Twenty-two years ago, when Sam Delug was thinking about purchasing a house on Elm Drive in Beverly Hills, he brought his three children there and asked what they thought: Should he buy it?
It was a beautiful mansion in the flats of Beverly Hills and the price was a steal — what wasn’t there to like? But given its reputation as the “Menendez House,” where the infamous murders of José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez by their sons, Lyle and Erik Menendez, took place, he wanted to ensure his children were comfortable with it.
“My youngest was 19 at the time, so they were all adults, but I wanted them to have a room to stay in when they came occasionally,” Delug said. “My children told me, ‘Dad, it’s just another house.’”
The house, he said, was built in 1927, almost 100 years ago. “So, one day that something bad happened out of 100 years is not that important.” And so, Delug, an entrepreneur and attorney, purchased and remodeled the house, breathing new life into it. “I worked closely with my interior designer and approved each detail,” he said.
Once the house was completed, he decided to open it for charity events. The three closest to his heart are AIPAC, StandWithUs and the Maccabiah, but he gladly opened his house to many other events from groups such as Israel Bonds and Beit Halochem.
“I started being active in the community 20 years ago, and for the past 15 years, I do four to five big events a year, so I probably hosted around 75 events at my home, including hosting a break the fast on Yom Kippur,” Delug said. “Every Jew who has nowhere to go can come to my home. This is my first mitzvah of the year.”
“I probably hosted around 75 events at my home, including hosting a break the fast on Yom Kippur … Every Jew who has nowhere to go can come to my home.” – Sam Delug
I’ve visited Delug’s house on many occasions. Yoseph Haddad, an Arab-Israeli advocating for Israel, gave a lecture there after Oct. 7, and Micha Kobi, former head of the investigative department of Shin Bet, spoke about his interrogation of Yahya Sinwar during the Hamas leader’s imprisonment in Israel. The last time I was there was in February of this year, when Delug hosted his final gathering there — a farewell party. He sold the house for $17 million to a Persian Jewish family.
“I was sick and tired of people saying, ‘He lives in the Menendez house,’” Delug said. “Nobody could just say, ‘he lives in Los Angeles.’ Now, they can’t say it anymore,” he added, half-joking. At times, it was downright annoying. Delug recalled there were people who used to knock on the door and ask to come in and take a look, as though it was a museum. “I said, ‘If you don’t get off my property I’ll call the police, but it was only for the first two to three years, and then it stopped.’”
Then there were the Hollywood celebrity bus tours, which always passed by his house, letting thrill-seeking tourists snap photos. The curiosity of these onlookers always surprised him. For him, it was just a home, he said. He loved having his children and grandchildren over, making memories in the beautiful backyard by the pool and hosting Rosh Hashanah and Passover dinners.
Delug was born in Melbourne, Australia and moved with his family to Israel when he was 7 years old. The family stayed in Israel for three years before relocating to New York. “It was there that I lost my Australian accent,” he said. Later, he moved to L.A., where he established himself as an attorney and entrepreneur. For years, he is making it a point to visit Israel twice a year.
“I’m 100% a Zionist,” he said. “I was in Israel on Oct. 7. I had arrived a few days prior, on Oct. 4, and was planning to leave on the 11th to meet my son in Italy, but I couldn’t leave because of the war.”
In May of this year, he returned to Israel as part of a StandWithUs support mission. “We organized a barbecue for the soldiers and brought musicians for a concert. They were so appreciative,” he said.
The case of the Menendez brothers never interested him much, and he hasn’t watched “Monsters,” the Netflix series about the brothers. However, he does have an opinion on the talks about the resentencing of the brothers and their possible early release. “They are murderers,” he said. “Let’s say their dad did molest them; they were in their 20s at the time. Why didn’t they go to the police? Why didn’t they just leave? They had so many other options.”
After spending over two decades in the house on Elm Drive, Delug felt it was time to move to a new home. He said it was a little hard to let go of the old house where he had some great memories, but, he said, “I believe in making new ones.”
