The ships keep coming in for Palmer Luckey.
The virtual reality whiz kid and founder of Oculus VR, whose net worth is estimated at $730 million, has bought an Orange County marina.
Palmer Luckey has bought the Huntington Harbour Bay Club. The marina has some 165 berths that can accommodate about 180 crafts from 16 feet to 80 feet, according to the website Boatersbook.(Marilyn Kalfus, Orange County Register)
The Huntington Harbour Bay Club on Warner Avenue sold in April for more than $34 million, according to CoStar Group, a commercial database.
The buyer was Zeal Palace LP, in partnership with Fiendlord’s Keep. Both ventures are tied to 24-year-old Luckey, who is president of Fiendlord’s, state records show.
The names are connected to Chrono Trigger, a ’90s Super Nintendo video game that Luckey liked, according to the website, Polygon.
The Huntington Harbour property was for sale off-market, said Jan Rasmussen, a CoStar senior research manager.
“It was never on the market,” she said. “It was never a listed sale.”
CoStar still is researching the transaction and did not have more detailed information, she said.
Huntington Harbour marina, inset on left (Photo courtesy of CoStar Group)
The marina has some 165 berths that can accommodate about 180 crafts from 16 feet to 80 feet, according to the website Boatersbook.
At the time of the sale, Luckey’s enterprise sold the banquet and entertainment portion of the property to 24 Carrots Holdings LLC, a venture tied to luxe catering and event planning company 24 Carrots, for about $13.4 million. Property records show Zeal Palace loaned 24 Carrots LLC $12.1 as part of the deal.
Forbes estimated that Luckey is worth $730 million.
Luckey was a key part of creating Oculus, a virtual reality firm, in 2012. He was 19 years old and living with his parents in Long Beach when he first came up with a duct-tape prototype of a virtual reality headset.
He partnered with Brendan Iribe to make the concept a reality.
As venture capital and Kickstarter money poured in, the startup opened headquarters in Irvine. Oculus gained its VR following with Oculus Rift, a gaming system that allows users to feel like they are inside the game.
Two years after the venture debuted, it was bought by Facebook for $2 billion. Oculus left Irvine, moving to Menlo Park to be closer to Facebook.
In March, Facebook announced that Luckey would be leaving.
Last fall, Luckey raised a few eyebrows for financially supporting Nimble America, a controversial organization created to support Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Luckey gave the group $10,000. Nimble America created a billboard about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton that showed a caricature of her face and the words “Too Big to Jail.”
Last September, Luckey apologized on Facebook. Here’s some of what he wrote:
“I am deeply sorry that my actions are negatively impacting the perception of Oculus and its partners. The recent news stories about me do not accurately represent my views.
Here’s more background: I contributed $10,000 to Nimble America because I thought the organization had fresh ideas on how to communicate with young voters through the use of several billboards. I am a libertarian who has publicly supported Ron Paul and Gary Johnson in the past …
Still, my actions were my own and do not represent Oculus. I’m sorry for the impact my actions are having on the community.”
Editors’ note: This post has been updated to clarify Luckey’s involvement with Nimble America.
