Inside Corona del Mar’s Record-Setting Ocean Boulevard Home

Clicklad project spotlight, Corona del Mar, California

In July 2026 a newly built home on Ocean Boulevard in Corona del Mar sold for $48.5 million. According to the Orange County Business Journal, the listing broker believes it is the highest residential sale in Corona del Mar, both in total price and in price per square foot, and the most expensive home sold outside a gated community in Orange County. Clicklad is proud to be part of it.

Clicklad’s wood-look aluminum slats wrap the upper floor of the house. From the street they frame a long wall of glass; around the courtyard they run the full length of the upper volumes, screening the private rooms while the ocean stays in view.

The Home

The house sits on a double-wide lot at the highest point on the inland side of Ocean Boulevard, across the street from Inspiration Point, with views over the Pacific, Newport Harbor and Catalina Island. It is a two-story modern home of about 11,600 square feet with five bedrooms, around 4,000 square feet of outdoor living space and a rooftop terrace of roughly 2,000 square feet.

Walls of automated glass open the main rooms to the ocean. Below the main level, a lower floor holds a lounge, theater, car gallery with a car lift, gym, spa and wine room. Daylight reaches it through an acrylic window set into the pool and a planted lightwell that runs the length of the floor. The home won a Pacific Coast Builders Conference Gold Nugget Award of Merit as Best One-of-a-Kind Home.

The Team

The home was developed and built by Tom Nicholson of Nicholson Companies, designed by architect Geoff Sumich of Geoff Sumich Design, with interiors by Lisa McDennon Design. VALIA Properties represented both buyer and seller and gave market input during design. All four are Clicklad partners, and it’s a privilege to see our material on a home they built together.

Nicholson spent close to five years designing and building the house, which marks his company’s 40th year in business. In ICONIC LIFE, the team describes structure, space, materials and light being worked out together, with more than 61 tons of steel carrying wide, open rooms with very few interior walls.

Privacy Without Losing the View

A home this open has to manage privacy as carefully as it frames the view. Sumich’s answer was layering: a hidden louvered system the owners can deploy when they want, and a slatted trellis over the courtyard and along the property line. The trellis lets light flood the courtyard while screening it from outside, which Sumich likens to “almost like a veil.”

That balance of light, privacy and warmth is exactly what the slat screens deliver. On an oceanfront lot, timber slats face salt air, sun and wind every day and need regular refinishing to keep their color. Aluminum profiles keep the warmth of wood grain without rot, warping or checking, hold their finish under UV and are non-combustible.

Why Wood-Look Aluminum on the Coast

Factor	Timber	Wood-look aluminum
Salt air and moisture	Can swell, check and rot	Dimensionally stable, doesn’t rot
Sun	Grays and fades without refinishing	UV-resistant finish
Upkeep	Periodic sanding and sealing	Occasional cleaning
Fire	Combustible	Non-combustible base material

Building at This Level?

If you are designing or building a home where every surface has to perform for decades, talk to our team about profiles, finishes and detailing, or see more work in our project galleries.

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