Our Mama over at Variety already chronicled Mr. Musk’s latest purchase — a rather shocking $24 million off-market acquisition of an unfinished hilltop Bel Air mansion — and Yolanda herself has already told you about his previous splurges, so with regards to your limited time we’ll attempt to make our take on this story as concise as a long-winded beotch like Yolanda is able. We’ll get it over and done before you need to hook up your Model S (or Model X) for its next charge.
Some of our astute Black Book followers may recall that Yolanda already took y’all on a stroll through Dr. Soon-Shiong’s real estate holdings, including his $50 million+ Brentwood compound and his extravagant vacation properties in Malibu and Laguna Beach. Like the good doc, Mr. Musk seems intent on creating his own personal neighborhood village by buying up all the neighbors’ homes.
Bel Air’s become a very Musk-y neighborhood.
The odd thing about Mr. Musk’s five Bel Air homes is that none of them — not one — is contiguous to any of the other four houses. Usually when uber-rich folks buy their neighbors’ homes — yes, it’s actually quite a common occurrence — they buy the house next door or behind them to expand their compound. Mr. Musk has yet to link up any of these properties.
Why? Are some holdouts refusing to sell to him? Does he want to stealthily take over the neighborhood before anyone suspects? Well, too late for that. Anyway, Yolanda believes he’s not even close to being done coughing up the cash.
Mr. Musk now owns six multi-million dollar homes in Los Angeles (that we know about), which have cost him a mind-numbing total of $75,995,000. Here’s a wee timeline to break it down for y’all:
December 21, 2012: Musk pays $17,000,000 for a 20,000+ square foot house on Chalon Road in Bel Air. Property was purchased in his own name but later transferred to “Callisto 100 LLC”. This is the main residence of Mr. Musk and his five little Musks.
October 24, 2013: Musk pays $6,750,000 for a 2,756 square foot house Chalon Road in Bel Air.. Property was purchased in his own name but later transferred to “Callisto 100 LLC”. Somewhat unconventionally, Mr. Musk has converted his house into an elaborate school for his kids and some children of his associates. It’s known as “Ad Astra”.
August 15, 2014: Musk pays $3,695,000 for a 3,077 square foot house on Westridge Road in Brentwood. Property was purchased through “Ganymede November LLC”. This house was briefly occupied by his second (and third) wife Talulah Riley following their second split. Following the second reconciliation, however, Ms. Riley moved back in with Mr. Musk and Yolanda believes the house has been vacant since then.
July 10, 2015: Musk pays $4,300,000 for a 2,963 square foot house on Somera Road in Bel Air. Property was purchased through “Duck Duck Goose 100 LLC”. The house remains vacant.
July 28, 2015: Musk pays $20,000,000 for a 7,026 square foot house on Chalon Road in Bel Air. Property was purchased through “Camellia Ranch LLC” and is just two doors down from his main residence. This house is currently occupied by Ms. Riley.
September 30, 2016: Musk pays $24,250,000 for the unfinished 14,290 square foot house at 954 Somera Road in Bel Air. Property was purchased through his “Alani Kalea LLC”.
Yolanda knows very little about Mr. Musk’s latest purchase. The property was never on the market and there are no pictures other than the one above, which was snapped last week. All we can tell you is what we’ve pulled from permit and property records. The property sits on 1.57 acres and has clear sightlines down to the Century City skyline and far beyond (provided it’s a clear day, natch).
The boxy mansion weighs in at — as just mentioned — 14,000+ square feet. An attached four-car garage and a full basement lurk on the premises. Also per permits, there is a guest house/accessory living quarters located somewhat unconventionally under the swimming pool.
Well, damn! That must’ve been expensive to engineer. But we digress.
Illuminati conspiracy theorists may be scared (or thrilled) to know that Mr. Musk is now only three properties away from essentially owning the entire mountainside that looms directly over a portion of the Bel Air Country Club. There are two little houses up on Somera Road that should be easy to snap up.
And then there is a huge estate with its own private vineyard on Chalon Road. That house is owned by bigtime money manager John F. Hotchkis, and we can only assume Mr. Musk will eventually cough up the $40 million or so needed to acquire that place, too.
So all we can do is to tell y’all keep buying those Tesla Model S cars and even those weird-looking Model X SUVs as well. Spend that cash. Once Elon gets your money he can buy more houses and give us grade-A fodder for the silly real estate tales in Yolanda’s big ass black book.
There’s very little that scares Yolanda. We pride ourselves on being rather imperturbable, even in our elderly age. Sometimes we wake up in the morning and look in the mirror to find Predator staring back at us. That’s okay. Occasionally we even get one of those cease-and-desist letters from some sad Sally with no sense of humor. We don’t much care.
But! Oh my. But. There is one certain thing we are absolutely, catastrophically, deathly afraid of. Care to guess? No matter, we’ll tell you anyway. Fans of that boy band One Direction. The Directioners.
Now, not all Directioners are scary. Most of them are quite friendly and appreciative. But there is also a certain Directioner subset that is — as we’ve discovered — quite vicious. They’ll cut a beotch! Oh yes they will. Sooner than you can spit out “Anne of Green Gables”. Bam. Shanked. RIP.
So although we do love (most of) the Directioners, we’d like a little break from writing about those 1D boys. Last time we discussed one of them — Harry Styles’ secret new West Hollywood-area house — a few of y’all seemed to temporarily take leave of your senses. And we’ve got the comments and the stack of emails to prove it.
But our 1D break is not to be. Kiddies, we just can’t seem to get away from those real estate-crazy little One Direction boys. Such is our burden in life, the cross we must bear.
Yolanda awoke yesterday morning to a couple top-secret tips in our inbox. One came from our endlessly knowledgeable pal Vlad the Revealer at Celebrity Address Aerial and the other from a Directioner (one of the nice ones) who we’ll call Shirley Shangri-la. Both snitched that they strongly suspected that Mr. Tomlinson had gone and plunked down the big bucks for a big house in a celeb-packed section of LA’s Hollywood Hills area. And both provided different pieces of convincing evidence.
A quick check of property records reveals that the house fingered by both Mr. Revealer and Ms. Shangri-la was sold just a couple weeks ago for an A-list $7,300,000 to something called “LWTA LLC”. Hmmm. LWTA. Louis William Tomlinson. Coincidence?
Not only that, kiddies, but the LLC’s official registered agent happens to be a man named Daniel Deakin. Our Mr. Deakin, as all the Directioners probably know, is a UK-based wealth manager who also just happens to be Mr. Tomlinson’s step-daddy.
There’s also the issue of some Snapchat or Snipshit stories or whatever that have been posted from this house by some of Mr. Tomlinson’s closest friends and family in recent days. We refuse to say anything more about that mess because back in Yolanda’s day, no self-respecting person would Snap or Snip or Snit with another person to whom they were not already married (or at least betrothed).
Sorry, kids. Yolanda keeps it real classy on her blog.
The house is located in Outpost Estates, a quiet area of the Hollywood Hills that’s only about 10 minutes from the world-famous Sunset Strip by car. Per property records, the structure was originally built way back in 1937 with an ample (for that era) 3,414 square feet of living space.
Of course, tastes and sensibilities have changes a bit over the last 80 years. In 2014, the property was purchased by a prolific real estate investment group who gave the mini-estate a complete and thorough overhaul and expansion. The house you see in photos today — the one just purchased by Mr. Tomlinson for a very grown-up $7,300,000 — now clocks in at roughly 6,000 square feet of living space with 4 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms.
Listing info says the residence “has Hollywood history written in its walls. Oscar winners, musical theatre writers & rock star producers have all called this home.”
We don’t doubt the listing at all. But we will say that the only celebrity that Yolanda is positive once lived here is the late music promoter Ian Copeland. That does not mean dozens of other celebs haven’t lived here, it just means Yolanda don’t know about them.
The property sits on a .49-acre lot. That may seem like a lot of room, right? But as is typical of many Hollywood Hills homes, not all of that steeply-sloped land is usable. So the house actually sits very close to the street out front. Right on top of it, really. But rest assured there are gates and hedges and security cameras for celeb-style privacy.
Marketing materials describe the mini-mansion’s architecture and design as “Georgian Moderne”, and perhaps it was a Georgian house once upon a time. Nowadays, however, the place looks more like a contemporary Mediterranean type thingamabob with some Georgian-style touches here and there.
Oh well. Let’s just call it a very luxurious new-meets-old mansion. The interior sports ebonized hardwood floors and recessed LED lighting. The living/family room has walls of lass and tremendous views out over the LA skyline.
Just across the way is the kitchen, which flaunts its (fairly unusual) glazed and painted brick walls. Medium brown cabinetry matches the floors and the center work island sports a massive range. Adjacent to that is a curved breakfast nook. Hidden behind a wall next door (for privacy from the kitchen staff) is the dining room set, which includes 10 sorta-aquamarine-colored chairs we find strangely fetching.
Mr. Tomlinson’s screening room screen is showing what may or may not be a still from one of Yolanda’s absolute favorite films: The Big Sleep. Cool art deco vibe over in the home office.
The master bedroom has more of the trendy dark-stained hardwood floors. We appreciate that the room is sizable yet not oppressively cavernous with a full living room, etc. What kind of person needs all that space in their bedroom, anyway? Wait. Don’t answer that.
The bathroom goes for the soft and feminine look. It’s not really to Yolanda’s taste but the zany floor tiles are kinda cool.
The property also features numerous outdoor terraces and patios for baking in the boiling SoCal heat.
And there’s the infinity-edged pool with sunbathing deck for when that heat becomes a bit too unbearable to absorb while dry. Fry your tushie off in the comfort of saltwater, Mr. Tomlinson.
Some of Mr. Tomlinson’s new celebrity neighbors in the Outpost Estates section of the Hollywood Hills include Johnny Galecki, Felicity Huffman, Shaun White, Rebecca De Mornay, and Duran Duran’s John Taylor.
Before buying his new house, our boy was paying a pretty penny to rent a big pad up above the Sunset Strip in the western Hollywood Hills, the home of British hypnotist Paul McKenna. It was here that he was — until recently — shacked up with his current girlfriend, aspiring actress Danielle Campbell. Meanwhile, his baby mama — the Mercedes-driving Briana Jungwirth — remains living out in Calabasas with his (alleged!) son Freddie.
Speaking of Calabasas, we know what many of y’all are thinking. Yolanda has heard repeatedly — and in great detail — that Mr. Tomlinson also owns a huge compound out there. We wrote about it a long time ago.
Now Mr. Tomlinson is a very rich young man. But even Yolanda, despite everything we’ve heard, must admit it seems a bit unlikely that he would keep a $10 million house out there for his estranged baby mama and then a $7 million house for himself. What seems more likely is that the Calabasas property (which lists its mailing address as the exact same NYC law office as Mr. Tomlinson’s new house) was actually purchased by Mr. Tomlinson’s bandmate Liam Payne — who has been photographed at the estate in question — and that Mr. Tomlinson was initially staying out there before finding a place to rent. And that is the only thing we can figure that would’ve caused information to get mixed up.
Listen, y’all, don’t blame Yolanda and her cronies if we have a difficult time keeping these One Direction boys straight. Pun definitely not intended, of course.
So are we finally done with 1D stories? For this year, at least? Pretty please, boys. No more real estate for any of you. Yolanda may be sexy now but we’ll blame any future wrinkles on you.
Selling agent: Ernie Carswell, Teles Properties Louis Tomlinson’s agent: Eric Lavey, The Agency
Okay, Yolanda realizes this post is a bit late. We should have put this up at the end of September, right? But we’re running behind on a bunch of stuff. Can you tell? Ugh. Time to pull it together. We know.
After a very slow and unpromising start to the year (there was but one $20 million+ residential sale recorded in LA County during the 2016’s first quarter), the ultra-ultra-high-end market has come roaring back in a big way, culminating in two of the most massive sales ever recorded in LA. Oddly enough (or maybe not?), both estates are located in the tiny Holmby Hills neighborhood and both front the hoity-toity Los Angeles Country Club. Not only that, but both mansions were built by the very same family way back in the day.
