552 Via Media, Palos Verdes Estates: a Lower Malaga Cove lot with Doug Leach plans, sold at $1,915,000

Sold

The most valuable thing about 552 Via Media was a set of drawings. The property is a 6,719 square foot lot in Lower Malaga Cove, half a mile from the Malaga Cove trailhead, with the Queen’s Necklace view from the South Bay to Malibu, carrying a 1956 house of 2,718 square feet that had reached the end of its useful life. What the seller had done was commission plans from the Peninsula architect Doug Leach for a 2,911 square foot four bedroom, four bath house with an elevator, and we sold the lot with the plans as one offering. Listed at $1,999,000 in the summer of 2025, it closed at $1,915,000 on September 23 after 21 days, which is a short marketing period for a land sale on the hill and the direct result of selling a project rather than a problem.

What was the property?

A lot first. Lower Malaga Cove is the walkable corner of the Peninsula, minutes from the Malaga Cove Plaza, the Beach and Athletic Club and the trailhead, with the easiest access off the hill, and the lots on Via Media face the bay. The existing house had four bedrooms and three baths in 2,718 square feet, no heating or cooling, and a two car garage; it was livable and was not the reason anyone would buy. The plans were the reason. Leach’s drawings described a 2,911 square foot modern Spanish house with an elevator, drawn for a city where the Palos Verdes Homes Association’s Art Jury must approve any new house; a buyer who started from these plans started months ahead of a buyer who started from a blank lot. We explain the Art Jury process in our buyer’s guide.

What was the goal?

To sell a tear-down for more than a tear-down brings, quickly. The stakes on a land sale in Malaga Cove are that builders price a lot from the bottom, subtract demolition and the Art Jury’s calendar, and offer accordingly, and that a listing which sits invites lower offers each week. The strategy was to change what was being sold: not a 1956 house and a lot but a project with drawings by a named architect with the view already framed in the drawings. That let the listing speak to two buyer pools at once, the builder who values the time the plans save and the end user who wants a Leach house without finding Leach. The price of $1,999,000 was set above the recent land sales on the street by roughly the value of the plans and the design time.

The property closed at $1,915,000, 4.2 percent below list, on September 23, 2025, after 21 days. Against the lot alone that is about $285 per square foot of land, a figure that stands with the finished-house sales on the street as evidence of what Lower Malaga Cove dirt with a view is worth. Our note on what fixer, remodel and tear-down mean describes how a builder prices a lot; this sale is the seller’s answer to that arithmetic.

What does the sale say about Malaga Cove?

That plans sell land. A seller on the hill who holds a lot with a view and a house that has reached its end has two choices: sell the lot and let the buyer discount for the unknowns, or spend the months and the fee to put an approvable design on it and sell the certainty. In Palos Verdes Estates, where the Art Jury governs every new house and the calendar is the buyer’s largest risk, the second choice is usually the better trade. See Malaga Cove for the neighborhood and 536 Via Media, a few doors away, for what the finished house on this street sells for.

Update: sold

If you hold a Peninsula lot with a house that has reached its end, the question is whether to sell the lot or the project, and the answer depends on the street and the calendar. Send Neil the address and we will tell you which. The Sellers page describes how we prepare a land sale.

Sources

• California Regional MLS listing record, SB25171671; closing figures as reported to the MLS
• Malaga Cove; Fixer, flip, remodel or tear-down; The Palos Verdes Art Jury

Written August 2025; updated September 23, 2025. Property facts, list price and days on market are from the California Regional MLS listing record (SB25171671); the sale price and closing date are public record. Represented by Neil Chhabria, Chhabria Real Estate Company. This article is general real estate information about one sale, not tax, legal, lending or investment advice, and not a statement about the value of any other property.

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