Friday, 5 April 2013
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $42,000,000
SIZE: 12,000 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 10 full and 4 half bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The more able-memoried of the children should recall that back in early September, 2012, Your Mama tattled and prattled on about music industry pioneer and living legend Casey Kasem and his bubble-headed blond actress wife Jean quietly floating their long time estate in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles as an off-market listing with a $42,000,000 price tag.
It's now come to our attention by way of a short of informative missive from a little birdie we'll call Jessie Justwantsyoutoknow that Mister and Missus Kasem's circa 1954 multi-winged chateau* has hit the open market with an officially sanctioned asking price of—you got it—$42,000,000.
A gated, shrubbery- and tree-lined driveway snakes across a perfectly clipped lawn to a motor court with a big ol' fountain in the middle that looks like it could have been removed from some pedigreed palace outside of Paris. The driveway continues around the side of the house to a rear motor court and access to the two garages that hold a total of four cars.
The zig-zagging residence is described in listing details as a "Gated Classic Revival" but, honestly, just between us chickens, Your Mama thinks that's prolly just a typo because there really isn't any such architectural vernacular as Classic Revival, is there?
Anyhoo, the 2.4 acre estate has a total of seven bedrooms and more than a dozen (low-flow) terlits in ten full and four half bathrooms spread throughout the 12,000 square foot main house, guest house and staff quarters and pool pavilion. We're not sure exactly how the seven bedrooms are divided but there seem to be one or more in the guest house, two or maybe three in the staff quarters (double maids and chauffeur suite), three en suite guest/family bedrooms with whirlpool bath tubs and what listing listing information describes as "Dbl master suites with 2 baths, hair salon and dress areas."
Listing photos show a florid and Old School decadent, Louvre-like day-core comprised of all manner of statuary and figurines; gilt trimmed commodes and gilt-framed oil paintings; velvet tufted divans and fringed brocade sofalets**; fur coats draped and manipulated ever so carefully over settees in fantastically themed guest bedrooms and/or bathrooms encrusted in marble and trimmed with gold.
Your Mama imagines it costs a small fortune every year to maintain the completely landscaped estate that's ringed by thick and mature trees that provide privacy, shade and baffle traffic noise from nearby Sunset Boulevard. Wide rolling lawns roll up and around the deep terrace that extends off the rear of the mansion and overlooks the property's most (in)famous feature: a slightly raised heart-shaped swimming pool backed by a trio of stone gazebos...or whatever those crazy domed follies are really called.
One wonders where a person goes after living in a place like this. Do you go bigger or just go home to a much smaller but still huge by normal standards 4,000 square foot high-floor condominium in one of the better and more expensive full service apartment towers that line the Wilshire Corridor near L.A.'s Westwood Village?
*Or is this a totally Frenchified but semi-squat looking 1950s single-story rancher and that should maybe read chateau?
**A sofalet would, of course, be a small sofa.
listing photos: John Aaroe Group