But we digress. We’ve still got a couple months left in the year and LA County has racked up 19 sales of $20 million or more, per Yolanda’s tabulations. A healthy nine of those sales broke the $30 million barrier. So let’s discuss.
1. $100,000,000 — Charing Cross Road, Los Angeles (Holmby Hills)
The Playboy Mansion sold, folks. Biggest sale ever in SoCal. Hef is staying! Ew. How creepy. Toss the crypt keeper on out, we say.
2. $90,000,000 — S. Carolwood Drive, Los Angeles (Holmby Hills)
Real estate investment group Woodbridge Luxury Homes made a big bet on a huge spread filled with Hollywood history. (Cher lived here! Some other peeps did too!) The seller was a low-profile lady named Dawn Arnall, widow of billionaire Roland Arnall.
3. $38,270,000 — Williams Lane, Beverly Hills (Trousdale Estates)
5. $34,928,500 — Bellagio Road, Los Angeles (Bel Air)
Arkansas native, major philanthropist, and real estate baller Bren Simon — widow of billionaire shopping mall magnate Melvin Simon — finally unloaded her 20,000 square foot, 1.5 acre Bel Air Country Club-fronting compound to art collector and apartment baron Robert H. Blumenfield.
6. $33,500,000 — Sweetwater Mesa Road, Malibu
Malibu’s biggest sale of 2016 came when the US government or the Department of Justice unloaded a massive (and long vacant) hilltop mansion in the guard-gated Serra Retreat neighborhood to Mexican investor Mauricio Oberfeld.
7. $32,500,000 — Casale Road, Los Angeles (Pacific Palisades)
McClean Design did it again. This spec-mansion sale in the pricey Riviera enclave represents the highest price ever paid for a house in the Palisades. Money man Richard Hollander and his wife Jackie are the lucky new owners.
In mid-September, a Trousdale Estates teardown silently sold to a mysterious buyer who may or may not be French bazillionaire Bernard Arnault.
9. $30,000,000 — N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills
The idiosyncratic Jackie Collins estate — it’s actually two adjacent yet separate houses and addresses — was sold in a single $30 million deal to real estate maven Ben Nehmadi.
10. $28,000,000 — Stone Canyon Road, Los Angeles (Bel Air)
Singer/dancer/actress/big-booty-mogul Jennifer Lopez dropped the big bucks on actress Sela Ward’s rather stunning 8-acre estate in the Bel Air hills.
Hungarian porn king Gyorgy Gattyan paid up for this 18,000 square foot spec-built Georgian-style mansion. Believe it or not, but this is one of three $20 million+ estates Gattyan owns in the Beverly Hills area.
That’s what we said when we first discussed this house way back in April (2016). Yolanda thinks it’s ugly, we do. Do we think it’s worth $100 million? No, we do not. But as we also said, nobody cares what Yolanda thinks. One bazillionaire took a shine to it and there you go. Poof. Sold.
Yes, everyone, that spec-mega-mansion on hoity-toity Carolwood Drive in the Holmby Hills transferred today for $100 million. Tied with the Playboy Mansion for most expensive LA house sold. Ever!
Before we start our normal digressions, let’s address the mega-rich elephant in the room. We know what the first question on everyone’s mind is.
Well, kiddies, we don’t yet know for sure who the buyer is. We haven’t even discussed this transaction with anyone except our friend Don Juan/Won/Wan (the sale closed today). But already we very strongly suspect the insanely wealthy new owner may be multi-billionaire Tom Gores.
Why? It’s because the buyer’s real estate agent happens to be a lady named Tiffany Martin. And our Ms. Martin — bless her real estate heart — just happens to be a Gores family member. She handles all Mr. Gores’ real estate transactions and hardly anyone else’s. And why should she handle anything else, right? She’s made a fortune and been kept very busy just by Mr. Gores, who has long been one of LA’s biggest real estate ballers.
Now kiddies, don’t go around screaming that Mr. Gores — perhaps best-known for his ownership of the NBA’s Detroit Pistons — is the buyer. We’ll have to wait for property records to clear and our research to be conducted before we can verify that. But Yolanda has learned to trust our hunches and we’ve got a palpably pulsing hunch in this case.
For what it’s worth, the Michigan-born-and-bred Mr. Gores currently splits his time between serious compounds in Malibu and in Beverly Park, that ultra-expensive (and steroidal) guard-gated community in the Beverly Hills Post Office.
Mr. & Mrs. Gores
Anyway, the house may be located in Holmby Hills (like the Playboy Mansion) and may have sold for $100 million (like the Playboy Mansion) but the structures themselves could not be more divergent. Where Hef’s palace is old and stale and probably has STDs oozing from the walls, this particular shopping mall is modern, unblemished, almost Vegas-like in its appearance.
The stats: 30,000 square feet of living space, parking for 50 vehicles, a 10-car garage, a theater complex, a mansion-sized master suite, two outdoor pools, three firepits, one tennis court, one basketball court, hiking trails, and 138,645 recessed LED lights. And nary a square inch of modesty.
Finally, we’ve got to give a sincere congratulations to the mansion’s listing agent, Ginger Glass (married to Mr. Asher, she is). Dear Ms. Glass, we hope you’ll treat yourself to a nice new Benz or Bentley (or both) from the proceeds of this sale. You earned it on this one. You know you did. And we’d like to formally invite you (and your hubby, if he likes) out to dinner. We owe you an apology for dissing your $100 million house so ruthlessly last time.
Let Yolanda take you to the restaurant of your choice. Nobu? Madeo? Whatever you like. We’ll pinch our pennies together and we won’t even beg you for buyer info. No, really! We promise. Pinky swear. Bonnets off to you on the hustle, lassie.
Like we say, it’s a mad, mad, mad, world. A big mad world. All it took is one mad billionaire and Ms. Glass roped that one in.
Although Yolanda is based in Los Angeles and most of our stories thus come from the smoggy little bubble we orbit, we don’t want to give the impression that we’re region snobs. We love writing about other fun, exciting, wonderful places too.
Recently, all real estate eyes have been on LA. We’ve somehow racked up three of the four biggest residential sales of all time in a matter of weeks. But that doesn’t mean that big (if smaller) moves aren’t being made elsewhere, however. Just a few days ago, as our bay area real estate comrades at SFGate first reported, San Francisco notched its biggest sale of 2016. And the house in question is certainly a striking piece. (As it should be for $21,800,000.)
The buyer’s identity was not publicly revealed, but Yolanda just happens to know for a fact that the proud new owner is a 30-year-old dude named Kyle Vogt.
Mr. Vogt — a self-made MIT dropout — spent his 20s co-founding a bunch of Silicon Valley startups including the now-defunt Socialcam, the also-now-defunct Justin.tv, and Twitch (now a subsidiary of Amazon).
It wasn’t until 2016, however, when Mr. Vogt finally hit the proverbial (and literal) jackpot. In 2013, he founded Cruise, a company focused on self-driving automation innovation. The startup was snapped up by GM in 2016. Exact terms were not disclosed, but widespread rumors say Mr. Vogt’s company — just three years old — went for a billion bucks.
Whatever the case, however much it sold for, regardless of the legal situation, young Mr. Vogt clearly has the financial wherewithal to slam down a ruthless $21,800,000 on a very seriously grandiose mansion in the high-priced Pacific Heights neighborhood of the city. Because that’s what he just bought, duh.
The house in question was completed way back in 1902, long before old Yolanda was even birthed. Designed by noted architect James Francis Dunn, the property was commissioned by James Madison, a man who made a fortune in the packing industry with the Alaska Salmon Company. For a time, it enjoyed a pampered life as one of old ‘Frisco’s most glamorous “ladies of the boulevard”. Eventually, however, time happened. With time always comes change and the mansion was converted into — gasp! — an 11-unit apartment building.
In 2012, the rundown old place was acquired for $6,950,000 by a couple named Bryan and Tara Meehan, residents of Belvedere, California. Our Mr. & Mrs. Meehan have oodles of money thanks to their ownership of organic coffee manufacturer Blue Bottle Coffee. (For what’s it’s worth, Mr. Meehan is a serial entrepreneur who also founded a London-based chain of organic markets that was sold to Whole Foods more than a decade ago, so perhaps all his money does not just come from coffee. We just like saying coffee bazillionaire so we’re sticking with that.)
Mr. & Mrs. Meehan: the coffee bazillionaires
The Meehans quickly gutted the house, which had fallen far from its once-grand state. They rebuilt. God saved the queen! Well, the Meehans sorta ripped out the queen’s her innards and gave her new silicone parts. Look at her now. So shiny! So young! How does she do it?
Weighing in at a hulking 9,095-square-feet, the liberally embellished Beaux Arts structure stands a full five stories tall (including the partially underground level(s) with 7 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms.
Inside the “masterpiece”, however, things get exceptionally modern and trendy. That’s because Mr. & Mrs. Meehan hired prolific LA-based architect Paul McClean of McClean Design to renovate indoors.
If the name McClean Design sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because Yolanda has discussed the firm’s coveted Los Angeles spec-mansions many, many, many times on this blog.
Check out the staircase’s glass railing and those wheat-hued hardwood floors. Those and the various light fixtures are courtesy of our Mr. McClean, we’d bet.
The open kitchen — the space is really more of combo kitchen and family room — appears to have been hewn solely from a boxcar-sized lump of marble. The view is truly spectacular… on a clear day. From what we recall there aren’t many of those up in foggy San Fran. (Hey, there aren’t many down here either. We know. We’re not hatin’.)
The master bedroom made good use of whatever marble was left over from the kitchen remodel. There’s a sitting area with an enormous fireplace, and floor-to-ceiling glass doors make provide easy access to the outdoor terrace and the aforementioned views.
The master bathroom sports yet more marble and a trendy glass shower. The attached dressing room/walk-in closet has plenty of nooks and crannies for belts, baubles, and various other accessories.
Yolanda’s favorite feature of this house is the stunning elliptical staircase. We know it’s not original, but we love it. We’re a damn sucker for a good elliptical staircase. There’s this townhouse in New York that we dream about solely for its sexy staircase. Sad, right?
The house also sports a brand-new elevator that services all five levels. But to take an elevator instead of those stairs? Might as well go diving off the Golden Gate with an anchor tied around your legs right now.
Some other wow-inspiring spaces include a real library with walnut cabinetry and a wet bar.
The living room/tea time room keeps things cool and neutral. That’s a rather fabulous couch.
The roof has a firepit and a picture-perfect resort-style negative-edge swimming pool that reminds us of the one at that big Bird Streets house that was renovated by Mr. McClean. Whew, that was a sentence.
The backyard clearly isn’t huge by LA standards, but this is San Francisco. Most folks’ backyard is the concrete nook where their trashcans are kept. That’s if they’re lucky, btw. And with that view, a yard almost seems like overkill, don’t it?
Now listen kiddies, we hate to be our persnickety selves, but we feel the house is just a wee bit bastardized. It’s new and sleek and modern and luxurious, but what happened to all the original details inside? Moldings? Woodwork? They were still there (supposedly) when the Meehans acquired the place a few years ago! Not so anymore.
But we digress. How’s this for an end-of-week treat? See, Yolanda can still serve it up with the best of ’em.
Summer 2016 is long gone. With it went peak beach vacay season. RIP.
But don’t despair. There are still plenty of ways for y’all to squander tens of thousands of bucks. There are several high-priced Malibu rentals still available for your consumption. And right now, when the weather is still gorgeous and beaches less crowded, it just might be the perfect time to splurge on that getaway you’ve always wanted. Or, if you’re a baller, perhaps the annual R&R trip you somehow missed out on this summer.
For just $65,000 per month, snowboarder/skateboarder/musician/clothing designer/event promoter/Olympic gold medalist and all-around successful athlete and entrepreneur Shaun White will give you the keys to his blufftop Malibu shack. So what does paying the price of a new E-Class get you per month? Well, Yolanda will tell you. But first, let’s get the big brown elephant in the room out of the way.
