‘Game of Thrones’ Meets ‘Harry Potter’ Inside This Fantasy-Filled Beverly Hills Home

Robert and Krystal Rivani posed side-by-side in Medieval attire, she in a gold-trimmed cape and tiara-style headband, he in black fur, armoured gloves and a gold crown. Carrying long, embellished swords, they looked stern.

The resulting oil painting would hang in the Great Hall of their elaborate California home, Castle Rivani.

The couple, both 32, have spent several years and roughly $4 million turning their chateau-style Beverly Hills home into a novelty-filled paradise reflecting their love of fantasy and magic. The living room contains a replica of the spiked iron throne from HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” The bar has a “Harry Potter”-themed apothecary cabinet, and the backyard is modelled after “Alice in Wonderland.” There is also a Jungle Room with walls covered in faux greenery.

“Being ‘extra’ is everything to us,” said Ms. Rivani. “It makes life fun and interesting and memorable.”

Mr. Rivani, a real estate and hospitality investor, grew up in the Westwood area of Los Angeles. He was a “Harry Potter” fanatic as a child, he said, and loved escaping into the fantasy world of witchcraft and wizardry, spending hours in line to get tickets for the movies when they premiered. He met his future wife at a nightclub in Hollywood when both were in their early 20s, and Ms. Rivani quickly got into Harry Potter, too, saying that she found the visuals gave her inspiration for parties and events. The couple developed a similar infatuation with “Game of Thrones.”

The two were married in 2018, and bought their Beverly Hills house in December 2019 for $13.77 million. The roughly 15,000-square-foot, seven-bedroom home, which sits on 1.7 acres, had been previously owned by entrepreneur David Gebbia and his ex-wife, Carlton Gebbia of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” Built by Mr. Gebbia’s construction firm and completed around 2014, the house was originally designed to combine Ms. Gebbia’s Gothic tastes with her husband’s penchant for Italian Romanticism, Mr. Gebbia said. It has a decorative stone facade with intricate carvings and arched, church-style windows.

A devout Wiccan, Ms. Gebbia filled the house with cross carvings, wooden gargoyles, an altar and a confessional. After the Gebbias split, the house went on the market and the interior was stripped of some of its more unusual décor to help attract a wider pool of buyers, Mr. Gebbia said. Nevertheless, the property, which was initially listed for $22 million in 2018, lingered on the market for close to two years and underwent several price cuts before selling to the Rivanis.

“It was definitely a unique sell,” said Josh Altman of Douglas Elliman, one of the listing agents. “But, as we always say in real estate, you only need one buyer.”

The Rivanis loved the home’s Gothic aesthetic. “I always joke that if you enjoy living in a glass box, you’re boring,” said Mr. Rivani. “It was so unique to see this style of a house in L.A. It looks more like a castle in Scotland or London.”

A college dropout, Mr. Rivani started out by flipping high-end sneakers in his teens. By his early twenties, he was investing in small real estate deals in markets like Dallas and Atlanta, starting with neighbourhood shopping centres and eventually rolling the proceeds into larger, grocery-anchored “power centres,” he said. In recent years, he has started investing in hospitality, buying up unused restaurant spaces, coming up with a dining concept and wooing restaurateurs. His company, Black Lion Investment Group, recently acquired a prime restaurant space at the One Thousand Museum condo building in Miami and has plans to bring a Michelin star restaurant there, he said. His company also owns the space that houses the famed Gekko steakhouse in Miami. Ms. Rivani, who attended California State Polytechnic University, is a licensed dietitian but doesn’t practice, though she said she loves nutrition and tries out new health trends on Mr. Rivani, calling him “patient zero.” The Rivanis don’t have children but said they are planning on starting a family soon.

As the Covid-19 crisis took hold, the couple had more time to spend outfitting the house. Stuck at home, they spent endless hours scouring Etsy and auction websites for design ideas. It was challenging to find furnishings that fit their style in Los Angeles, they said, so most came from overseas.

The home’s main entertaining space—which the Rivanis refer to as the Great Hall—has roughly 35-foot-high, triple-vaulted ceilings and Juliet balconies. It would have looked strange to have a traditional couch in such a voluminous room, Mr. Rivani said. “Putting a couch that was 4-feet-tall into that room just did not make sense,” he said.

Instead, they commissioned a $50,000 replica of the iron throne from “Game of Thrones.” Unable to find the one they wanted locally, they worked with a craftsman in Siberia, then paid about $15,000 to have the 500-pound throne shipped by air to the U.S. When it finally arrived in 2021, they realised their measurements were a little off: The throne was too deep and took up half the living room. They had it chopped in half, then mounted one side on the wall beneath a dragon gargoyle. It required about 30 people to attach to the wall using boom lifts, the Rivanis said. Most contractors refused the job.

