Griffin effectively sliced off the top of the mountain, grading 14 acres and removing about 2 million cubic yards of dirt.
According to a Los Angeles Times report on the same date, Atlanta investor Chip Dickens "borrowed around $45 million from the Hughes estate to buy the property, and that debt has since ballooned to roughly $200 million with interest and fees.
Three years ago, Dickens transferred ownership to a limited liability company controlled by his partner on the project, Victor Franco Noval.
Unable to pay the debts, their limited liability company, Secured Capital Partners, tried — and failed — to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month, which led the Hughes estate to force a foreclosure auction to either sell the property in hopes of recouping its losses or buy it back, likely losing the $200 million they were owed in the process.
"[9] In July 2020, the US Department of Justice filed an asset forfeiture claim against The Mountain Beverly Hills, alleging that more than $100m in Kuwaiti public funds was illegally transferred by former Kuwait Minister of Defense Khaled Al Jarrah Al-Sabah to invest in and buy the asset for his own personal benefit.