Recently, Mr. White’s name has been in the news. Yes, kiddies, he was slapped with a lawsuit from a (female) former member of his band. Ms. Former Member alleged graphic sexual harassment, including that Mr. White sent her explicit text messages, naked Johnson pictures, and forced her to watch pornographic videos — several of them featuring fecal matter. Yes, fecal matter. We apologize and sincerely hope you aren’t enjoying a meal or snack at this moment.
Now then. In her 98 years of life, Yolanda has seen and heard of many strange sexual inclinations. That’s perfectly fine. Hey, it’s a free country. We don’t judge on what y’all like to do in the privacy of your own homes. And it ain’t none of our business anyway.
But seriously, Mr. White? A poopoo fetish? Come on now, baby. That’s just nasty!
For all his frat boy rowdiness (he was also once arrested for acting a drunken fool), the Bentley-driving Mr. White — previously best-known as The Flying Tomato for his (formerly) long red locks and his death-defying stunts — has got some very serious coin. Though only 30 years old, he’s had a successful clothing line (sold in Target and Macy’s) for a decade. Factor in his lucrative sponsorship deals (Oakley and more) plus his purse wins at sporting competitions (he holds the X-games gold medal record), and you realize that Mr. White is sick-rich young whippersnapper.
Our boy also owns a portfolio of very expensive luxury residences, the priciest of which is this Malibu house you see in photos below. It cost him $8,940,000 back in 2013. That’s a lot of moolah even to most millionaires, but all the more so for a 27-year-old guy.
Mr. White bought the house from “Bachelor” creator Mike Fleiss, who is apparently a bit of a royal douche canoe as well. (Just if you were to ask us, we’d tell you that Mr. Fleiss should be locked up for life without parole for unleashing that Bachelor hot mess on our fair country. But that’s neither here nor there, is it? We digress.)
At a meager 2,625 square feet, the abode won’t win any gold medals at the real estate size queen awards. But really, it’s got all the space a vacationer could need. The best part, however, is that the blufftop spread sits on 1.03 acres. A lotta space, a lotta breathing room.
A pavestone driveway leads past a driveway gate and winds around, down to a one-car garage and a massive skate ramp.
Listing information makes to a point to say “**NOT INCLUDED: SKATE RAMP**”. Apparently Mr. White takes his skateboarding seriously and has no plans to share with riff-raff who may rent his home. So hands off the ramp or he’ll give you a lot of crap. (Probably literally.)
The private front yard is big enough to accommodate a good-sized wedding, really. In addition to the grassy areas there are several lounge chairs, a circular stone firepit thingy, a BBQ and a stone terrace with wooden dining table and chairs.
Wooden double front doors lead to an unexpectedly voluminous entrance foyer that links seamlessly with the semi-formal dining area and step-down living room that cozies up to the spectacular white water ocean views beyond.
Wide-plank chocolate-colored wood floors continue into the dining and kitchen areas. In the former, a simple unvarnished dining table gives off a pleasingly beachy vibe. The fully-updated kitchen has a whitewashed ceiling and a center island with bar seating and a trendy black-and-white paint scheme.
And check out the juxtaposition of that vintage stove/range and the ultra-modern glass-fronted refrigerator. Somehow the old-meets-new vibe works, at least for Yolanda. (BTW, we wouldn’t be surprised in the least if that stove actually costs more than the fridge.)
The master suite is termed an “owner’s suite” in marketing materials, perhaps because it’s a bit cozier than most master suites out there today. Anyway, it’s detached from the rest of the house (unusual, that) and has got walls of glass with picture-perfect ocean views, a private deck entrance, and a “spa-like” bathroom. No sign of a toilet, but the listing assures us it’s there. Possibly it’s never been used. Good for the future renter!
Speaking of that outdoor deck, it’s perfectly private (great for getting tan everywhere) but rather frighteningly appears to drop off right into the sea.
The picture on the left shows one of the apparently-not-so-modest house’s two family rooms. To the left, to the left is the other (larger) family room. It’s got a sectional white leather (or leatherette) sofa that distresses Yolanda to no end. We’re not entirely sure why it gives us the creeps, it just does.
In addition to the owner’s suite, there are two more cozy bedrooms. One is stuffed with two bunk beds. To our knowledge, Mr. White does not have kids, so we wonder who those are for, hmmm? Elaborate staging? Maybe he’s trying to get Angelina to rent this place? Good gracious!
The “deck to nowhere” we previously mentioned actually leads to a jacuzzi overlooking always-busy Westward Beach.
Birdview Avenue — the street where Mr. White’s house sits — has long been considered to be one of the best Point Dume roads (if not the best) and as such it’s very popular with a wide range of celebrities and assorted moguls. Current residents include Bob Dylan, Owen Wilson, Anthony Hopkins, billionaire Wayne Hughes Jr., businessman Yife Tien, businesswoman Mary Gerdts, heiress Julia Lebedev, and Bryan Singer (who recently leased his house to Angelina Jolie).
In addition to his for-rent home in Malibu, Mr. White lays claim to a tract house in Carlsbad (CA), near San Diego; a spacious condo in the pricey resort town of Park City (UT), and a multi-million dollar beach house in Encinitas (CA).
Mr. White’s $4 million Encinitas house
However, Mr. White’s main residence is actually located way up in the Hollywood Hills, in the celeb-studded Outpost Estates neighborhood. Our boy paid a big-time $6,400,000 for the spec-built contemporary last year (2015). Some of his nearest neighbors include DJ Zedd, Felicity Huffman, Johnny Galecki, and One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson.
Mr. White’s $6.4 million main residence in the Hollywood Hills
Not that we mean too get down into the gutter (too late), but we should also mention that Mr. White’s Outpost Estates house has an unusual floorplan in which the master bathroom — tub and shower and all — is plainly visible from the bed. There’s no door, no curtain, no nada.
Before we get started with this little tale, take a look at the house above and try to block out the title of this post. Now, can you guess where in LA this structure is located? Let’s see: big spec-built three-story modern mansion, ultra-sloped hillside lot, house situated hard-up on the street. It’s gotta be somewhere in the Hollywood Hills, right? The Bird Streets? It’s certainly the most logical guess.
But nope. This particular pad actually squats in Brentwood. Yes, that Brentwood. The land of young families, Range Rover-driving soccer moms, the Brentwood Country Mart, and 1,000 juice bars. And the house overlooks bucolic Mandeville Canyon, home to many horsies and ranches (and Dr. Dre).
Anyway, the somewhat atypical-for-the-neighborhood residence was sold just recently for $6,150,000 to a mysterious LLC with a Miami, FL address. Snoopy ol’ Yolanda just had to know who the buyer was, of course. Eventually we uncovered his identity: a guy named Luol Deng.
Since we are somewhat ignorant when it comes to professional sports, we had to google our Mr. Deng. We quickly discovered — as y’all probably already know — that he’s a very big deal in the world of professional basketball. FYI, the 6’9″ 31-year-old was born and raised in the African country of Sudan and has an older brother who is currently a professional basketball player in the UK.
And he’s got quite the big, toothy grin.
As it turns out, Mr. Deng — who has played for the Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, and most recently the Miami Heat — just signed quite the mega-contract with our very own much-maligned Los Angeles Lakers. At a whopping $72,000,000 (yes, kiddies, $72 million smackers to dribble, shoot, and score), Mr. Deng’s four-year contract makes him his new team’s highest-paid player. Easily.
It appears Mr. Deng may have faced some competition for the house, as the sale price is a full $155,000 more than the last ask of $5,995,000. The 1.19 acre lot is certainly commodious — on paper. But like Yolanda said, the slope here is significant so there ain’t no front yard and backyard space is limited to a small patch of grass, a pool w/ wooden deck, and a second wooden deck just below.
Reclaimed oak (?) hardwood floors line most of the living spaces inside the 6,518-square-foot home. A sizable living room seamlessly connects to the petite backyard via fancy-schmancy La Cantina folding glass doors.
The kitchen has all the expected high-end Wolf and Subzero appliances. We like the wood cabinetry that decorates most of the room, although we wonder if it might look better were it stained a darker color to contrast with the floors. Just Yolanda’s useless idea, folks.
A wood-and-glass front door leads to a proper entrance foyer with a massive crystal chandelier and a three-story staircase with wooden stairs. We can’t imagine a professional athlete like Mr. Deng would ever dream of using it, but there’s also an elevator for any lazy ass houseguests he may have over.
Check out the moonwalkin’ Martian on the second floor landing. Seriously, what’s up with that?
The master suite is located on the second floor and features disappearing walls of glass with views to Mandeville Canyon. A suspended fireplace heats up those rare chilly LA nights (like tonight). The master bath isn’t as large as Yolanda would’ve thought for a 6,500+ square foot house, but it’s got the requisite soaking tub and glass-walled shower with rainfall showerhead. Perfect for washing the stress (and sweat) of a particularly fierce basketball game off.
In addition to the master suite, the house features 6 additional bedrooms and a total of 6.25 more bathrooms (3 full, 2 three-quarter, 3 half, and 1 one-quarter. Goodness, crappers take up about half the living space!).
The third floor is primed for parties with a media room and party-sized 1,000-square-foot outdoor terrace/lounge with fireplace.
The wood on the separate outdoor decks appears to be teak, but don’t quote Yolanda on that.
Other celebrity residents of the same general area (Mandeville Canyon) include the aforementioned Dr. Dre, Jordana Brewster, Gwyneth Paltrow, Harrison Ford, Trent Reznor, Beck, and Ari Emanuel.
But we digress. Our friends at The Real Deal reported that in September 2014 — during the dawn of his short-lived Miami Heat career — Mr. Deng paid $4,600,000 for a waterfront home in the city’s Morningside area. As far as Yolanda knows (and that ain’t much), Mr. Deng continues to own this property.
Mr. Deng’s Miami abode
Finally, Yolanda hopes and prays that Mr. Deng’s $72 million contract was a wise investment that will catapult our long-suffering Lakers back to the top of the charts or rankings or whatever.
We worry, though. Mr. Deng’s choice of homes is concerning! Brentwood has a slow pace of life. All that OJ stuff was ages ago. Now it’s Will our Mr. Deng turn into a Soulcyclin’, kid-schleppin’, kale sippin’ vegan earth mom?! Say it ain’t so!
Though he’s a born-and-bred Scot, versatile actor and ultra-eligible bachelor Gerard Butler (300, Phantom of the Opera, P.S. I Love You, How to Train Your Dragon, Olympus Has Fallen) has — for the last couple years, at least — resided primarily in Malibu.
Mr. Butler first tested the (cold) Malibu waters by leasing a rather stunning ranch from hotshot Malibu realtor Chris Cortazzo for a lengthy period of time.
(For more features of the exquisite compound, go here.)
It was here at his leased ranch, Yolanda believes, where Mr. Butler got a rather — ahem — unwelcome surprise one night. As was first reported by The National Enquirer, of all publications — upon his return home one night our boy was assaulted by two squealing dingbat fangurls. “I LOVE YOU!!!” “MARRY US AND GIVE BIRTH TO OUR BABIES!!” “CATCH THESE PANTIES!!!” the koo-koo Katies belched. Or something like that.
Now listen, kiddies. Yolanda is rather easily excitable, so if we met some brain-lackin’ lassies like that in our own house, we’d have cleaned their non-functioning clocks or even grabbed our Glock. We don’t play when it comes to that mess. We throw down. But to Mr. Butler’s credit, his unflappable musclebound self supposedly barked at the young girls that they’re lucky he wasn’t going to call the cops. Instead, he gave them a very stern lecture about being young and foolhardy and sent them packin’ with their tails between their legs. Sans autograph, of course. Yolanda hopes their mommy and daddies then acquainted their behinds with a hairbrush. Or a wooden spoon, as Our Mama would suggest.
