Sacha Baron Cohen’s busy real estate world

Comedic actor and film star Sacha Baron Cohen has leased out his Sunset Strip-area house for $9,000 a month. But his major real estate deal this summer was the purchase of a nearby Mediterranean compound listed at $18.9 million.

Set behind hedges on close to 4 wooded acres, the gated property includes a main house, a guesthouse, a swimming pool, a detached theater, a wine room, a tennis court with a clubhouse and a caretaker’s cottage. The 1940s house has seven bedrooms and 10 bathrooms.

“Very nice, very nice,” Baron Cohen’s character Borat Sagdiyev might say. “How much?”

The answer to that question is not yet available from the Los Angeles County Assessor’s Office, where purchases often take months to appear on public records. But real estate listing and data aggregator PropertyShark.com shows it sold for $14 million.

The Midcentury house that Baron Cohen leased had been recently renovated. The 1959 single-story had been for sale at $2.9 million or for lease at $10,000 a month, down from the original $11,995.

The house, which he has owned for five years, has canyon and mountain views, beamed ceilings that rise to 22 feet, a river rock fireplace, a media room/den, three bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms in about 2,800 square feet of living space. The less than a third of an acre lot includes a lagoon-style swimming pool, a spa, a fire pit and an outdoor gym.

Baron Cohen, 38, has his next role lined up after playing outrageous characters in “Da Ali G Show” (2000, 2003-04), “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” (2006) and “Bruno” (2009). GK Films recently announced that he had been signed to star in a film about rock star Freddie Mercury.

Jonah Wilson of Sotheby’s International Realty’s Sunset office handled both sides of the lease listing, according to the Multiple Listing Service.

lauren.beale@latimes.com