Newsletter: Hot Property: One-offs, twofers and how the week added up
From the biggest splash to the tiniest detail, every Hot Property house has something that captures our attention. This week a diverse group of homes stood out for reasons beyond their celebrity connections — stellar as they were. Here are a few that made our minds explode.
– Neal J. Leitereg and Lauren Beale
Top of the crop
Of course a residential asking price of $150 million would cause even the most jaded real estate journalists to sit up and take note. That the estate was built on spec put it in a class by itself in the L.A. market.
Set on storied Carolwood Drive in the Holmby Hills neighborhood, the newly built place has a celebrity past to boot. The two-acre site was once home to singing great Barbra Streisand.
The estate contains some 30,000 square feet of interior space, 10 bedrooms and 20 bathrooms in a main mansion and several guest houses.
Set on more than two acres, the newly built estate features a lounge, a hiking trail and plenty of room for party parking. (Everett Fenton Gidley)
A pirate's life
Call it the legend of Kobe Bryant that never was: An over-the-top estate that the Lakers superstar nearly bought more than a decade ago is for sale in Coto de Caza for $10.995 million.
A 22-year-old Bryant was under contract to buy the sprawling 9.5-acre Orange County property, which features, among other things, a private lake and a lagoon-style pool with a replica pirate ship, in 2001. But the sale never came to be, and the basketball great eventually found new accommodations in the Newport Coast area.
In 2001, a 22-year-old Kobe Bryant backed out of escrow on this theme-park-like estate in Coto de Caza. (Andrew Bramasco | Inset: Los Angeles Times)
Cool by the pool
Damon Wayans of the Wayans family acting clan just bought a compound in Hancock Park for $5.35 million.
There’s a 1949 main house, a guesthouse, a salt-water swimming pool and a pool house on nearly half an acre. But wait a minute. Back up the truck. That ivy-covered pool house is the bomb. The detached structure contains a gym, a bathroom and has an outdoor shower. We’re digging it.
Built in 1949 and extensively updated, the Traditional-style house sits on a half-acre in Hancock Park. (The Agency)
Readers rock on
An offbeat contemporary in Calabasas for sale by Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen at $1.888 million drew us in with its mountain setting and 360-degree views. The vaulted wood ceilings, river stone fireplace and a Zen-inspired rock garden didn’t hurt either.
But it was the online reader response to the Thunder God’s place that caught us by surprise. Def Leppard fans are apparently in no short supply on social media. Rock on.
The Hollywood handoff
Nobody loves a star-to-star home sale more than Hot Property. We even have a word for such a transaction. Among ourselves we call it a twofer.
Keeping things all in the musical family, guitarist and singer Benji Madden of the pop-punk band Good Charlotte has handed the keys of his Hollywood Hills West bachelor pad to drummer Chris Cester of Jet fame. Cester ponied up $1.55 million for those keys and the one-story 1951 house that came with them. Beyond the 2,183 square feet of renovated interiors are a brick terrace, decks and patios.
The expected amenity for an L.A. area home: The property has a stream that runs beneath the driveway.
The 1951 bungalow in the Nichols Canyon area is surrounded by mature trees. (Realtor.com | Mark Sullivan / WireImage)
Now that’s vintage
By far, one of the prettiest homes we reviewed this week was a villa in Los Feliz with a long history of celebrity owners and tenants, on the market at $2.795 million. Actresses Olivia Wilde and Natalie Portman, the Jonas Brothers’ Joe Jonas and Academy-Award winning puppeteer Brian Henson are among the Hollywood notable owners and tenants to have lived in the 1929 Spanish-style house.
Classic details include a courtyard entry, a rotunda foyer, Malibu tile, stained-glass windows, archways, built-in niches and alcoves and beamed ceilings.
But it’s the original milk-delivery door, a small cabinet built into an exterior wall, that messes with our minds. Yes, there was a day when people had bottled milk, butter and even eggs dropped on their doorsteps. Legend has it that the milk would separate, leaving a layer of cream on top.
This Spanish Colonial Revival villa, built in 1929, is on the market for $2.795 million. (Tom Queally)
It’s all a facade
KABC news anchor David Ono just picked up a home in Toluca Lake for $2.125 million.
The English country-style brick house and detached guesthouse recording studio share the more than half an acre site with a fanciful store-front facade complete with a bank, a store, a café, sidewalks, a street sign and street lamps. The village scene conceals a gym, a storage room and a garage.
Now we've officially seen it all.
The Toluca Lake compound includes a main house, a guesthouse outfitted as a recording studio and a small-town facade that conceals a gym and garage. (Rani Sikolsky / Sky Photography LA | Getty Images)
From the archives
Twenty years ago this week, action film star Sylvester Stallone deemed two properties expendable, listing an 11-acre estate in Beverly Hills for $5.5 million and selling another house on Kauai for about $2 million. Why the real estate purge? Stallone was spending the bulk of his time on the opposite coast, in a mansion on Miami’s Biscayne Bay.
These days, Stallone has settled for sparring with buyers for his desert home in a gated La Quinta community. The 2008 villa on half an acre returned to market earlier this year for about $4.2 million and is currently listed at $3.625 million.
The La Quinta home combines Spanish and Mediterranean details. (Terry Doyle)
What we’re reading
— Here’s an idea whose time has come. A new law recently passed in France mandates that all new buildings that are built in commercial zones in France must have roofs partially covered in either plants or solar panels, reports CSGlobe.com. Vive la France!
— Looking for an offbeat investment? A 10-acre animal park in Orange County, Fla., is for sale at $2.2 million complete with gators, turtles and deer, writes Mary Shanklin of the Orlando Sentinel. Potential buyers include former Orlando radio co-host Savanna Boan, who now lives in California but wants to return to Central Florida. She launched an online fundraising campaign to help purchase and renovate the aging venue.
— And finally, chalk up a win for pop superstar Katy Perry. The singer-songwriter is one step closer to calling a Los Feliz convent home after a judge ruled that she will block an effort by nuns to sell the property, details Los Angeles Times reporter Marisa Gerber. The ruling marks the latest chapter in a fight between Perry, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and restaurateur Dana Hollister.
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