However, a creepy fangurl encounter is apparently not enough to scare Mr. Butler outta town! In fact, sometime around the time that happened he finally sealed the deal on a home purchase in a top-secret deal.
Several months ago (way back in May of 2016) a mysterious LLC plunked down $6,450,000 for a rather unusual compound on Point Dume, Malibu’s most famously star-studded neighborhood. And we may have missed the sale altogether had it not been for our trusty pal Vlad The Revealer over at Celebrity Address Aerial.
The purchasing entity (“Mister Five Real Estate LLC”) leads down a dark, dead-end road. We had to scrounge and beg and it took Yolanda months to ferret out the truth, but finally we’ve been able to confirm that the affable new owner is none other than our Mr. Butler himself.
Anyway, the landlocked property contains a very spacous 1.67 acres of flat, park-like land and two separate “architectural masterpiece” structures, according to the listing.
A long driveway passes a chunky driveway gate and rambles along a wooded lane until it reaches the main house, a wood/concrete/glass origami-like confection. Originally built in 1980 by architect W. Earl Wear, the modernist house underwent a remodel in 1990 and today includes 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms in a downright modest 1,817-square-feet of living space.
The house reminds Yolanda of a rather odd mixture of the Flintstones house, Frodo Baggins’ house, and the Diamonds Are ForeverElrod House in Palm Springs. Yes, it really does remind us of all three of those. We swear we haven’t been drinking!
The master bedroom certainly isn’t large by today’s supersized standards — even for a regular, non-mansion house — but it has a fireplace and room for both Mr. Butler and his live-in girlfriend and/or future wife Morgan Brown. Perhaps this purchase signals he’s not much longer for bachelor-dom? Married life is callin’.
One thing Yolanda cannot abide are those knotty pine (?) walls. We know some people love them for the “mountain cabin” feel they provide, but we’d like to punch those people in the mouth!
Oh dear. There we go being unnecessarily violent again.
Top left is the third of the three bedrooms. Towards the front of the property — just inside the driveway gate — is a privately-situated swimming pool with an elegant rectangular shape. There’s also a spa and a wee wooden shack with plenty of storage space for surf boards and towels and etc.
Unfortunately, it appears there ain’t no bathroom out by the pool. Should Mr. Butler find himself sopping wet and in dire need of some relief, he’ll either have to do his business in the bushes or skedaddle all the way back to the main house. And it’s a loooong walk.
By now you’ve probably guessed or realized that the property has no ocean view. And while it may seem insane to pay $6.45 million for a house on Point Dume (an area renowned for its spectacular bluff-top ocean views) without a view, check out the natural stream, the sycamore trees, the wondrous privacy the compound provides. It’s only Yolanda’s useless opinion, but we happen to think Mr. Butler’s financial outlay was wholly justified.
There’s the cute (sorta?) cottage.
The property was sold to Mr. Butler by a TV commercial director named Geoffrey Barish and his wife, realtor Sadie Pollack Barish. The Barishes paid just $1,265,000 for the estate back in 2000 and at some point during their ownership hired noted eco-friendly Santa Monica-based architect Chris Sorensen to build a treehouse-like two-story guesthouse near the rear of the property.
Yolanda is not certain about the size of the guesthouse, but the one-bed, one-bath structure is undoubtedly smaller than the sub-2,000-square-foot main house.
Ahhh, the natural beauty of Point Dume (and Malibu in general). Forget those silly celebs, fangurls, y’all should be stalking this beatiful scenery.
As we already mentioned, the property itself does not feature any sort of ocean view, but it does come with a coveted key to the all-but-private and gloriously scenic Little Dume Beach.
The locale: Point Dume is not only the most celeb-studded part of Malibu, it sports one of the densest populations of famous folks in LA — second only, perhaps, to the far more central Hollywood Hills neighborhood. Current Point Dume residents include Julia Roberts, Barbra Streisand, Chris Martin, Sean Penn, Matthew McConaughey, Bob Dylan, Emilio Estevez, Owen Wilson, Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Kavanaugh, Matt Bellamy, Kid Rock, Kenny G, Cheryl Hines & Robert Kennedy, Bryan Singer, Don Rickles, Shaun White, and probably many more that we’re forgetting at the moment. Just down the street from Mr. Butler’s new abode is a big house currently owned by Pink, although Yolanda happens to know she will soon close a secret deal to sell it to French financier Matthieu Pigasse.
Mr. Butler still owns a no-longer-used house in the trendy (and pricey) Los Feliz neighborhood. Unsurprisingly, according to Our Mama, our Scottish friend hoisted that house up for sale or lease just this month.
And as for any of you goofy fangurls who might be reading this: don’t even think about it, babies. The property is completely walled and gated with a full security system. And something tells us our boy Mr. Butler won’t be so forgiving the second time around. K?
Listing Agent: Chris Cortazzo, Coldwell Banker Mr. Butler’s Agent: Jerel Taylor, Sotheby’s International Realty
This next post is gonna be unusually short. But not because Yolanda feels like shutting up. Oh no. Never!
It’s just that there’s only one measly pic of the house we are discussing today, so we ain’t got much to flap our fat jaws about. We do apologize and beg forgiveness. These things happen. C’est la vie.
Anyway, for those who don’t know, Los Angeles is a huge city. Especially in terms of sprawl. So there’s all these fancifully-named neighborhoods like Pacific Palisades and Silver Lake and Holmby Hills. And Melrose Village. For those who ain’t familiar, Melrose Village is adjacent to the city of West Hollywood. It’s bordered on the west by busy-busy Fairfax Ave and on the east by also-busy Highland Ave. And the neighborhood’s even got its own blog, so you know it’s real official!
Like its neighbors West Hollywood and Beverly Grove, Melrose Village has seen a recent spat of developers hoovering up old single-story homes for $1 million and change and proceeding to rip them down to quickly erect boxy two-story contemporaries. Those new (sometimes cheaply built) spec-houses usually change hands for $3 million or more. Nice work if you can get it, right?
Anyway, back in August (2016) a not-yet-completed mini-mansion in the proverbial heart of the neighborhood sold for $3,987,000. Yolanda is pretty damn certain that’s the highest price ever paid in the Village. Ever.
Listing info provides just one photo and a bare-bones description. About all we know is that the place clocks in at 5,098-square-feet with 5 beds and a total of 4.75 baths.
Yolanda has no clue what the interiors look like, but we can sorta guess. Can’t you? Let’s see: an open floor plan, rear walls of glass, hundreds of recessed LED lights, high-end kitchen appliances (Wolf or Viking), a pool and spa, a media room, and a prominently-placed wine storage closet or room.
Did we get it right?!
It should also be noted that the house is referred to as “Cape Cod”. And indeed, the style is remarkably dissimilar from most of the uber-modern new places nearby. However, kiddies, we hate to beat a dead-buried-and-exhumed horse, but this is not what we picture when we imagine a Cape Cod house.
A Cape Cod house, y’all, is generally defined by its low, broad frame and steeply pitched roof with end gables. That’s not just Yolanda’s ignorant self talking, either. You can find that same description all over the web.
A Cape Cod house
The house we’re discussing today — while certainly attractive and luxurious — has none of those just-mentioned Cape Cod elements. It’s kinda hard to be broad on a .16-acre lot, right?
But we digress. The buyer’s identity is carefully concealed behind an opaque LLC with a silly name. But snoopy Yolanda just happens to know that the proud new owners are super-tall NBA former All-Star center Roy Hibbert and his wife Valerie Cooke.
Mr. Hibbert & Ms. Cooke
Here’s our mini-bio of Mr. Hibbert. (Thanks, Wikipedia!) He was born in New York City but raised in Maryland, and he stands a neck-snapping 7 feet and 2 inches tall. From 2008 to 2015, he played for the Indiana Pacers professional basketball team. His career peak seems to have come somewhere around 2013, when he signed a $58 million contract and was named an All-Star player.
In 2015, the Pacers traded (or more like dumped) Mr. Hibbert onto our very own woefully under-performing LA Lakers. Unfortunately for the Lakers (and Mr. Hibbert), his performance turned even more dismal, and he recorded his worst year in nearly all stats since his rookie debut. After a year, the Lakers (unsurprisingly) dumped Mr. Hibbert and in July (2016) he signed a one-year, $5 million deal with the Charlotte Hornets.
Scarcely a month after signing with the Hornets, Mr. Hibbert plunked down the big bucks for a big new LA house.
After such a brutal experience here, you’d think Mr. Hibbert (and Ms. Cooke) would be eager to burn rubber on outta town, right? But nope. Clearly that’s not the case. They love it here so much that they’re brazenly breakin’ records. That takes chutzpah, kiddies. Yolanda approves.
Anywho. You know that old saying “a picture is like a thousand words” or whatever? Yolanda managed to turn one house picture into a story with nigh on 800 words! That ain’t easy. A new record?
Listing agent: Rande Gray, Keller Williams Hollywood Hills Mr. Hibbert’s agent: Simon Beardmore, Sotheby’s International Realty
The real estate market may still be fiery hot in certain (many) areas of LA, but not everyone’s feelin’ the warmth. Folks are being left out in the cold — or even worse, getting burned. Take this genetically-blessed couple named Reinout & Danielle Oerlemans. They’ve been trying to unload their Hollywood Hills party mansion since, like, the dawn of time. Okay, it’s been two years, but still. That’s almost as long as they’ve owned it!
Yes, even though they’re hot and rich — and that certainly counts for something in superficial LA — they still can’t seem to snag a buyer. Alas.
Who are Mr. and Mrs. Oerlemans, you might wonder? Well, Yolanda is feeling magnanimous so we’ll tell you. Though the pair remain virtually unknown here in the U S of A, back in their native Nederland they are bonafide celebrities. Mr. Oerlemans is one of Holland’s most popular and best-known TV personalities. He initially rose to fame as the star of an uber-popular Dutch soap opera. Then he hosted the Dutch version of American Idol, and for several seasons hosted a popular Dutch talk show.
Mrs. Oerlemans (nee Danielle Overgaag) is, for her part, also famous across the pond. She’s a Dutch TV anchor/presenter who was once — of all things — a competive professional bicyclist. She even won a bronze medal at the World Championships. Oh, and she also sports nearly 56,000 followers on her Instawhack bullshiz, where she documents her adventures around town with famous friends like our favorite Goop gal Gwyneth Paltrow.
Mrs. Oerlemans may be best-known, however, for her three-year relationship with Lance Armstrong back in the mid-1990s. That was, of course, long before his epic fall from grace and also long before she hitched her sidecar to Mr. Oerlemans’ motorbike.
If you ask us, Mrs. Oerlemans made a good choice in picking Mr. Oerlemans over Mr. Armstrong. But that’s just Yolanda’s useless opinion so we’ll shut up.
Now then. Mr. & Mrs. Oerlemans currently own more than $40 million in luxury LA real estate. How do they do it, you might wonder? They do it because they’re enormously stinkin’ rich, that’s how. Mr. Oerlemans founded and built a TV production company called Eyeworks. Obviously Mr. Oerlemans has a head for business because the company grew to become one of the top 5 biggest independent production companies in the whole wide world.
In early 2014 — just months before they bought their Sunset Strip-adjacent house — Mr. & Mrs. Oerlemans sold Eyeworks to Warner Bros for an eyeball-poppin’ $273 million. So you see, y’all, the Oerlemanses can afford just about any house they want.
The Oerlemans family
Back in 2014, the Oerlemanses (the parents and their four children) moved to America, where they quickly set up shop in a baller-style way by paying $19,000,000 (through an offshore company) for a big and newly-rebuilt house in an area of the Hollywood Hills that’s generally known as “above the Sunset Strip” for its proximity to that world-famous locale.
For what it’s worth, the same house was sold back in 2012 for $5 million and change to real estate baller Bruce Makowsky, who ripped it down to the studs and rebuilt it in a much more glam manner before flipping it to our favorite Dutch couple.
