Archive for 2013-06-16
Martin Lawrence Downsizes in Encino
LOCATION: Encino, CA
PRICE: $6,630,000
SIZE: 10,211 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We first heard rumbles of it weeks ago from a gal we'll call Suburban Sally and last night we heard it from the eerily well-informed Yolanda Yakketyyak that comedian Martin Lawrence scooped up a newly constructed mock-Med MacMansion perched atop a high knoll in the foothills above L.A.'s prototypically suburban community of Encino. Property records show the property in question, last listed for $7.1 million, changed hands in early June (2013) for $6,630,000.
It was recently announced that Mister Lawrence, who starred in an eponymous t.v. sitcom in the 1990s and whose biggest contribution to The Cinema has been the money minting Big Momma and Bad Boys franchises, will co-star in an as yet untitled sitcom with Kelsey Grammer. Hooray for Hollywood! Anyhoo...
Listing details Your Mama managed to tease out of the interweb shows the recently completed residence, located at the tail end of a long cul-de-sac lined with much more modest, mostly ranch-style homes, was marketed with seven bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms in 10,211 square feet.
Other features of the walled and gated three story mansion, as per listing details and other online resources, include half a dozen fireplaces, garage space for four cars, and a heated negative edge swimming pool with long and wide views over the San Fernando Valley.
Celebrity real estate watchers may recall that last June Mister Lawrence sold his 16,000+ square foot so-called "French Contemporary" mansion in the Beverly Park community to mid-priced shoe and handbag tycoon Bruce Makowsky for $17,200,000.
Property records and other online resources indicate Mister Lawrence, who split from his long-time lady-mate/wife Shamicka last year, continues to own a residence in L.A.'s Toluca Lake that he bought back in July 1992 for $640,000 as well as a sprawling, 21,000-plus square foot pond-front mansion on more than 100 acres acres in rural Purcellville, VA that he picked up in May 1997 for $1,250,000.
listing photo/rendering: Prudential California
In Case Your Haven't Heard: Tamar Braxton
What TMZ does not reveal, and what we first heard a several days ago from the always dishy informant Yolanda Yakketyyak, is that the buyers are the very same people—John and Gloria Gebbia—who sold the approximately 12,000 square foot faux-chateau to Mister and Missus Braxton in September 2011 for $3.4 million.*
Such are the crazy real estate ways of the rich and/or famous, right?
Mister and Missus Gebbia may not be household names but their actress daughter-in-law Carlton Gebbia may soon be as she's much rumored and reported to be joining the next season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Anyhoo...
Although we don't have much in the way of specifics, a little birdie told Your Mama that the Braxton clan has moved into a freshly customized mega-mansion in Calabasas (CA) complete with a barber shop, beauty salon, and recording studio.
*There is some evidence that Mister and Missus Braxton paid $6.9 million for the house but there is also plenty of evidence in various property record data bases that they paid just $3.4 million. We really have no idea why the wild discrepancy or how much that actually paid.
listing photos: Re/Max Olson & Associates
Michael Jackson's (In)Famous Dermatologist Arnie Klein Lists L.A. Mansion
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $4,250,000
SIZE: 11,341 square feet, 8 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Poor, poor Dr. Arnie Klein. Once upon a time he was the Beverly Hills-based dermatologist, the so-called "Father of Botox"whose image obsessed clientele included nipped, tucked and injected Showbiz luminaries like Elizabeth Taylor, Carrie Fisher, and Michael Jackson. Alas, in the chaotic and highly publicized wake of Michael Jackson's sordid 2009 death, Dr. Klein's lavish lifestyle quickly evaporated in a haze of salacious accusations, a flurry of scandalous lawsuits, and a debilitating bankruptcy.
In late 2011 Dr. Klein—who reportedly supplied Michael Jackson with all sorts of prescription drugs and occasionally hints that he might be the father of at least one of The Gloved One's three children—listed his ocean front residence in Laguna Beach for $12,000,000. The cliff hanging house was finally sold in February (2013) for $7.1 million and yesterday his stately Tudor style mansion in L.A.'s affluent Hancock Park/Windsor Square area popped up on the open market as a bankruptcy sale with a listing price of $4,250,000.
Property records are not entirely clear but it appears to Your Mama's boozy-woozy eyeballs that Mister Klein picked up his Hancock Park spread in March 1985 for just $255,000 and over the years secured several mortgages and personal loans against the value of the historic mini-estate.