For the sitting room, which they call the Jungle Room, the pair sourced a roughly 25-foot-long, $150,000 chandelier from Dubai made up of 300 glass pieces resembling butterflies, Mr. Rivani said. Inspired by the butterflies, they plastered the walls with faux greenery and flowers, which were painstakingly installed one by one over the course of several weeks. For the centre of the room, they commissioned a custom U-shaped sofa in brown velvet, at a cost of nearly $20,000.

In the barroom, which already had elaborate coffered wood ceilings, the Rivanis installed burgundy-and-black textured wallpaper called Dragon Skin. They added a pair of chairs made of animal bone that they bought in a Santa Monica antique shop, and heavy, red-velvet curtains emblazoned with a lion crest. Ms. Rivani found a 17th-century French cabinet online, which she filled with novelty potions based on the “Harry Potter” films. She spent days during lockdown mixing the colourful concoctions herself, labelling them with names like “Polyjuice” and plopping fake eyeballs into jars.

In the dining room, the Rivanis installed crown-shaped chandeliers. The 15-foot-long dining-room table has chairs with tall, thin backs. For the primary bedroom, they paid about $45,000 for a roughly 250-year-old Austrian church altar to serve as their headboard.

In keeping with their mantra of going over the top, the pair tried to give their guests an experience they would remember in the bathroom: They hung a dragon-shaped gargoyle on the wall opposite the toilet, which often comes as a surprise to unsuspecting guests.

“I call it the “Scare-Everyone-and-Your-Mom Bathroom,’” Mr. Rivani said. Some particularly tipsy guests have screamed when they looked up at it.

For the most part, the couple agreed about the home’s aesthetic, though Ms. Rivani said her husband’s style leans a little darker and more Gothic than hers. They did clash over a pair of chairs in the Great Hall that feature a variety of skulls, with horns on the armrests and headrests. Ms. Rivani wasn’t a fan, although she said she has started to come around. They also battled over a pair of roughly 15-foot-tall warrior statues made of recycled motorcycle parts for the front of the house. Mr. Rivani had spotted a similar pair at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas and decided he must have them. Ms. Rivani thinks they are a little much.

“The sculptures almost caused our marriage to go sideways,” Mr. Rivani said with a laugh.

As a concession, Mr. Rivani said he gave Ms. Rivani full control over the outdoor garden, which she revamped in an “Alice in Wonderland” theme. The grounds were redone in a harlequin pattern, with colorful flowers interspersed with pavers. She also added a vegetable garden and a life-size chess set, though neither of the Rivanis knows how to play chess.

It should come as no surprise that the Rivanis love to throw costume parties. Last year they dressed up as a witch and a wizard to host a Harry Potter-themed Thanksgiving party, transforming the Great Hall to look like the dining room at Hogwarts, the fictional wizarding school in the series. Guests sipped from goblets of butter beer and took pictures with actors posing as Voldemort and Dumbledore.

Mr. Rivani said Mr. Altman has often warned him that the specificity of the couple’s design choices could impact the home’s resale value, especially since the previous owners had to neutralise the décor and make several price cuts. But Mr. Rivani said he simply doesn’t care, and wants his home to reflect his tastes. He also said he feels confident they’ll be able to find a buyer when the time comes.

“Isn’t there always that crazy, dysfunctional person like myself that would overpay for something? Yes,” he said. “I’ll just need to find that person.”

In the short term, the Rivanis plan to rent out the mansion while they relocate to Miami, where many of Mr. Rivani’s business interests are now located. They have listed their Beverly Hills home for $150,000 a month.

Still, the Rivanis said they have no intention of selling anytime soon. If anything, Mr. Rivani said he wishes he could physically move the house to Miami.

“I always tell Krystal that I want her to bury me in this house,” he said.

Ms. Rivani said she would go along with that plan.

PARIS —Paris has long been a byword for luxurious living. The traditional components of the upscale home, from parquet floors to elaborate moldings, have their origins here. Yet settling down in just the right address in this low-rise, high-density city may be the greatest luxury of all.

Tradition reigns supreme in Paris real estate, where certain conditions seem set in stone—the western half of the city, on either side of the Seine, has long been more expensive than the east. But in the fashion world’s capital, parts of the housing market are also subject to shifting fads. In the trendy, hilly northeast, a roving cool factor can send prices in this year’s hip neighborhood rising, while last year’s might seem like a sudden bargain.

This week, with the opening of the Olympic Games and the eyes of the world turned toward Paris, The Wall Street Journal looks at the most expensive and desirable areas in the City of Light.