Note: Although the listing says the house is located in the Bird Streets (and it is adjacent to that high-priced neighborhood), as far as Yolanda knows the house is not technically within the boundaries of that particular aviary. (Sierra Mar is not the name of a bird, as far as we know).
Frankly, kiddies, Yolanda almost couldn’t believe it when Mr. and Mrs. Oerlemans bought this house. Sure they’re uber-rich. Sure they want luxury. But they’ve got four young children, y’all! This house is totally, totally wrong for a young family. There’s no yard. Little outdoor space of any kind. And it’s a three story modern house with hard surfaces everywhere. We thank the heavens one of their kids didn’t take a disastrous spill in this house. (or maybe they did, we don’t know).
Not only that, but the house is located above the Sunset Strip, which is a terrible place for raising a family. We’re not biased. Yolanda loves this area. But because we love it, we also know its faults. This neighborhood can get quite, well, raunchy. It’s the honest truth, so let’s be real. Mr. & Mrs. Oerlemans made a damn fool decision to buy and move into this house (which they did).
Don’t think we’re being too harsh on our photogenic pair, either. We’re sure Mr. & Mrs. Oerlemans would actually agree with Yolanda. And to their credit, it only took them a few weeks to come to their senses before they realized the house was all wrong wrong wrong. Within a couple months of moving in, they slapped a “for sale” sign back on the modern coke palace and went hunting for a better house.
Yolanda can’t help but feel it’s inevitable that Mr. Oerlemans & Ms. Overgaag will take a fat loss on the sale of this house, when all is said and done. The just-relisted asking price of $19,800,000 is only $800k more than the amount they paid for the property back in May 2014. And we rather feel that the couple originally overpaid for the house. Do we suspect several more pricechops are nigh? We do indeed. Good thing they’re loaded.
But we digress. Let’s dissect this property, which we lovingly refer to as Toilet House. Any guesses why?
In the Hollywood Hills, even homes with a hefty eight-figure pricetags sit hard up on the street. At least there are two four-car garages, because Yolanda happens to know that street parking in this tightly-packed neighborhood is also very limited. Thinking about hosting a big party at this house? Ya might wanna think again. The neighbors will just love you… not.
The house also sports exactly zero square feet of yard space. Well, at least you don’t need that pesky green Yard Wast trash barrel. And no need for a gardener, either.
It’s quite a climb. Three very tall stories. And no mention of an elevator in marketing materials. But hey, we’re talking about an athletic family here. Check out Mrs. Oerlemans’ mountain bike.
The kitchen has two enormous hairy weave monsters hanging from the ceiling. Seriously — we kept staring at that picture thinking they were about to open their eyes.
As you’d expect, everything in the house is modern and chic and ultra-high-end. Terrazzo floors, Thermador appliances, Caeserstone countertops, Tiffany dining table (who knew?!), Delfin swivel chairs, LED lighting, home theater, gym, full security system and home automation.
In the master bedroom, the flooring material switches to lustrous walnut. Both the bed and bathroom sport multiple skylights, and there is also “separate handbag and shoe closets”. For when the master suite becomes boring, there’s also a full outdoor deck with firepit and lounge-y furniture.
Some of the other guest/family suites. There are a total of 5 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms. Listing information does not disclose the home’s square footage, but public records put it at a big-but-not-massive 5,047 square feet.
For all the home’s fancy luxury features, the real selling point is the view. And the property certainly delivers in that regard. But is that view — spectacular as it may be — really worth $19.8 million? That’s for y’all — any potential buyers out there — to decide.
Now listen up, all Yolanda’s realtor friends. This house has been deemed unsellable by some negative Nancys (one of them being Yolanda) so we’re pitching in our less-than-two-cents-worth of an opinion to help move it off the shelf. A property like this will take a very specific client. A client without a young family. Yolanda expressly forbids y’all from selling this place to a family. The location is all wrong. The house is all wrong. Just no.
We see a rich, young (or young at heart), single person buying this house. We suppose it could also be purchased by a child-free couple — but ideally it would go to a single sick-rich human.
A tech tycoon? A vegan food entrepreneur? An heiress to a machine gun fortune? An heiress to a press-on nails fortune?
Hmmm. Maybe not an heiress. Let’s face it, this house looks more like a guy’s than a gal’s. Is that sexist of Yolanda? We apologize. But it just reminds us of a frat boy’s wet dream bachelor pad.
The house, by the way, has been vacant for the last year or more. The Overgaag-Oerlemans family have long since moved on to a much bigger and much more family-friendly mega-mansion over in the ultra-hoity-toity Lower Bel Air neighborhood. The couple slammed down a very serious $21,440,000 for the property in June 2015.
The Bel Air casa, which weighs in at a whopping 18,316-square-feet, has 8 bedrooms and 11 liberally-gilded bathrooms on a 1.58-acre lot. A very private lot at the end of a cul-de-sac that happens to back up to the Bel Air Country Club, in fact. And look — it’s got plenty of space for the kiddies to safely romp. Indoors and out. We may not love the house, but we certainly salute Mr. & Mrs. Overgaag for upgrading to a much more appropriate property and location.
Mr. & Mrs. Oerlemans’ family-friendly $21 million Bel Air mega-mansion
Anywho. Yolanda would like to know your bets on what their Sunset Strip spot will finally go for. $15 million? More? Less?
Now then. We hope our beloved Rabbi Hedda won’t accuse us of blasphemy, but we’d like to say a little prayer to the real estate gods. “May the gracious Lord relieve Mr. and Mrs. Oerlemans of this burden,” we whisper.
“And let the Toilet House go to someone who will appreciate the low-maintenance .47-acre sloped grounds. Amen.”
As has now been reported far and wide, last week (mid-October 2016) multi-billionaire Tewfik “Tom” Gores paid an astounding $100,000,000 for a brand-new, 30,000-square-foot mega-mansion on exuberantly-expensive Carolwood Drive in the high-nosed Holmby Hills neighborhood of the Platinum Triangle. Not to overly toot our own horn, but y’all know Yolanda was the first to call that one, right? Of course you do.
But it was our real estate compadres at gossip kingpin TMZ who first confirmed that Mr. Gores was indeed the buyer. And sure enough, property records now reflect that the estate was acquired by an LLC with very clear links back to him. But we digress.
Meanwhile, the LA Times then hissed that the $100 million deal was not a straight-cash sale. Rather, it involved the trade of at least one other property, a 3.2-acre, essentially vacant spread in prime Bel Air. While property-for-property non-standard transactions in the ultra-high-end real estate market may seem unusual — and indeed they are — they are not entirely unheard of. For 16 years, the record for most expensive house ever sold in LA County was held by a Bel Air property that went for $94 million back in 2000. That sale was also a non-standard transaction that involved cash and two vacant parcels of land.
Mr. Gores (and his wife Holly, we assume) were represented in the $100 million sale by his nieces, Tiffany & Christy Martin, and by his sister Samira Gores, all of The Agency.
Tom & Holly Gores
For those of you wonderful readers who have been following this silly blog for some time, you may know that it’s been quite awhile since we’ve posted one of our absurdly legendary “real estate baller profiles” up in here. Not since Bren Simon and Patrick Soon-Shiong several months ago, in fact. Frankly, it takes a long ass time to type one of these up and collect all the data. Yolanda just can’t spare the time. We’ve got manicures and spousal support checks to pick up, you know. But we’re sacrificing for y’all and dictating to our assistant today because Mr. Gores is worth it. He is! Outside of perhaps Jerry Perenchio, we think he may be the biggest luxury real estate baller in all of Los Angeles.
Smizing?
In 1964, Tewfiq Georgious (AKA Tom Gores) — a longtime fan of the head-tilt — was born in Israel (he is not Jewish, in case you were wondering). Mr. Georgious’s family moved to America when he was just a tot and he grew up near Flint, Michigan. That’s where he met his wife Holly, who was born and also raised in Michigan. The couple have three children — the oldest of which happens to be a freshman at Yolanda’s alma mater. Good school choice, Miss Gores. Oops. We digress!
Many of Mr. Gores’s family members continue to reside back in Michigan, and he himself still has property holdings back there as well. And of course he owns the Detroit Pistons NBA team. Michigan is home for the Gores clan.
As the founder of Beverly Hills-based Platinum Equity, a leveraged buyout private equity firm, Mr. Gores currently commands a net worth of $3.3 billion, according to Forbes.
Over-achievement runs in the Gores blood, apparently. Mr. Gores has two older brothers — Alec and Sam — who are both extremely powerful and successful (and rich) in their own right. Sam is the founder of Paradigm Talent Agency, which is one of the top entertainment agencies in the whole wide world. Alec (the eldest brother) is also involved in private equity and has a net worth of $2.1 billion, according to Forbes.
Now we hate to dredge up the ancient past, but Tom Gores (and his brother Alec) were long ago caught up in the infamous Anthony Pellicano wiretapping scandal that rocked Hollywood lives from Los Feliz to Malibu. It’s all a case of once upon a time, y’all.
Once upon a time, Alec Gores suspected his then-wife Lisa might be fooling around with his little brother Tom. At that time, the brothers both lived in the same guard-gated community above Beverly Hills. Anyway, Mr. Gores didn’t have any proof, but all the same he was convinced. He had a hunch, you see.
So what do you think he did? Order a Ryan’s Roses?
Nope. Our Mr. Alec Gores goes out and pays Anthony Pellicano — at that time widely-known as the top private investigator in LA — a whopping $100,000 to spy on his wife and his brother and wiretap both their phones. Mr. Pellicano did just that and guess what? Turns out Mr. Gores’ suspicions were correct. Tom and Lisa Gores were doing the hokey-pokey! As you might imagine, a mega-blowout ensued and Alec & Lisa Gores quickly divorced. Tom Gores, meanwhile, remains married to his longtime wife Holly. But let’s move on.
For many years now, Mr. Gores has primarily split his time between his estate in Beverly Park and his extravagant oceanfront compound in Malibu. But he owns so much other real estate that it almost hurts our noggin to think of it. So we’re gonna put it down on paper (or at least in a blog post) so we can forget about it all. Make sense? Let’s go.
Oh, one more thing. Our Mama over at Variety already performed an in-depth and very comprehensive dissection of Mr. Gores’ holdings back in 2011. But in the five years since, much has been sold or bought. So we’re just gonna expand on her previous story. Capiche?
Mr. Gores’ first LA residence was in the “Royal Oak” Encino gated community
Mr. Gores’ first LA property purchase (we think) was his 1995 acquisition of a mansion out in the Valley. Yes, the Valley. Encino, to be precise. He paid about $1.3 million and sold it for $1,875,000 in 2002 to a family friend/associate.
In 1999, Mr. Gores significantly upped the stakes with the $4,595,000 acquisition of a 10,000+ square foot mansion in the Mulholland Estates guard-gated community. While this community — home to klassy folks like Charlie Sheen, Paris Hilton, Sydney Holland and Slash — carries a 90210 zip code and therefore is considered part of the Beverly Hills Post Office, it’s technically located within the much less-glam Valley neighborhood of Sherman Oaks.
Mr. Gores’ former three-parcel Mulholland Estates compound
There’s his first Mulholland Estates purchase on the left. Not satisfied with just one mansion, however, Mr. Gores began to build a baller-style compound. In early 2002, he paid $1,105,000 to acquire a small vacant lot directly across the street, which he gated and hedged and developed with little more than a patch of grass and a sport court.
But that’s not all. In May 2006 he forked out $5,712,000 for a second, smaller mansion that’s also across the street from his first mansion and two doors down from his sports court. Guess who the seller was? His brother Sam Gores, naturally.
As y’all may be aware, Mr. Gores is no longer a Mulholland Estates resident — he sold off all three of his holdings in 2012 and 2013 (to three different buyers). The sports court sold in March 2012 for $1,600,000 to Armenian TV producer Vaagn Sarkissian (who has since built a large mansion on the property), the smaller mansion sold in October 2012 for $4,800,000 to whack-a-doodle non-winning actor Charlie Sheen (who used it to house his third ex-wife Brooke Mueller before selling it in June 2016 for $5,415,000 to real estate agent Matthew Altman), and the large mansion (which Mr. Gores briefly rented to former Real Housewives star Adrienne Maloof) sold in April 2013 for exactly $10,000,000 to professional screecher and chair turner Christina Aguilera.
