A newly completed lakefront estate designed by actress Lindsey Gort and restaurateur Beau Laughlin has arrived in Big Bear Lake at $15 million, more than doubling the city’s previous residential sale record.
For a mountain community better known for cozy cabins, ski weekends, and summer days spent on the water, 39224 Waterview Drive represents something considerably more ambitious. The contemporary Big Bear Lake mansion occupies roughly 1.63 acres along the shoreline and combines more than 7,100 square feet of interior living space with dramatic lake and mountain views.
The property is also unusually connected to Hollywood history. The site was once home to a two-story mining-era cabin that later appeared as Dr. Stephen Falken’s lakeside residence in the 1983 film WarGames. That structure was eventually removed, making way for the new estate now being offered for $15 million.
At the current asking price, the property sits far above the rest of Big Bear Lake’s residential inventory. Mansion Global reported that the next-highest-priced home on the market was asking $6.1 million, while the city’s previous residential sale record stood at $7.8 million, established in 2024.
For California luxury real estate, it is an intriguing test of how far buyers are prepared to stretch for a newly built architectural estate in a destination traditionally associated with mountain retreats rather than trophy homes.
A $15 Million Bet on Big Bear Lake Luxury Real Estate
The sellers and designers of the residence are Lindsey Gort, known for portraying young Samantha Jones in The Carrie Diaries and for her role as Amy Quinn in All Rise, and her husband, restaurateur and hospitality entrepreneur Beau Laughlin.
The couple founded Framework Design + Build in 2018, bringing together Laughlin’s hospitality background and Gort’s creative sensibility. The Big Bear Lake project is their first development in the community, although Laughlin has spent approximately 25 years visiting the mountain destination.
When the underlying property became available, the couple saw an opportunity to create something that went beyond the typical Big Bear retreat.
“I’ve always loved coming up here, and when the property became available, we both fell in love,” Laughlin said. “This was the perfect one to be our first project of hopefully many more.”
The couple purchased the property in January 2022 for $2.499 million, according to property records. It was subsequently redeveloped into the newly completed residence that entered the market in August 2026 at $15 million. Public property data confirms the 2022 sale and the current $15 million listing, while the MLS identifies the home as having been built in 2026.
That represents a dramatic change in value, but it is important to distinguish the underlying land purchase from the completed estate. The current offering is a substantially different asset: a purpose-built, seven-bedroom lakefront mansion with bespoke architecture, extensive landscaping, advanced home technology, multiple garages, wellness amenities and more than 10,000 square feet under roof.
The scale of the project was partly a deliberate decision. The 1.63-acre parcel could reportedly have accommodated six separate residences under its zoning, but the designers chose to preserve the land as a single estate.
“We wanted a beautiful, grand estate where you could have privacy and escape from the city and just be, and we’re really happy we stuck to that vision,” Laughlin said.
That decision may ultimately be one of the property’s strongest selling points. Rather than creating several smaller homes along a valuable stretch of waterfront, the couple concentrated the architecture, landscaping and amenities into one private compound.
Inside the Contemporary Big Bear Lake Mansion
Designed by Framework Design + Build with exterior architecture by Phoenix-based firm The Ranch Mine, the residence takes a decidedly contemporary approach to mountain architecture.
Its material palette relies on natural stone, wood, European white oak and expansive glass. Rather than treating the surrounding landscape as something viewed only from a handful of windows, the design repeatedly pulls the lake and forest into the interior experience.
The arrival sequence is particularly dramatic. A central atrium forms the heart of the home, with a suspended fireplace creating an architectural focal point. From this space, the residence divides into two wings, producing a layout that gives the large home a sense of separation while maintaining visual connections across the property.
The main living area rises around an elevated chef’s kitchen with two islands. Beyond it, a double-height great room is framed by floor-to-ceiling glazing and a substantial stone fireplace. A dining area and wet bar extend the entertaining spaces, while the central courtyard provides another point of connection between the interior and the landscape.
The seven-bedroom configuration includes two primary suites, each with its own terrace, fireplace and spa-style bathroom. The listing describes bathrooms finished with materials including Grey Beauty marble and Taj Mahal quartzite, while additional guest suites overlook the forest, courtyard or lake.
The amenities continue beyond the bedrooms. The estate includes a cedar sauna, recreation room, flexible home office, finished workshop and two garages. One of the garages is climate controlled and designed to accommodate recreational equipment such as a boat, jet skis, an Airstream or other vehicles.
There is also an unusually sophisticated technological infrastructure for a mountain residence, including a heated driveway, Wi-Fi 7 network, digital energy management, integrated gate controls, surveillance and multi-zone audio.
Outside, more than 40 large boulders, mature aspens, native cedars and pines form part of the landscaping. More than 80 landscape lights and exterior speakers extend the property’s entertaining capabilities after dark.
At the center of the two wings is a private courtyard with a gas fire pit, integrated audio and a cedar soaking tub. From there, steps descend toward the grassy lakefront lawn, reinforcing the home’s central idea: a contemporary retreat organized around the landscape rather than imposed upon it.