The Most Expensive Arrondissement: the 6th

Known for historic architecture, elegant apartment houses and bohemian street cred, the 6th Arrondissement is Paris’s answer to Manhattan’s West Village. Like its New York counterpart, the 6th’s starving-artist days are long behind it. But the charm that first wooed notable residents like Gertrude Stein and Jean-Paul Sartre is still largely intact, attracting high-minded tourists and deep-pocketed homeowners who can afford its once-edgy, now serene atmosphere.

Le Breton George V Notaires, a Paris notary with an international clientele, says the 6th consistently holds the title of most expensive arrondissement among Paris’s 20 administrative districts, and 2023 was no exception. Last year, average home prices reached $1,428 a square foot—almost 30% higher than the Paris average of $1,100 a square foot.

According to Meilleurs Agents, the Paris real estate appraisal company, the 6th is also home to three of the city’s five most expensive streets. Rue de Furstemberg, a secluded loop between Boulevard Saint-Germain and the Seine, comes in on top, with average prices of $2,454 a square foot as of March 2024.

For more than two decades, Kyle Branum, a 51-year-old attorney, and Kimberly Branum, a 60-year-old retired CEO, have been regular visitors to Paris, opting for apartment rentals and ultimately an ownership interest in an apartment in the city’s 7th Arrondissement, a sedate Left Bank district known for its discreet atmosphere and plutocratic residents.

“The 7th was the only place we stayed,” says Kimberly, “but we spent most of our time in the 6th.”

In 2022, inspired by the strength of the dollar, the Branums decided to fulfil a longstanding dream of buying in Paris. Working with Paris Property Group, they opted for a 1,465-square-foot, three-bedroom in a building dating to the 17th century on a side street in the 6th Arrondissement. They paid $2.7 million for the unit and then spent just over $1 million on the renovation, working with Franco-American visual artist Monte Laster, who also does interiors.

The couple, who live in Santa Barbara, Calif., plan to spend about three months a year in Paris, hosting children and grandchildren, and cooking after forays to local food markets. Their new kitchen, which includes a French stove from luxury appliance brand Lacanche, is Kimberly’s favourite room, she says.

Another American, investor Ashley Maddox, 49, is also considering relocating.

In 2012, the longtime Paris resident bought a dingy, overstuffed 1,765-square-foot apartment in the 6th and started from scratch. She paid $2.5 million and undertook a gut renovation and building improvements for about $800,000. A centrepiece of the home now is the one-time salon, which was turned into an open-plan kitchen and dining area where Maddox and her three children tend to hang out, American-style. Just outside her door are some of the city’s best-known bakeries and cheesemongers, and she is a short walk from the Jardin du Luxembourg, the Left Bank’s premier green space.

“A lot of the majesty of the city is accessible from here,” she says. “It’s so central, it’s bananas.” Now that two of her children are going away to school, she has listed the four-bedroom apartment with Varenne for $5 million.

The Most Expensive Neighbourhoods: Notre-Dame and Invalides

Garrow Kedigian is moving up in the world of Parisian real estate by heading south of the Seine.

During the pandemic, the Canada-born, New York-based interior designer reassessed his life, he says, and decided “I’m not going to wait any longer to have a pied-à-terre in Paris.”

He originally selected a 1,130-square-foot one-bedroom in the trendy 9th Arrondissement, an up-and-coming Right Bank district just below Montmartre. But he soon realised it was too small for his extended stays, not to mention hosting guests from out of town.

After paying about $1.6 million in 2022 and then investing about $55,000 in new decor, he put the unit up for sale in early 2024 and went house-shopping a second time. He ended up in the Invalides quarter of the 7th Arrondissement in the shadow of one Paris’s signature monuments, the golden-domed Hôtel des Invalides, which dates to the 17th century and is fronted by a grand esplanade.

His new neighbourhood vies for Paris’s most expensive with the Notre-Dame quarter in the 4th Arrondissement, centred on a few islands in the Seine behind its namesake cathedral. According to Le Breton, home prices in the Notre-Dame neighbourhood were $1,818 a square foot in 2023, followed by $1,568 a square foot in Invalides.

After breaking even on his Right Bank one-bedroom, Kedigian paid $2.4 million for his new 1,450-square-foot two-bedroom in a late 19th-century building. It has southern exposures, rounded living-room windows and “gorgeous floors,” he says. Kedigian, who bought the new flat through Junot Fine Properties/Knight Frank, plans to spend up to $435,000 on a renovation that will involve restoring the original 12-foot ceiling height in many of the rooms, as well as rescuing the ceilings’ elaborate stucco detailing. He expects to finish in 2025.

Over in the Notre-Dame neighbourhood, Belles demeures de France/Christie’s recently sold a 2,370-square-foot, four-bedroom home for close to the asking price of about $8.6 million, or about $3,630 a square foot. Listing agent Marie-Hélène Lundgreen says this places the unit near the very top of Paris luxury real estate, where prime homes typically sell between $2,530 and $4,040 a square foot.