Whew. But we’re just gettin’ started.
Mr. Gores’ $42 million Malibu compound
Around the turn of the century, Mr. Gores’ net worth really started to skyrocket. And what’s one thing that every good rich Angeleno does? They buy a house in Malibu, duh! In August 2003, Mr. Gores slammed down a baller-style $22,600,000 to acquire internet entrepreneur Marc Andreessen‘s mansion located on what is oft-considered to be one of the best strips of sand in the city. At that time, the sale was believed to be one of the highest prices ever paid for a home in the city.
But Mr. Gores wasn’t done spending the cash. Apparently he loves Malibu so much that he decided to double down out there. In 2014, the much smaller house next door (owned by a lady from back East) came up for sale with an asking price of $14,995,000. Our Mr. Gores went a little cray-cray and sealed the deal by paying $20,000,000 for the property that August.
No, kiddies, that’s not a typo. Mr. Gores really did pay more than $5 million over the asking price for his next-door neighbor”s house. So either he really liked the lady or he faced some amazingly stiff competition for the property. Or both, right?
Anyway, if you’ve ever driven down Malibu Road you’ve probably noticed Mr. Gores’ compound. It’s the one that almost always has a dozen luxury vehicles parked in a neat row out front (Maybachs, Bentleys, Ranges, Astons and the like). Out Mr. Gores is an automobile connoisseur, in addition to being a trophy real estate collector.
Mr. Gores’ $35 million Bel Air mountaintop — sold to the Emir of Qatar
Now listen up. For more than a decade, y’all, the fickle Mr. Gores has been on a fruitless hunt for a proper Platinum Triangle mega-mansion to call home. We’re not sure when he acquired it or how much he paid (we think he bought it in 2006) but we do know that in late 2010, Mr. Gores sold a massive 8-acre vacant promontory above the Bel Air Country Club for somewhere around $35,000,000 to Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, better known as the former Emir of Qatar. His Former Highness is currently engaged in building a outrageously immodest compound on the property.
Mr. Gores’ $45 million compound at the intersection of Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, and Beverly Crest
Speaking of 2006, that’s when our beloved Mr. Gores transformed to turn into a bonafide real estate baller. That February, he forked out an amazing $33,640,000 for another vacant 6+ acre property located in what is one of the poshest pockets of Los Angeles. The estate sits directly between David Geffen and Ron Burkle’s mega-estates and directly across the street from Fleur de Lys, that mega-mansion that sold for a ludicrous $88,300,000 back in 2014.
Incidentally, while Fleur de Lys has long been thought to have been purchased by Michael Milken — he’s not actually the owner. It’s a different and more enigmatic billionaire who actually holds the title. But we digress. That’s a story for another day (soon, we promise!).
Anyway. Just one year after acquiring all that vacant land, Mr. Gores paid another $11,500,000 for a “French Mediterranean” 10,000+ square foot mansion directly next door. At some point, it seems, Mr. Gores was planning to build a massive complex up there. But for whatever reason, he abandoned his plans and the $45 million property remains all but undeveloped.
Mr. Gores’ $60 million+ Bel Air compound… before he demolished it
Next, our Mr. Gores turned his attention to constructing a new compound in the proverbial heart of lower Bel Air, just above the entrance to the Bel Air Country Club. In November 2008, the perennially itchy-footed fellow forked out $18,000,000 for a 7,000+ square foot mansion. Then — to everyone’s shock and consternation — he laid out $38,000,000 for the 11,000+ square foot historic house next door, which was once owned by Herbert Kalmus and later owned by Verna Harrah, the seventh wife and widow of casino tycoon Bill Harrah. It was Ms. Harrah who sold the house in 2005 for $14 million to Vegas-based entrepreneur Carl Parmer, who then raked in a profit of more than $20 million by selling it to Mr. & Mrs. Gores.
But now things get murky. Just after paying an obscene total of $56 million to acquire this prime compound, Mr. & Mrs. Gores started doing some strange stuff. First they razed the smaller house, then they began a multi-year expansion and renovation of the Harrah-Parmer place. (That’s what you see in the old satelline image above).
Bizarrely enough, however, after spending years and many millions of dollars on permits and construction (which included a massive underground garage), Mr. Gores either lost interest or decided it was too much trouble or something. You know what he did? He razed the not-yet-complete compound!
Profit rights?!?! Pardon us, babies, but there ain’t gonna be no profits on this mess. Mr. Gores is going to have to write off about $30 million bucks once all is said and done — and that’s in the unlikely event of a full-price sale. That’s an awful lot of moolah to anyone. Anyone who is not named Tom Gores, that is.
Mr. Gores’ $21 million Beverly Park mansion (his current main residence)
Today, Mr. & Mrs. Gores primarily reside in Beverly Park, that (in)famously steroidal guard-gated community in the mountains above Beverly Hills. It’s all new money and foreign money, kiddies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The Goreses paid fitness mogul Bill Phillips $21,000,000 for the 3-acre, 20,000+ square foot Moorish-Med behemoth back in November 2010. For what it’s worth, the mega-mansion next door and the one across the street are both owned by members of the Saudi royal family. But let’s not digress any further, k?
Mr. Gores has big boy toys up in Beverly Park. And a pumpkin car.
Today is Halloween, so let’s all say it together: it’s a jack-o-lantern BOO-gatti. Light that beotch up.
The iconic Sierra Towers luxury condo building, where Mr. Gores owns a high-floor unit
Is there no place sacred? Our Mr. Gores has even infiltrated the iconic Sierra Towers building above the Sunset Strip, where he owns a multi-million dollar condo on one of the higher floors (for unknown reasons).
Mr. Gores’ compound in Grosse Ile, MI. Frontage on Detroit River
And just because he’s an LA boy now doesn’t mean that Mr. Gores has abandoned his roots. He and the wifey still lay claim to a luxury compound in Grosse Ile, Michigan. The two-house spread features a pool, a pool house, a full soccer pitch, and a private boat dock on the Detroit River. We imagine the Goreses fly in every so often on their private jet and enjoy a few summer weeks here. Must be nice!
And finally, there’s Mr. Gores’ latest acquisition — the $100 million mansion on hoity-toity Carolwood Drive. 30,000-square-feet of spec-built space, two outdoor pools, one indoor pool, a 5,300-square-foot master suite, and plenty of space for taking all the head-tilt photographs he could want.
In addition to these properties we’ve just discussed, Mr. Gores lays claim to many more less-significant holdings in LA. There’s a million-dollar condo in the Stone Canyon area near Mulholland Drive, a tiny house in the flats of Beverly Hills (acquired for $3,325,000), a tiny house in Mandeville Canyon (purchased for $1,900,000), and a large (and rather ugly) “fixer” in the hills of Brentwood, purchased earlier this year for $7,400,000.
All told, we believe Mr. Gores currently owns more than $250 million in luxury housing. And that, of course, doesn’t count taxes, utilities, labor costs, or maintenance for any of these properties. Are you seeing why we wrote all this up? As that Victoria Beckham creature would say, it’s mayja.
Last thing. We didn’t intend to post this on Halloween. It was supposed to go up this past weekend, but lousy life and boring Bettys got in the way. So, although we can’t think of a decent Halloween connection, we’ll say that the amount of money Mr. Gores has is just plain scary.
Sorry, y’all, but we don’t have any truly spooky stories to enthrall you with this Halloween. What we do have is a brief story about two celebrities engaging in a covert real estate deal on one of the most star-packed streets in the Hollywood Hills. Creepy? Not really. Just a ho-hum bit of celebrity real estate incest, if you will.
Yolanda hears from Mr. Deep Throat that a flag-lot house in the Laurel Canyon area of the Hills just sold for somewhere around $2,600,000. The seller’s identity is shielded behind a blind trust, but Yolanda’s pal Vlad the Revealer at Celebrity Address Aerial says he’s got it on unimpeachable authority that it is none other than Anthony Kiedis. The buyer, Yolanda happens to know, is a young lady in her 20s who comes from a very famous family. Her name is Georgia May Jagger. Yes, that Jagger.
Mr. Kiedis, whose birthday is tomorrow (happy early birthday!) is the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which he co-founded (so to speak) back in 1983. Since then, the group has released 11 albums, won six Grammies, have sold over 80 million records worldwide, and have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
With great fame and fortune came the opportunity for the Tesla-driving Mr. Kiedis’s epic (or notorious) rock & roll lifestyle. He has frequently struggled with drug use over the years and by his own admission has bedded hundreds of sexual partners. More interesting to Yolanda, however, is his rockstar-style property portfolio, which includes houses on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, a house on Malibu’s Point Dume, and a condo in Las Vegas. There was also a house just above the Sunset Strip that he bought in 2013 for $3,650,000 from designer Waldo Fernandez and sold in 2015 for $4,200,000 to Dave Demattei & Patrick Wade, a couple gents who are bigshots at Lucky Brand jeans.
24-year-old Georgia May Jagger’s daddy Mick Jagger is, of course, also a rock & roll icon who really should require no introduction from silly ol’ Yolanda. Her mother is the former model Jerry Hall, who this year provided great fodder for tabloids worldwide when she became the fourth wife of 84-year-old billionaire Rupert Murdoch. For what it’s worth, the couple seem quite happy and playful together.
As for young Miss Jagger, as far as we can tell she is the fifth of Mick Jagger’s seven children (an eighth is currently expected, FYI). She’s also a British fashion model who has worked for many top designers. Although the naysayers may claim Miss Jagger’s last name helped her in the business — and that may be true — we can’t deny Miss Jagger makes a great model. Seriously, Google or IMDB her or something. This chick is drop-dead gorgeous.
But on to the subject at hand — the house. Mr. Kiedis paid $1,995,000 for the property in September 2012. Mr. Deep Throat, as we previously mentioned, whispered that the deal went down for somewhere around $2,600,000, although property records have not yet been updated to reflect the transaction. Since this was an off-market transfer, we regret to inform y’all that we have no current photos of the property.
But! We do have plenty of images and info from the 2012 sale, so we’ll show you those. Just keep in mind that the photos and description are from four years ago. The property may or may not have been altered in the years since.
The blocky contemporary-ish house sits on a prive flag lot of 1/3rd an acre with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms in a comfortable but not large 3,038 square feet of living space. Naturally, the lot is completely walled and gated for celebrity-style privacy.
There is, per the listing, an open floor plan with hardwood floors, an “updated” kitchen, and a skylight-having living/dining room combo.
The master bedroom is rather lovely with its minimalistic decor. Yolanda loves the big-picture windows.
A white picket micro-deck leads out to the backyard, which is surprisingly mostly non-landscaped. We actually think the natural nature vibe is a great departure from the oft too-obsessively manicured yards to which we’ve become accustomed.
Out back, there’s a pavestone-surrounded swimming pool with separate spa.
What exactly is up with Los Angeles’s richest people? While many of us mere financial mortals moo and moan about China’s super-scary property bubble, the uber-elite are spending like, well, there’s no tomorrow. Don’t believe Yolanda? Take a look at three of SoCal’s wealthiest billionaires and their recent real estate acquisitions. Even for guys of their voracious real estate appetites, 2016 has been a banner year.
There’s Tom Gores, who’s been much in the news lately for his shocking $100 million acquisition of an impossibly lavish hospital complex-looking 30,000-square-foot mega-mansion in the tony Holmby Hills neighborhood. Not only is that — by far — his biggest splurge ever (and this is a guy who owns so many estates that he’s probably forgotten about most of them) but it brings his total real estate portfolio to a value of more than $250 million. Even for a billionaire, that’s a mind-altering amount of cash in property. (For anyone who’s not named Larry Ellison, that is.)
