The 12.5-acre estate at 11001 Highland Road—built in the early 2000s by Paula Pennington de la Bretonne—is back on the market, a little more than four years after it was acquired by Dr. Andre Bruni and his wife, Dr. Jessica Bruni, who together own a local dentistry practice.
The Brunis are asking $14 million for the compound, which includes a 25,000-square-foot, five-bedroom main house with a home theater and gym, as well as a 3,800-square-foot, three-bedroom guest house, 1,500-square-foot cabana, saltwater pool and man-made lake amid live oaks and rolling hills.
That’s more than twice the $6 million the couple paid for the home in June 2015. But Andre Bruni says that given all the property has to offer, it’s a fair asking price.
“It’s a fraction of what it would cost to build today,” Bruni says. “It’s probably one-third to one-half of what it would cost to build today, so the value in what is here is unparalleled.”
Bruni and his wife, who have a real estate investment and property management business in addition to their chain of dental offices, always looked at the property as an investment and never intended to stay there forever, he says.
“We feel the time is right to give someone else an opportunity to enjoy this property,” he says.
Bruni recognizes it will take time to sell the property. When he acquired it in 2015, it had been on the market for more than 2 1/2 years and de la Bretonne’s original $18 million asking price had been lowered to $12 million—twice what it eventually sold for.
But he says he and his family are not in any hurry to sell and have no immediate plans to move.
“It’s really an incredible property,” he says. “Unparalleled architecture, 200-year-old oak trees, close to LSU. It’s been like living in an Italian villa right here in the heart of Baton Rouge.”
Quita Cutrer and Donald Auzine of Burns and Co. are co-listing the property, which goes on the market today.