Current listing information shows the three story, 11,341 square foot Tudor style pile was built in 1914 on a very busy .66 acre corner lot and has eight bedrooms, five bathrooms and at least three fireplaces. Additional living space for guests or staff sits atop the detached five car garage that sits at the tail end of a long gated drive.
Listing photographs show the house has seen better days and, indeed, listing details describe the house as a "rare yet tarnished treasure with remarkable potential" and "a treasure waiting to be set free." Inside, as per online marketing materials, there's a grand, paneled foyer with an all wood double staircase, elegant formal living and dining rooms, a library, a garden room, and—somewhat curiously—a dance studio. Outside the slightly unkempt grounds include a swirling array of knee height box woods, a slightly unkempt rose garden, fountains, and swimming pool and spa that looks to have been long ago drained.
As evidenced by the thick layer of dust and debris that coats the main staircase, the financially beleaguered Mister Klein moved from his Hancock Park mansion some time ago. In early 2011 he agreed to pay $60,000 per month to lease a seven bedroom and 10 bathroom mansion in the Beverly Park community in Beverly Hills but was subsequently evicted.
Your Mama has no current intel about where the doctor holes up nowadays but perhaps the disgraced dermatologist decamped to Palm Springs where property records show he still owns a mid-century modern house in the upscale Vista Las Palmas area that he acquired in mid-2008 for $1,462,500. As far as Your Mama's brief and unscientific research, Dr. Klein's Palm Springs property is not currently on the open market and there does not appear to be any foreclosure activity on the property.
*Just for shits and giggles, Dr. Klein's former rental, an 11,000 square foot Frenchified villa, is back up for lease at $45,000 per month.
listing photos: Coldwell Banker
Michael Ovitz to Sell Broad Beach Lots
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $29,500,000
SIZE: 1.08 acres
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It seems that veteran Hollywood power player Michael Ovitz has decided not to build the 10,000+ square foot compound on Malibu's star-lined (and ever-eroding) Broad Beach that he had custom-designed by architect Steve Giannetti* because he and his missus, Judy, hoisted the three contiguous oceanfront parcels where their custom compound was to be erected on the market with a blistering $29,500,000 price tag.
Property records suggest Mister Ovitz—a man who was (in)famously given $131 million in stock when he was hired on as president of the Walt Disney Company in late 1995 and another $38 million as a cash severance when he was unceremoniously axed by Disney's former and famously autocratic CEO Michael Eisner 14 short months later—acquired the first of his three Broad Beach parcels in April 1982 for an unknown amount of money. An adjacent property was scooped up in October 1998 for an unknown amount and the third property was picked up in December 2002, also for an unknown sum.
All together the three lots encompass just over an acre—47,082 square feet, according to listing details—with 120 feet of beach/ocean frontage. Access to the beach—or at least what's left of it—requires an undignified scramble over the unsightly 4,000+ foot long rock revetment that was put in place a couple years ago at the approximately $20 million expense of Broad Beach home owners who were (and remain) desperate to keep the relentlessly approaching Pacific Ocean from washing up into the professionally decorated living rooms of their multi-million dollar beach houses.
Mister and Missus Ovitz razed the three houses that once stood on the properties to make way for a tycoon-style compound that, as per marketing materials, was designed with 8 bedrooms and 9.5 bathrooms, including a "romantic" master suite complete with sitting area, fireplace, private balcony and sauna. Other planned creature comforts include a swimming pool and spa, a paddle tennis court, an office, and, of course, a screening room. Extensive planned patios, decks and balconies extend the the living areas to the salt and seat misty outdoors.
Mister and Missus Ovitz are well known as voracious collectors of blue chip contemporary artwork and recently completed construction on their in-town compound, an impressive and aggressively austere 28,000-ish square foot residence-slash-private museum on a multi-acre private promontory above Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills (CA) designed by cutting edge architect Michael Maltzan.
NOTE (Later same day): Turns our Mister and Missus Ovitz are divorced or, at least, long ago split up. Not sure how we missed that important detail. Must have been last night's third gin & tonic. Mister Ovitz, so the papers say, current squires fancy shoe mogul Tamara Mellon..