“It feels very encapsulated and private, but because of the glass windows, you still can see throughout the lake,” Gort said. “It feels very special and cozy, which is crazy for that size of space, but you hear the birds chirping and feel the wildlife.”
That balance between scale and intimacy is perhaps the most distinctive aspect of the property. At more than 7,000 square feet, the residence could easily have felt institutional. Instead, its designers used courtyards, fireplaces, natural materials and framed views to break the volume into smaller experiences.
A Property With a Hollywood Past
For a new construction home, 39224 Waterview Drive carries an unusually old story.
The property has roots dating to Big Bear’s mining era, and a two-story mining camp once stood on the site. The structure later became recognizable to movie audiences as the home of Dr. Stephen Falken in WarGames, the 1983 science-fiction thriller starring Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy and John Wood.
The former cabin was eventually demolished by previous owners. According to the account published by Mansion Global, an original water pump remained on the property and was donated to the local historical museum by Gort and Laughlin.
A separate historical account identifies 39224 Waterview Drive as the former location of Falken’s cabin and notes that the structure had been removed before the new residence was developed.
That provenance gives the contemporary mansion an unusual layer of character. The architecture may be unmistakably 21st-century, but the land itself carries traces of Big Bear’s mining history and Hollywood past.
For a buyer, that distinction matters. New construction is common in luxury markets, but a newly completed home occupying a site with a recognizable cinematic history is considerably harder to reproduce.
Why Big Bear Lake Adds to the Appeal
The property’s greatest asset may ultimately be its location.
Big Bear Lake sits within the San Bernardino Mountains and functions as a four-season destination. Winter brings skiing and snowboarding, while warmer months shift the focus toward boating, fishing, hiking, mountain biking and other outdoor activities. The official tourism organization describes Big Bear as a year-round mountain-lake escape, with recreation extending across all four seasons.
For luxury homeowners, the appeal is not simply access to nature. Big Bear also offers a recognizable community environment.
The Village, centered around Pine Knot Avenue and Village Drive, serves as the area’s principal pedestrian district. Restaurants, boutiques, coffee shops, breweries and specialty stores cluster within a walkable area, giving residents an alternative to driving for every meal or shopping trip.
Shopping ranges from local gift and specialty stores to outdoor-sports retailers serving the area’s hiking, boating, biking and winter activities.
Dining is similarly varied. Visitors can find casual restaurants serving pizza and pasta as well as Thai, Himalayan and Mexican cuisine, while lakefront dining provides a more polished option for those looking to combine a meal with waterfront scenery. Visit California specifically highlights The Pines Lakefront among Big Bear’s more upscale dining destinations.
The lifestyle equation is therefore quite different from that of an isolated mountain compound. A homeowner can spend the morning on the lake, return to a private waterfront estate for the afternoon and still reach a compact town center for dinner or shopping.
Big Bear’s proximity to Los Angeles is another part of the story. Mansion Global described the drive from downtown Los Angeles as roughly two hours, giving the community the unusual combination of relative accessibility and a strong sense of separation from the city.
Can the $15 Million Estate Reset Big Bear Lake’s Luxury Market?
The question surrounding 39224 Waterview Drive is larger than whether one buyer will pay $15 million.
It is whether Big Bear Lake can establish itself as a legitimate destination for trophy-level residential real estate.
The gap between this listing and the previous record is substantial. At $15 million, the asking price is nearly twice the $7.8 million residential record established in 2024 and more than double the $6.1 million asking price of the next-most-expensive home currently on the market, according to Mansion Global.
That does not mean the property will necessarily sell for $15 million. Asking prices and completed transactions are fundamentally different measures, particularly at the highest end of a relatively small market.
Still, the listing establishes a new reference point.
For California luxury real estate, that is what makes this Big Bear Lake mansion worth watching. The property is not simply a $15 million house in a mountain community. It is an experiment in whether exceptional architecture, direct lakefront positioning, privacy, provenance and resort-style amenities can create a new category of value in a market historically dominated by smaller vacation homes and cabins.
As California Luxury Houses sees it, the most interesting aspect of the property is not the headline price alone but the decision behind it: to treat Big Bear Lake as a destination capable of supporting a true architectural estate rather than simply a weekend retreat.
The market will ultimately determine whether that vision translates into a record-setting sale.
For now, 39224 Waterview Drive stands as the most ambitious luxury residence to reach the Big Bear Lake market—and one of the more distinctive new lakefront estates to emerge in Southern California this year.
Listing & Property Details
39224 Waterview Drive is currently offered at $15,000,000 through listing agents Neyshia Go of Sotheby’s International Realty and Danielle Rosenthal of Vista Sotheby’s International Realty. The MLS identifies the residence as a 2026-built single-family property with seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, 7,167 square feet of living space and a 1.63-acre lot.
The property was listed on August 20, 2026, and its most recent recorded sale before the current offering was in January 2022 for $2.499 million.
The combination of waterfront land, architectural pedigree, cinematic history and new construction makes it one of the most closely watched luxury listings in Big Bear Lake’s current market.