Gianulli Selling Home Site and His Home
Apparel designer Mossimo Gianulli is selling a five-acre site where he had planned to build a home overlooking Newport Harbor, and he has his ultramodern Laguna Beach home on the market as well.
The home site, a cul-de-sac originally divided into six lots, is at the Irvine Co.’s Newport Coast development, on one of the last big stretches of undeveloped coastal hills in Southern California.
Gianulli paid slightly more than $10 million for the property 1 1/2 years ago. He listed it Friday for $12 million, his real estate agent said Monday.
A few miles away on a coastal bluff in Laguna, his angular concrete home with contrasting rough cedar cabinetry has been on the market at $3.5 million for several months.
Gianulli, who married television actress Lori Loughlin on Thanksgiving Day, is moving to Los Angeles, said Jeff Ewing, a Coldwell Banker agent in Newport Beach who has listed both properties.
Gianulli also is trying to sublease the Irvine headquarters of his Mossimo Inc., which prospered as a maker of beach gear but has lost millions of dollars recently after diversifying into sportswear.
Nearly a quarter of the 206,000 square feet of office, warehouse and distribution space is vacant following corporate cuts. The company hopes to save money by finding a smaller home in Orange County or by staying on and leasing out part of its space, said John Brincko, a consultant.
“The first choice is to stay here,” Brincko said.
Gianulli wasn’t reachable for comment Monday. Ewing wouldn’t elaborate on his motives for selling, and it wasn’t clear if the corporate woes--Mossimo Inc. recently predicted a $14-million loss for its latest quarter--are related to the residential transaction. Brincko said they are not.
The five-acre Newport Coast site has staggering 360-degree vistas of Santa Catalina Island, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, the Pelican Hill golf course, and--on the rare clear days this winter--the snow-blanketed San Gabriel Mountains.
Irvine Co. officials declined to comment on the sale, saying they hadn’t been notified of it.
Irvine Co. restrictions intended to keep speculators from muddying the market at its properties will keep Gianulli from profiting on his hillside cul-de-sac, developer sources said.
When the Irvine Co. sells Newport Coast lots, it’s on the condition that they must not be resold as raw land for more than the original cost plus any additional expenses, said Neville Pearson of Los Alisos Development in Irvine.
Pearson, who with Dana Point builder Dave Busk put up a home on a custom Newport Coast lot that sold last week for about $4 million, said Gianulli would be allowed to recover interest costs associated with the property and perhaps architectural fees.
The $3.25 million asking price for Gianulli’s Laguna home is about $1 million more than he paid for the lot and the home on it, real estate sources said. It is in the walled-in community of Smithcliffs, a former private estate on a promontory south of Emerald Bay.