*Mister Giannetti has certainly worked his architectural magic a variety of vernaculars but even the most brief perusal of his digital marketing portal reveals he specializes in substantial and casually luxurious East Coast-y clapboard- or shingle-sided residences in some L.A.'s more affluent West Side zip codes. He designed a Hamptons-style micro-compound a few doors down from Mister Ovitz's Broad Beach lots that's currently owned by Friends co-creator Marta Kaufmann and her composer husband Michael Skloff. He's also the man responsible for the nearly 13,000 square foot mansion late philanthropist Nancy Daly had built in 2002 on Malibu's brutishly expensive Carbon Beach and that was purchased in October 2010 for not quite $37 million by a corporate entity controlled—Your Mama has been told by several sources who tend to know these sorts of things—by junk bond bigwig Michael Milken.
Listing photos: Pritchett Rapt & Associates
In Case You Missed It: Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson
LOCATION: Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE: $5,225,000
SIZE: 6,289 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Late last week it was revealed by the folks at Zillow that two-time Oscar winning actor Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson put one of their many homes in the prosperous Los Angeles community of Pacific Palisades, CA on the market with an asking price of $5,225,000.
This isn't, so it would seem, Mister Hanks and Miz Wilson's first time to ride the real estate merry-go-round with this particular Spanish style casa. Your Mama uncovered online evidence the house was actually on the market with little or no fanfare last year (2012) with a higher $5,450,000 asking price.
Interestingly, since all the hoopla and hoo-ha about the listing hit the internets over the weekend most but not all online listings for the celeb-owned Spanish have all but disappeared from the interweb. However, thanks to some creative digging and an assist from Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air Your Mama has managed to locate current and active listing details that show the so-called "legendary villa" was originally built in 1929 on a tight .3 acre lot and has four bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in 6,289 square feet.
Property records show Mister Hanks acquired the walled, gated, and high-hedged property in Pac Pal's quietly ritzy Riviera 'hood for $1.9 million way back in April 1988, right about the time and Miz Wilson were united in legal matrimony and not long before his first Oscar nominations for Big.
A grand and monochromatic beige double-height foyer, lit by a glimmery crystal chandelier, is ringed by a second floor gallery. Strongly pedimented pocket doors lead to a robustly scaled formal living room with nearly white hardwood floors, a white-washed (or maybe it's limed) wood ceiling, a wood-burning fireplace, and a series French doors with semi-circular transoms, some of which open to a loggia that overlooks simply landscaped gardens. Pedimented pocket doors also mark the entrance from the foyer to the formal dining room that has a built-in bookcase/china display cabinet and a coffered wood ceiling. Somewhere in the house, presumably in close proximity to the formal living and dining rooms, there's also a library described in current listing details as "intimate" and "ideal for meditations or reading."
Numerous windows and several large sky lights placed between heavy duty wood beams on the ceiling flood the oppressively all-beige kitchen with natural light. The floors appear to be some sort of stone, possibly Travertine or limestone, and the top quality appliances include a mac-daddy six burner range and side-by-side fridge freezers. A shipping container-sized center island with veggie sink separates the kitchen proper from a roomy informal eating space and sitting area with direct access to the outside.
A "pretty, sun-filled" guest suite with newly remodeled bathroom is, as per listing details, well separated from the upper floor family quarters that include four bedrooms plus a "romantic" master suite complete with "stylish" bath and direct access to a meandering covered terrace with over the tree tops ocean view.
Curiously, the property does not have a swimming pool but it does have a number of other notable features and amenities that include: lots of archway, columns, and hand-frescoed ceilings; a basement level space converted to what listing details describe as "an incredible closet and storage space;" a private beauty salon—they are regular red carpet walkers, after all; and a window-ringed second floor sun room with fireplace. A guest suite with recently updated bathroom is situated well away from the four upstairs family/guest bedrooms and the master suite includes a fireplace and a "stylish bathroom that opens to a meandering ocean-view terrace.
The Tinseltown A-list royals maintain a healthy if not outright hefty portfolio of luxury residences. Way back in 1991 they paid $2.95 million for a modestly sized ocean front home in the coveted guard-gated Colony enclave in Malibu and in 2010 they paid 8-time Oscar nominated movie producer Kathleen Kennedy and five-time Oscar nominated movie producer Frank Marshall just over $26 million for a muscular 14,500+ square foot Gwathmey-Siegel-designed residence on a private promontory in Pacific Palisades. At the same time they bought the Kennedy-Marshall mansion they also forked over another $1,450,000 for an adjacent property with a much smaller 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom house, presumably for staff, family or guests.
