A $50,000 electric bill? The cost of cooling L.A.'s biggest houses in a heat wave

Cooling off a 1,500-square-foot bungalow in a heat wave is expensive enough. But how big are the bills for the ever-larger mega-mansions crowning our hills?

Granted, those who can afford a $50-million home likely aren’t sweating a bloated electric bill, nor perhaps the carbon footprint, but experts say the cost of keeping a mansion cool can run well north of $10,000 per month.

Take "the One," a 105,000-square-foot home in Bel-Air that set a record this year when it sold to the highest bidder for $141 million, the most ever paid for a home at auction in America. It’s the largest modern home in the country and looks more like a spaceship than an actual place to live.

Last year, a court-appointed receiver tasked with finding a buyer for the property told The Times that the monthly electric bill was $27,000. At the time, the air conditioning only worked on one level.