Then we have tech-mogul-celebrity Elon Musk, LA’s second-richest man. Just a few weeks ago, he plunked down $24,250,000 — also his biggest splurge ever — to buy his fifth Bel Air house. He’s now got more than $70 million in real estate in his little neighborhood pocket.
Finally, there’s Patrick Soon-Shiong, our perennially-richest dude (and part-owner of the Lakers). He’s every bit as big a real estate baller as the other two fellas, though he tends to keep his dealings a bit lower-profile. Nonetheless, Yolanda was able to compile a complete (or nearly-complete) dossier on his holdings for y’all. Just this year, Mr. Soon-Shiong has dumped more than $75 million on three luxury oceanfront properties, all of them located (somewhat unexpectedly) behind the Orange Curtain, in that quaint-yet-also-ballerific coastal town of Laguna Beach. So what are these guys all smokin’? (And where can Yolanda cop some?)
And do these billionaires know something we don’t?
You decide. But for now, let us feast on the entrails of their decimated real estate competition.
A quick recap. In February 2016, Mr. Soon-Shiong and his wife Michele Chan blew the proverbial guillotine doors off the neighbors’ Lambos when they shelled out a staggering — and record-breaking — $45,000,000 for an undeniably spectacular, one-of-a-kind estate known locally as Twin Points.
Dr. Soon-Shiong’s record-breaking $45 million “Twin Points” estate
The house on the property is barely noteworthy — some sort of Balinese confection of just 2,308 square feet — but the land is crazy amazing with two flat “hands” of rocky shoreline jutting several hundred feet out into the Pacific Ocean, with a private cove tucked in between.
And yes, the $45 million sale price is the biggest residential sale ever recorded in Orange County. But depending on how you want to look at it, the doctor may have done got himself a deal. (The never-before-sold spread — owned by the same family for, like, 350 years or so — was originally listed at an outrageous $75,000,000).
Patrick Soon-Shiong’s $14 million Arch Point (or Cactus Point?) quasi-Mediterranean estate
Almost before we’d had time to digest the big news, Dr. Soon-Shiong went out and did it again, albeit on a much smaller and more conventional mini-estate a few miles to the south located on another (much less significant) peninsula known as Cactus Point (or Arch Point, depending on who you’re talking to). The rich Doc paid $14,250,000 for the mansion up on the tip this June.
Well, he’s done it yet again. In late August (2016) a 4-bed, 4.5-bath oceanfront house right next door to Dr. Soon-Shiong’s Cactus-y crib sold for $16,000,000 to a mysterious LLC. But Yolanda just happen to know that yes, the doctor is in the house and doubling down (tripling down) out there in Laguna.
While Dr. Soon-Shiong’s first Cactus Point house was a rather tedious, dated mock-Med sort of thing, the place next door has a remarkably different, far more contemporary look. Records show the seller of this house was a guy named Ernest Garcia, who acquired the property as a brand-new spec house for $13,500,000 back in 2009, at the height of the last economic recession. Mr. Garcia is the owner of Phoenix, AZ-based DriveTime, which is one of the largest used car dealer and finance networks in the nation.
The house — which weighs in at a generous 5,650 square feet — presents rather unassumingly from the street. All you see is a three-car garage and a low, flat-roofed profile. Inside, however, a sophisticated spiral staircase and a lovely skydome make it clear that some very richie-rich folks live here. Recessed florescent lighting set off the art-filled walls. The house’s glass front door is — rather unconventionally — located on the side of the house and through a locked gate.
Limestone floors cover many of the interior spaces, including the open-concept living room. A fireplace will warm Dr. Soon-Shiong’s mittens on a chilly beach night. Walls of glass overlook deep blue sea.
The media room goes beige and sports mismatched furniture. But wait… is that booze?!
Yes! It is! The wet bar is a curved situation with four comfy-looking chairs. Perfect if you’re like Yolanda and enjoy imbibing a dirty gin martini every, oh, 10 minutes or so. Shhh.
An “exotic wood” wine cabinet is a decadent touch, for sure. The kitchen is professional-grade with all high-end appliances (including a supersized range). An intricate tile backsplash gives a waterfall-like effect.
The master suite comes equipped with steel-grey carpeting in the bathroom and a skylit bathroom with single sit-down vanity station and soaking tub. But who’d want to sit in a tub indoors when you can soak up the sun in style via the master suite balcony, right?
See that beige house up to the left, partially hidden by hedges? That’s one of the Doc’s other Laguna Beach homes. But the star of the show is undoubtedly the wide, sandy beach and the gorgeous views over “Wood’s Cove“.
Other luxe features of the sumptuous property — per the listing — include electronic shades, a Creston system, and “controlled entry”, whatever that means.
Only time will tell if three is the charm for the richie-rich Doc in the OC. Or does he plan to acquire more land in the high-priced neighborhood? Well, we don’t know. He isn’t returning our phone calls, that little poopy. But if Yolanda were a bettin’ gal, we’d place all our chips on the “Absolutely yes, no question about it” slot or market or whatever. The Doc has too much money and a too-insatiable appetite to slow down now. Yolanda approves. You don’t only live twice. We only get one round, one shot!
Well, unless you’re Cher.
There’s always more…
In addition to his $75 million worth of Laguna Beach real estate, the Doctor also owns three oeanfront properties in Malibu — one on Broad Beach and two in the Encinal Bluffs neighborhood — that cost him a total of $44,750,000. His main residence, however, is a 5+ acre compound in a not-particularly-glamorous area of Brentwood. The massive complex is comprised of at least six structures and anchored by a 20,000+ square foot main residence. The 13+ parcel spread has cost Dr. Soon-Shiong more than $50 million — so far. For more on that insanity, toot your booty on over to Yolanda’s previous recap.
Listing agent: John Stanaland, HOM Sotheby’s International Realty Mr. Soon-Shiong’s agent: Sandra Miller, Engel & Völkers Santa Monica
As is a frequent occurrence, our real estate-giddy Romanian friend Vlad the Revealer at Celebrity Address Aerial recentlycontacted Yolanda and demanded to know the new owner of an expensive Los Angeles house. He was frothin’ at the mouth, we swear. The particular property he was all hot ‘n’ bothered over is located just off Sunset Boulevard in a very horse-stocked (and celeb-stocked) pocket of Brentwood known as Sullivan Canyon, which is squeezed in between also-horsey Mandeville Canyon and the much more high-nosed Riviera area of Pacific Palisades.
Records show the home — an upgraded and very polished yet rather unassuming ranch-style confection — was sold in June (2016) for hefty $6,945,000 to a secretive entity calling itself the “Thunder River Trust”.
With a little coaxing, a wee bit of poking, a dash of prodding and a significant amount of slappin’, Yolanda was able to to ferret out the truth: the house was acquired by a very rich producer guy named Lorenzo di Bonaventura and his wife Kimberly.
Mr. & Mrs. di Bonaventura
Mr. di Bonaventura is a bigshot Hollywood producer who has produced a bumper crop of blockbusters. These include Constantine, Salt, and the G.I. Joe film series. He was also once the president of worldwide production at Warner Bros, where he shepherded The Matrix trilogy to its eventual release and handled the purchase or rights to the unfathomably-lucrative Harry Potter film adaptations. Nowadays, he runs his Di Bonaventura Pictures, which operates from within the Paramount studio umbrella.
All the above most assuredly would make Mr. di Bonaventura set for life. But wait — that’s not all!
Our Mr. Lorenzo is probably best-known for producing the oft-critically-maligned yet stupendously successful Transformers film franchise. The Michael Bay-directed flicks have combined grossed more than $3.7 billion worldwide. And holy crap, there’s yet another one coming out next year! Guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Long as these tedious flicks keep grossing 10 figures worldwide, they’ll keep making ’em.
Anyway, all that means is that Mr. di Bonaventura is not just set for life — he’s ludicrously rich. Easily rich enough to afford a $7 million house. Probably several $7 million houses, if he so desired. Let’s take a look at his rather unpretentious choice.
Although it’s only a few hundred feet from Sunset Boulevard, the estate feels like something outta Kentucky or even a Thomas Kinkade painting (heavens above!). The property is completely shielded form the sidewalk-free street by a thick, towering hedge. A rustic wooden gate leads to a stone walkway and an immaculately-manicured front yard with an emerald green carpet of grass.
And check out those mature sycamore trees. Well, we think they’re sycamores. Yolanda’s not an arborist so don’t quote us on that.
The mini-estate clocks in at a generous 1.28 mostly-flat acres. Listing information does not call out the 1948 single-story rancher’ s square footage, but tax information puts it at 3,483. Yolanda is unsure, however, if that number is solely the main house or also includes the guest cottage. What we do know, however, is that quaint compound has a total of 5 bedrooms and 3.75 bathrooms.
The house has been meticulously updated with “European sensibilities”. Wide plank hardwood floors, vaulted ceilings, French doors and skylights give the place a happy-pappy airy feel. The great room/family room/dining room combo has not one but two fireplaces and a corner full of bookshelves — with real books, no less!
And Yolanda covets the candy apple red, which matches her candy apple new Caddy.
The master suite is unexpectedly lavish with its own full living room (with more bookshelves and cute crannies) and a bonfire-sized fireplace. And there’s a four-post bed! Usually Yolanda recommends against bedposts because they can get campy just so easily, but this rather demure (mahogany?) one adds a touch of bygone era class. Dontcha think? Same thing with the chandelier-ed and grandfather-clocked master bathroom.
The other three main house bedroom suites — while smaller — are certainly no less detailed. Yolanda’s always been a sucker for a good window seat.
A perfectly lovely vine-shaded pergola out back leads to the dark-bottomed swimming pool with weeping willows and other lush vegetation artfully spilling into the water. It’s all very gorgeous-Disney-pixie-fairytale-land, but the seller’s pool man (and his gardeners, for that matter) must have loved him, right? Jeez.
Per the listing, the grounds also include a “wonderful” two-story guest house. The 1,300+ square foot structure sports a living room, bedroom with ensuite bathroom, and a subterranean level furnished in a rather bleak and very staged-looking manner.
Y’all know what they say about best things saved last or those who wait get good things, of course. So our favorite feature of the charming property is this one right here. Directly across the street from the house are two stabled with fenced-in trot lots for horses! Awww.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura goes all out for Halloween (at his other Brentwood house)
As for our Mr. di Bonaventura, he won’t have far to schlep his belongings. Since June of 1998, when he bought it for $3,400,000, the big-bucks movie guy has owned a much-larger 6,209-square-foot Mediterranean-style sprawler on a tony Brentwood street just a couple miles to the east of his new house. For what it’s worth, Yolanda thinks his new place is much, much cooler than his current home and an excellent downsize.
Not that someone as rich as Mr. di Bonaventura would ever need to downsize, of course, but we like the spirit of it.
Listing agent: Hugh Evans, Partners Trust Brentwood Lorenzo di Bonaventura’s agent: David Offer, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices
A fellow property gossip (a handsome young man from the north!) contacted Yolanda outta the great blue yonder last week. The dashing young fella — we’ll call him NoMo Snow — generously tipped us off about a rather straight-laced residence in the traffic-jammed Westwood area of Los Angeles. Mr. Snow snitched that the house recently was acquired by a man named Ben Winston. And sure enough, property records plainly reveal the conservatively-styled casa was snapped up by Mr. Winston and his wife Meredith for $3,500,000 this September (2016).
He may not be a household name in the vein of Brad Pitt or Steven Spielberg or, say, Harry Styles, but director/producer and Brit export Mr. Winston is a very big deal behind the scenes for some of the world’s biggest celebrities. He produced Justin Bieber’s imiginatively-named concert video/documentary This Is Justin Bieber and and he is the co-executive producer of Brit sensation James Corden’s Late Late Show. You know, that Carpool Karaoke fool. The 35-year-old Mr. Winston is, however, perhaps best-known for his close friendship with those One Direction boys. He produced their This Is Us and A Year In The Makingspecials and directed several of their music videos. Yolanda hasn’t a clue about what Mr. Winston’s net worth is, of course, but it must be pretty damn high after all that.
