Remember the hot-pink ‘emoji house’? It sold for $1.55 million in Manhattan Beach

The hot-pink house adorned with two giant emojis that roiled a Manhattan Beach neighborhood last year has changed hands.

The two-bedroom, two-bathroom beach-adjacent property on 39th Street, which was listed at the height of a neighborhood brouhaha in August, sold on March 31 for $1.55 million, according to property records. The house was put up for sale with an asking price of $1.749 million two weeks after homeowners and renters in the El Porto neighborhood raised objections to the home’s colorful paint job at a City Council meeting.

The battle between prior homeowner Kathryn Kidd and her neighbors began in May 2019, when residents reported Kidd to the city for illegally using her property for short-term rentals. After Kidd was fined $4,000 for violating the city’s rental laws, the once-beige property was painted an eye-catching shade of pink enhanced with two yellow emoji faces. The saga was first reported by Easy Reader News and quickly became a phenomenon that snagged headlines across Southern California.

Neighbors perturbed by the spectacle said the emojis were intended to mock them. One emoji on the duplex’s top floor showed a smiling face with a stuck-out tongue; the eyes, looking in different directions, were crowned by long, bold eyelashes. Another on the lower level had the same eyes and lashes but a zipper across its mouth, representing the “shut up” emoji.

Susan Wieland, a neighbor who reported Kidd to the city, told Easy Reader News that she was wearing eyelash extensions when she met her neighbor. Kidd told the outlet at the time that the emojis were not intended to mock Wieland and that, although people were entitled to their opinions, she was not in violation of any laws.

“I’m trying not to offend anybody,” Kidd said. “I did it for the purpose of being happy, being positive, and I think it’s cute and quirky and kind of funny, and certainly was a time for the emoji.”

Kidd purchased the duplex, built in 1931, in March 2018 for $1.35 million. The property was listed in December 2018 for $1.99 million before it was pulled from the market a few months later. It was listed again in August 2019 for $1.749 million. The asking price of the property dropped five times over the course of several months before it was sold, according to Zillow.

Times staff writers Alexa Diaz, Colleen Shalby and Jack Flemming contributed to this report.