Seventy Cars Under One Roof

Major General William Lyon, the Air Force Reserve commander and homebuilder, built this estate in Coto de Caza in 1986 with his wife, Willa Dean. Among its guests over the years were President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan.

The Georgian main residence runs 21,000 square feet across three levels, with eight bedrooms, coffered wood ceilings and walls of windows over the grounds and the mountains beyond. Three guest houses, a helipad, a ten-stall barn and riding arena, a tennis court and a brick-clad wine cellar sit across more than seventy acres, along with 4,500 Valencia and Navel orange trees planted more than thirty years ago.

But the collector's eye goes straight to the museum. At 23,679 square feet it holds seventy vehicles, with a professional auto shop, a recessed lift turntable and its own wash station, under chandeliers and on polished stone. It is less a garage than a gallery, and one of the most remarkable private car galleries in California.