The Most Expensive Suburb: Neuilly-sur-Seine

The Boulevard Périphérique, the 22-mile ring road that surrounds Paris and its 20 arrondissements, was once a line in the sand for Parisians, who regarded the French capital’s numerous suburbs as something to drive through on their way to and from vacation. The past few decades have seen waves of gentrification beyond the city’s borders, upgrading humble or industrial districts to the north and east into prime residential areas. And it has turned Neuilly-sur-Seine, just northwest of the city, into a luxury compound of first resort.

In 2023, Neuilly’s average home price of $1,092 a square foot made the leafy, stately community Paris’s most expensive suburb.

Longtime residents, Alain and Michèle Bigio, decided this year is the right time to list their 7,730-square-foot, four-bedroom townhouse on a gated Neuilly street.

The couple, now in their mid 70s, completed the home in 1990, two years after they purchased a small parcel of garden from the owners next door for an undisclosed amount. Having relocated from a white-marble château outside Paris, the couple echoed their previous home by using white- and cream-coloured stone in the new four-story build. The Bigios, who will relocate just back over the border in the 16th Arrondissement, have listed the property with Emile Garcin Propriétés for $14.7 million.

The couple raised two adult children here and undertook upgrades in their empty-nester years—most recently, an indoor pool in the basement and a new elevator.

The cool, pale interiors give way to dark and sardonic images in the former staff’s quarters in the basement where Alain works on his hobby—surreal and satirical paintings, whose risqué content means that his wife prefers they stay downstairs. “I’m not a painter,” he says. “But I paint.”

The Trendiest Arrondissement: the 9th

French interior designer Julie Hamon is theatre royalty. Her grandfather was playwright Jean Anouilh, a giant of 20th-century French literature, and her sister is actress Gwendoline Hamon. The 52-year-old, who divides her time between Paris and the U.K., still remembers when the city’s 9th Arrondissement, where she and her husband bought their 1,885-square-foot duplex in 2017, was a place to have fun rather than put down roots. Now, the 9th is the place to do both.

The 9th, a largely 19th-century district, is Paris at its most urban. But what it lacks in parks and other green spaces, it makes up with nightlife and a bustling street life. Among Paris’s gentrifying districts, which have been transformed since 2000 from near-slums to the brink of luxury, the 9th has emerged as the clear winner. According to Le Breton, average 2023 home prices here were $1,062 a square foot, while its nearest competitors for the cool crown, the 10th and the 11th, have yet to break $1,011 a square foot.

A co-principal in the Bobo Design Studio, Hamon—whose gut renovation includes a dramatic skylight, a home cinema and air conditioning—still seems surprised at how far her arrondissement has come. “The 9th used to be well known for all the theatres, nightclubs and strip clubs,” she says. “But it was never a place where you wanted to live—now it’s the place to be.”

With their youngest child about to go to college, she and her husband, 52-year-old entrepreneur Guillaume Clignet, decided to list their Paris home for $3.45 million and live in London full-time. Propriétés Parisiennes/Sotheby’s is handling the listing, which has just gone into contract after about six months on the market.

The 9th’s music venues were a draw for 44-year-old American musician and piano dealer, Ronen Segev, who divides his time between Miami and a 1,725-square-foot, two-bedroom in the lower reaches of the arrondissement. Aided by Paris Property Group, Segev purchased the apartment at auction during the pandemic, sight unseen, for $1.69 million. He spent $270,000 on a renovation, knocking down a wall to make a larger salon suitable for home concerts.

During the Olympics, Segev is renting out the space for about $22,850 a week to attendees of the Games. Otherwise, he prefers longer-term sublets to visiting musicians for $32,700 a month.

Most Exclusive Address: Avenue Junot

Hidden in the hilly expanses of the 18th Arrondissement lies a legendary street that, for those in the know, is the city’s most exclusive address. Avenue Junot, a bucolic tree-lined lane, is a fairy-tale version of the city, separate from the gritty bustle that surrounds it.

Homes here rarely come up for sale, and, when they do, they tend to be off-market, or sold before they can be listed. Martine Kuperfis—whose Paris-based Junot Group real-estate company is named for the street—says the most expensive units here are penthouses with views over the whole of the city.

In 2021, her agency sold a 3,230-square-foot triplex apartment, with a 1,400-square-foot terrace, for $8.5 million. At about $2,630 a square foot, that is three times the current average price in the whole of the 18th.

Among its current Junot listings is a 1930s 1,220-square-foot townhouse on the avenue’s cobblestone extension, with an asking price of $2.8 million.