overhead on the ceiling.

Tucker has spread out the castle’s original blueprints and is pulling books on Tudor architecture off the shelves.

“Every room in the house is so shootable and themed so well,” he says, glancing around the library. “There’s texture: Reclaimed bookshelves, leather chairs, hardwood floor. The ceiling clock. It’s like a movie set already. The original owners did all the hard work.”

When he first heard of the castle years ago, Tucker thought whoever owned it was lucky.

Last year, JMR Media Group and the entities it manages — Muse mature content, Mermaid Media adult content, and Flux clothing company — struck gold with increased viewership and sales, according to Tucker, as people were stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic.

Malkova says revenues will continue to rise as customers want to support individual creators more than big companies. She worked for seven years for production companies. She’s now receiving residuals from JMR Media Group.

Buying the property to work from home made sense.

“The castle has a lot of potential,” says Tucker.

Malkova envisions enhancing the home’s eccentric decor and details with Harry Potter elements and magic books. “We’re all kind of geeks,” she says. A bedroom off of the Roman spa will also get a makeover with a round bed and romantic touches.

“The house is stunning but unfinished,” she says.

Adam Davis of RE/MAX Select, who represented the buyers, says the media creators have now acquired a space with “innumerable backdrops and environments” for which they can do their content creation.

“If it were me,” he says, “I’d be flooded with ideas.”

Davis was aware of Blackberry Castle before he helped negotiate the sale. Some of his high-profile clients were interested, but none was ready to move forward until Malkova and Tucker came along.

“This place is not for everyone,” Davis says. “It’s very distinctive. Some people will be overwhelmed by the themed décor and other elements that would be hard to remove.”

He says the castle, which he calls a “living, breathing art installation,” matched the buyers’ needs and creativity.

“They were looking for something in Oregon with character, allure and fantasy elements, something inimitable, something special that couldn’t be replicated,” says Davis, who has a decade of film experience.

You can follow Mia Malkova on Instagram @mia_malkova.

Source: Oregon Live