In Atherton, where modern estates often compete for scale and spectacle, Villa Anahid takes a different approach. Offered at $49,680,000 the 13,000-square-foot home trades excess for intention. It feels less like a house and more like an experience shaped by water, light and material, where every surface is designed to shift the way you move through the space. Its three cascading levels open seamlessly to multiple outdoor entertaining spaces, each tuned to a different kind of gathering. Across these levels, the architecture moves from one sensory moment to the next — a glowing onyx wine lounge, a Himalayan salt-wall sauna, a 56-foot infinity pool, and automated walls of glass that dissolve the edge between inside and out.
Designed by Mike Khalesi—a notable Los Angeles architect known for sculptural, material-driven homes—the home draws inspiration from the ancient Persian goddess of purity and renewal. Her influence appears not through literal motifs, but through atmosphere. An 18-foot waterfall marks the entry, mirrored by reflecting pools. A wood staircase rises in a soft arc. Light moves across travertine, white oak, glass and onyx with a meditative rhythm.
Developer Hamid Nikkho brought in Vesta Home, a luxury design and furniture studio, to furnish the interiors in a way that highlights how the rooms work and flow once lived in.
"Atherton is one of the most competitive luxury markets in the country. At this price point, a home either commands the number or it doesn't. Villa Anahid commands it — in the architecture, the materials and the way the staging and furnishings bring it all together." — Julian Buckner, Co-Founder & CEO, Vesta Home
When Vesta designer Abbie Antonowicz stepped into the project, her role was not to decorate but to translate the architecture into livable form. The home already had presence — the living walls, the carved Italian stone, the long lines of glass that open fully to the outdoors. The task was to build on that foundation and introduce warmth and livability, shaping small moments throughout the home that soften the architecture and invite the buyer to imagine living there.
“Staging this new Atherton build was all about letting the architecture shine,” Abbie explains. “With the sweeping spiral staircase, the travertine and the living walls, the home already had its own voice.
My neutral, earthy palette felt like the right counterbalance — something quiet enough to respect the architecture but layered enough to show how rich and welcoming the spaces can feel.”
She chose a selection of Vesta furnishings that deepen the home’s material story. Reclaimed woods. Organic textures. Silhouettes that echo the home’s curves.
The living room became one of Abbie’s favorite spaces to solve. Instead of filling the volume, she framed the back-lit stone fireplace with two Bayonne curved sofas, creating a layout that feels minimal yet aligned with the room’s scale. The rounded silhouettes soften the dramatic verticality of the stone, while the open composition keeps the eye moving toward the pool, outdoor entertainment area and the greenery beyond. It’s a room designed for conversation as much as for pause.
The primary suite was designed with a different ambition than the rest of the house. Here, the goal wasn’t to echo the home’s dramatic moments but to create a room that restores. Abbie leaned into muted tones, natural textures and clean-lined forms to bring a calm, grounded geometry to the space. Mirrors catch and reflect the greenery just outside the glass wall and the linen-upholstered bed sits low to keep sightlines open. Oak built-in side tables and layered chocolate-toned textiles add softness and depth.
The lower lounge collects the home’s most striking materials in one setting. A climate-controlled wine wall glows behind sheets of backlit onyx, functioning as both storage and sculpture. Abbie kept the palette intentionally quiet — the Kennedy sectional offers a flexible seating zone, the scalloped coffee table adds shape and the living moss wall tempers the stone, creating a room that feels surprisingly intimate for its size.
Villa Anahid is listed by Mary and Brent Gullixson of the Gullixson Team at Compass, long recognized as leaders in Bay Area luxury real estate. Vesta has partnered with the Gullixsons on their standout Peninsula properties, and this collaboration marks one of the most significant to date. At $49,680,000, the home is Atherton’s highest-priced offering on the market; if it trades near ask, it will rank among the most expensive sales ever recorded in the region.