According to our brief and unscientific research The Hanks-Wilsons also keep a substantial multi-million dollar residence near Sun Valley, ID as well as a down on her heels ranch style residence on a double lot in the Riviera area of Pacific Palisades plus a pair of much more modestly sized side-by-side residences a few short blocks the heart of downtown Pacific Palisades.
listing photos: Coldwell Banker
In Case You Missed It: Robbie Williams
LOCATION: Compton Bassett, Wiltshire, U.K.
PRICE: £5,500,000
SIZE: 1,850 square meters, 9+ bedrooms, 13.5+ bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: First came word in late May that increasingly out of the limelight British pop star Robbie Williams sold—and took an approximately half million dollar loss—on a multi-residence compound on L.A.'s famed Mulholland Drive that's complete with full-sized lighted soccer pitch. Now comes word down the international celebrity real estate gossip grapevine via the always helpful Florinda Flapjaw that the nearly forty year old former boy bander has recently re-listed Compton Bassett House, a substantial, landed gentry-type 18th century mega-mansion on 71.55 acres in Wiltshire, about 85 miles west of Central London and 25 miles north of Stonehenge.
So the stories go, Mister Williams was interested in the mystical Ley Lines that (allegedly) criss cross the hills and dales of Wiltshire and purchased the property in 2009 for £8.1 million. A few clicks and clacks on Your Mama's currency conversion contraption shows that amount equalled about $13.4 million in June 2009 and comes to exactly $12,714,600 at today's rates. He quickly caught a classic case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and flipped the country spread back on the market in 2010 with a £7.5 million price tag. Alas, the property did not sell and was eventually taken off the market. It's returned in the last week or tow with a new and prodigiously lower listing price of £5.5 million ($8,633,35) that represents a pearl clutching £2.6 million ($4,081,220) loss for Mister Williams on the updated and upgraded estate, not counting carrying costs, upkeep and improvements.
A long, tree-shaded driveway snakes through the estate's verdant grounds to the front of the ivy-encrusted residence that looks to Your Mama like it might have once been a very fancy stables or carriage house. The driveway continues around to the rear of the residence where there's a small parking area and access to a pair of side-by-side two-car tandem garages.
In addition to a grandly proportioned 43-plus foot long main drawing room with (off-center) fireplace, high ceiling, and huge windows on three sides, the ground floor public and family spaces include a fairly small formal dining room, a spacious eat-in kitchen, and a cozy children's play room. In addition to the guest/family bedroom suites, the upper level also has an awkwardly shaped library and a super-sized upper landing that connects through to a nearly 38-foot long office suite with a (properly centered) fireplace flanked by built-in cabinetry and a bidet-equipped attached bathroom.
The lower floor leisure complex includes a long but quite narrow fitness room, a 73-plus foot long indoor swimming pool and spa encircled by a series of stout pillars, a steam room and separate dry sauna, and the aforementioned his and hers changing rooms. There's also a wine cellar, laundry room, the garages, and one of the two staff suites. (The second staff suite is on the ground floor behind the master bedroom with exterior access.)
There are two small(ish) guest/family bedrooms with private attached bathrooms on the ground floor opposite the kitchen/breakfast room and four more bedroom suites on the second floor, each with a private sitting room and walk-in closet. The master suite, probably larger than most middle class homes, occupies its own wing of the ground floor and is comprised of a private study with built-in desk, a sizable sitting room, and and even larger bedroom, dual master bathrooms, and a fitted dressing room with a secret stairway that climbs up to the second floor bedroom corridor.
The park-like estate also has detached one bedroom and one bathroom cottage with 732 square feet as well as a 2,346 square foot structure that contains a helicopter hangar and adjoining workshop conveniently outfitted with wee kitchenette and half bathroom. There are acres of mowed grass, a walled formal garden with pavilion, a hedged water feature/fountain, a grass tennis court that does double duty as a soccer pitch, paddocks for the livestock, and unspoiled woodlands.
We're not sure of Mister Williams entire residential real estate holdings but we do know that he still owns the nearly 11,000 square foot residence in the Mulholland Estates community in Los Angeles (CA) that he picked up in July 2002 for $5,450,000 from country music king Clint Black and his actress/singer wife Lisa Hartman Black. A few of Mister William's Showbizzy neighbors include Saul Hudson (aka Slash), Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, Charlie Sheen, and Vanna White.
listing photos and floor plan: Knight Frank
