Friday, 12 April 2013
LOCATION: Miami Beach, FL
PRICE: $20,000,000
SIZE: 12,705 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 9.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama knows we're a little late to this party but perhaps a little late is better than never? If not and any of y'all already know all you need or want to know about Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon and former-bartender wife Luciana Barroso shoving their two lot bay front Miami Beach estate on the market with a $20,000,000 price tag then we kindly ask you sit tight until we have some other, newer and/or more exciting celebrity real estate morsel for you to chew on.
Property records reveal that Mister Damon picked up the first of the two water front lots that comprise the compound-like estate in April 2005 for $10,300,000. Once upon a time, the .55 acre property was owned by the late Maurice Gibb of Bee Gees super fame. Eight months later he scooped up the .46 acre property next door for $4,200,000. A few quick flicks of the well-worn beads of Your Mama's trusty abacus shows that combined the compound encompasses a hair more than one acre and cost Mister Damon $14,500,000 not counting carrying costs, improvements, additions, alterations and real estate fees that could easily exceed half a million clams depending on what percentage of the sale price his real estate agents—a pair of high volume gals known around town as "The Jills"—are charging him.
Property records and current listing details show the fully updated and upgraded 1935 villa, dubbed Maravilla, has seven bedrooms and 9.5 bathrooms in 12,705 square feet of contemporary interior spaces enveloped in the architectural skin of a Mediterranean villa. In addition to the perfectly ordinary formal dining room with one of those fake-candle chandeliers that make Your Mama's decorative skin crawl with Pottery Barn banality the main living/entertaining space is an over-sized living room with three sets of wood-framed glass doors that open to the water side backyard.
Listing details go on to reveal there's a custom-fitted den/library/office, a media lounge, a temperature controlled wine cellar and a roomy center island kitchen with all the customary high grade stainless steel appliances and lots of orange- and brown-hued marble counter tops and back splashes.
The second floor master bedroom appears to be as large as the super-sized living room downstairs and offers access to a private waterside terrace through three sets of wood-framed glass doors plus a spacious minimalist bathroom with dramatic lighting and twin vanities separated by a free-standing soaking tub.
In addition to the main house Mister Damon's digs includes a waterside guest house with two bedrooms and two bathrooms plus an open air poolside cabana with full summer kitchen/wet bar, changing facilities and a roof top terrace with unobstructed views over Biscayne Bay towards North Bay Village and downtown Miami.
The fully landscaped grounds also include a gated motor court, a courtyard entry with water feature, a soccer pitch-sized lawn and extensive waterside terraces for lounging, dining and sunbathing. A private dock and boat lift at the water's edge allows for direct boat access.
This is actually not the first house Mister Damon has owned in Miami Beach or even on this particular road. In May 2002 he coughed up $9.5 million for a 11 bedroom and 10 bathroom spread down and around the bend just one-third of a mile from his current estate that he sold in March 2005 for $13,900,000.
It's not entirely clear to Your Mama if Mister Damon still owns the 7,000 square foot duplex loft in lower Manhattan that he scooped up for about $2.4 in 2004—the one that allegedly has a private indoor basketball court—but we do know he and the missus have been on a multi-year hunt for a substantial, family sized apartment or townhouse in New York City with a budget in the $12-20,000,000 range. Despite their exhaustive quest for an urban spread large enough to accommodate Mister Damon, his wife, their three children, her child from a previous marriage and their retinue of live-in domestic help being well documented by all the New York-base property gossips, as far as Your Mama knows the Damons have yet to buy anything in The Big Apple.
Over on the West Coast, the actor and his wife bit the real estate bullet earlier this year when in January (2013) they plunked down $15,000,000 for a gated and high-hedged 13,508 square foot modern mansion on the same swank street in quietly posh Pacific Palisades (CA) community as b.f.f. Ben Affleck and wife Jennifer Garner.
listing photos: The Jills, Coldwell Banker Previews