Incidentally, some sites say James Corden is Mr. Winston’s BFF. Others say it’s Harry Styles. We haven’t the faintest idea which is correct of course, but we’re sure many fans of both stars are just dying to fill us in with the trufax. You can’t have two besties, right? So spill that tea!
This house is — as far as we can tell — Mr. & Mrs. Winston’s first house in LA. But then again, Mrs. Winston was seen dining out in Malibu with Harry Styles a few months ago so perhaps they were previously renting a house? Hmm.)
But anywho, Mr. Winston’s new house carries a Brentwood zip code, but the property is actually located just about 200 yards east of the eternal parking lot known as the 405 freeway. That means the structure is actually situated within the Westwood neighborhood. Technically speaking.
For those of y’all not from Los Angeles (or those of you from Los Angeles in dire need of a geography lesson), Westwood is located east of Brentwood and directly south and across Sunset Boulevard from Bel Air. The area includes the Wilshire Corridor luxury condo area and is anchored by the massive 419-acre complex known as UCLA. For any of you young’uns applying to college, Yolanda recommends you skip that school. There are better ones in the area. Hey, Yolanda’s just sayin’.
The three-level Colonial-cum-Traditional thing was built “circa 1940” and squats on a .43-acre lot. There are 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in a big-but-certainly-not-massive 4,610 square feet of living space.
Decorative shrubs set off the front door and brick porch. Polished hardwood floors keep it classy inside.
A black marble fireplace steals the living room’s show. A set of French doors lead to the lush backyard, which we’ll visit shortly. Yolanda quite likes the semi-psychadelic pattern rug, though we’re off our meds today. Could be just a fleeting weekend fancy.
A carpet runner lines the stairs, which keep it traditional with white risers. A teepee attempts (and fails miserably) to keep it inconspicuous in the family room. What’s that for? Maybe to store Louis Tomlinson’s fake baby when not in use? We tease!
Yolanda’s favorite room is, of course, the alcohol room. Or the “bar room”, as the listing more prudishly terms it. We love the intricate wood floors and the vaulted beamed ceiling. All that’s missing are some moose heads. BTW… all those mirrors may not be bringing the correct chi to your Feng Shui.
The home’s kitchen was completely renovated circa 2014 and features marble floors, onyx backsplashes, and high-end appliances (Viking, Sub-Zero). Check out Custer’s last stand on the kiddie table.
The master suite, while admittedly a bit less spacious (and indulgent) than those in newer mansions, covers all the bases with a comfortable bedroom, bathroom with dual vanities and built-in soaking tub, and a walk-in closet that leads to a large patio overlooking the backyard.
Four more guest/family bedrooms are packed into the home, three of them with en-suite bathrooms. There’s even a Union Jack throw rug! Wonder if that sealed the deal for Mr. & Mrs. Winston?
The gracious formal dining room is probably the star of the show, if Yolanda’s being honest. It’s got chairs with teal seatbacks, interesting wallpaper, and clubby wood ceiling beams. And what a lovely view of the garden.
In addition to the freeform dark-bottomed swimming pool, there’s several brick terraces, gardens, and a through-the-treetops view of The Getty. Pretty nice, right? Just remember that this house is very, very close to the 405 and Sepulveda Boulevard. That means Mr. & Mrs. Winston will be dealing with (hopefully faint) permanent background noise at home, despite the sound barrier of the privacy shrubs.
Sadly (?) for Mr. & Mrs. Winston, there aren’t a whole ton of celebrities in Westwood. The closest one, as far as we can tell, is Lakers co-owner Jesse Buss and his former escort wife Jordanna Younger. (They recently paid $3,800,000 for a brand-new house basically down the street). But if Mr. Buss & Ms. Younger aren’t up to snuff for the Winstons, we hope they’ll invite Yolanda over for teatime. We’ve got an itch to test the capabilities of that “bar room” in person.
Listing agent: Bernadette Kendall, Wheeler Steffan Sotheby’s International Realty Mr. Winston’s agent: Adrienne Martz, The Agency
Fresh off their unbelievable $100 million Holmby Hills sale to multi-billionaire real estate whore Tom Gores, Dream Projects LA partners Gala Asher and Ed Berman have done something rather unexpected. They’ve paid $22,000,000 for an infamously unsellable white elephant of a mega-mansion deep in the Benedict Canyon area of the Beverly Hills Post Office, way up high in the mountains above LA.
We say “unexpected” because up until now, all their projects have essentially been ground-up new designs. There was a big house over in the “Riviera” neighborhood of Pacific Palisades that they sold for $17,500,000 to a guy named Ashish Arora. Then there was the truly awful spec-disaster that they somehow unloaded for $31,000,000 to billionaire Steven Cohen. And then, of course, that $100 million Tom Gores shopping mall.
This place is absolutely nothing like any of the other homes they’ve built. It ain’t modern, glassy, or dripping in high-tech gizmos and strobe lights. Have these gents lost their minds?!
Whatever the case, we digress. Their latest project — at least Yolanda assumes it is a project — currently clocks in at a gargantuan 22,163 square feet with 7 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms (incontinence alert!). The fat faux-French monster was originally built in 2000, but this gal’s spent most of her 16-year-old life unoccupied. We’re not sure if the place is cursed or not, but previous owners have (for a variety of reasons) never spent much time in this palace.
The house was originally built, so far as Yolanda can tell, by one Jacob Wizman, the former president of worldwide sales for Gucci and an original investor in Coffee Bean who also dabbles — or dabbled — in real estate development/investment. So the story goes, Mr. Wizman modeled the place after Le Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s private chateau on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles.
Hahaha. Wait. Is Yolanda the only one who finds that hilarious?! Maybe we just have a whacked-out sense of humor.
Anywho, Mr. Wizman sold the almost-brand-new castle in 2002 for $11,000,000 to Alex Yemendjian, a bigshot Las Vegas casino owner. Mr. Yemendjian owned the place for less than two years before he flipped it for $14,000,000 to a shady guy named Curtis Somoza. Yolanda thinks Mr. Somoza — if he had his way — might still be living in the house today. But it was not to be, as pesky life and the law got in the way. Mr. Somoza, you see, is currently sitting in prison on a 25-year term after his $64 million ponzi scheme went belly-up.
At the time he got busted, Mr. Somoza was currently engaged in a full-scale remodel of the estate. After he got stuck in the pokey, the unfinished shell was sold by Mr. Somoza’s bankruptcy trustees in January 2007 for $16,750,000 to Jeoung Lee, a Korean woman whose money comes from nursing homes. Mrs. Lee completed the remodel and then, to everyone’s flabbergast, flipped the long-vacant property back onto the market. The asking price? A sanity defying $49,000,000.
Well, kiddies, it took 8 years, a whole bunch of real estate agent changes, and countless price cuts. At one point Yolanda really thought this real estate market poison would never, ever sell. But it gosh-darn happened. Mr. Asher & Mr. Berman swooped in to save the day. Of course, it ain’t all cheeky smiles and red roses. The final sale price of $22 million is way less than half of what Mrs Jeoung originally wanted. And Yolanda wonders if she even made any profit off this hot mess? Don’t forget, she sunk a ton of money into the renovations. Tsk, tsk.
The “Hutton House Estate” (the street below the 5.2-acre spread is called Hutton) sits at the tail end of a small, little-known gated community called Wallingford Estates. Wallingford, for y’all who might not know, is so far up in Benedict Canyon that it’s practically right up on Mulholland Drive. And the other houses within the community are hardly mansions — most of them are ho-hum ’80s track homes. (But yes, Adam Levine does own a house up in there that he just can’t seem to sell).
As previously mentioned, the mansion packs in 22,163-square-feet of grand (and grandiose) interior space. There are 7 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms. There’s a whole bunch of wood, marble, and curtains. Lots of curtains. This puppy’s got enough curtains to cover Kim Kardashian’s blimp-sized badonkadonk.
And check out that front gate, which is perhaps the tallest front gate Yolanda has ever laid our sexy eyes on.
Yolanda has no inside intel about what Mr. Asher and Mr. Berman plan to do with their big new B.H.P.O. behemoth, but it’s worth noting that the most recent listing included renderings that show the house with a new driveway and a new entry reflecting pool. Oh, and there’s also a new guest house that does a “mini-me” impression of the porky main house. Yolanda can’t fathom why anyone would need a guest house when they already have 22,000+ square feet of mansion to play with, but such are the whims of billionaires. Maybe Mr. Asher & Mr. Berman will do these (relatively) cheap renovations and get lucky and find a Chinese or Arab billionaire to take it off their hands.
Sorry, everyone. We wish we could tell y’all what the deal is with this purchase, but Ginger Glass (Mr. Asher’s wife and realtor) has stopped returning Yolanda’s calls. We can’t fathom why! Jeez. All we said is that we’d appreciate some dirt right quick on this acquisition. We even said sorry for calling that Tom Gores hot mess fugly! We did. Throw your gurl a bone, Ms. Glass.
Think of this story as Yolanda’s attempt to provide an appetizing diversion from your current politically-themed meltdown (or celebration). We’re going to keep this semi-fun and relatively light and (mostly) free of politics talk. Okie dokie? Alrighty then.
While homes in certain tony LA neighborhoods (Trousdale Estates, Holmby Hills, Pacific Palisades) have been selling like proverbial hotcakes, the historically old-money and Republican bastion of Bel Air has kept things a wee bit muted this year. Other than one $35 million sale, we’ve seen very little big real estate action in the neighborhood. No clash of cymbals here.
But things change. Don’t they?
Well, this here story ain’t about another $100 million transfer. But a couple weeks ago, a rather unfortunate-looking mega-mansion that had been originally listed at $35,000,000… sold.
The house first became (publicly) available nearly two years ago. At some point, the price tumbled to $29,500,000 and it was also listed as a luxury rental with a scary $75k/month pricetag. The 1.2-acre property is tucked into a hairpin curve on Bellagio Road and — for better or worse — happens to be directly across the street from the entrance to the impossibly hoity-toity (and somewhat stuffy) Bel Air Country Club, where the initiation fee runs $150,000 and members include Jack Nicholson, Leslie Moonves, and Clint Eastwood.
The $27 million mega-mansion… with the Country Club blacktop as a backdrop
But we digress. The actual sale price, property records reveal, was $27,600,000 — quite a bit lower than the too-optimistic original ask. But to be honest, that’s still way more bucks than your gurl thought this turkey would garner. We congratulate the seller on his success here, although the persnickety Yolanda takes a few issues with his house.
You see, kiddies, it’s yet another case of once upon a time. Once upon a time, this was a very nice, classy, happy, chipper, 1936 Paul Williams-built mansion. But alas, no longer. The seller — a very rich but semi-reclusive attorney-turned-real-estate maverick (trailer park landlord) named Jeffrey A. Kaplan — renovated and expanded the entire house over his 15++ year ownership.
Now, there’s no doubt that it’s a very luxurious house. And we’re sure it has all the gizmos and doo-dads folks with Trump- or Clinton-esque money would want. But those peeps at Curbed once described this house as a “bastardized Paul Williams” and “just another mega-mansion”. And Yolanda is afraid we must echo those sentiments.
There are certain spaces we like — the living room, the dining room, and at least one of the bedrooms appear to be original to the property — but most everything else here appears entirely devoid of style. This is a house that is big for the sake of being, well, big. Today the swollen marine mammal weighs in at a warehouse-sized 20,866-square-feet with 11 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms. Two gourmet kitchens. Two dining rooms. A master bedroom suite with two sitting rooms and two bathrooms. A theater, a gym, a wine cellar, a beauty salon. A giftwrapping room. A flower-arranging room (although the listing photos appear nearly devoid of flowers). And a seven-car garage plus two separate motorcourts. And then the ubiquitous pool and tennis courts, natch. On and on it goes.
Surprisingly, very few photos of the home’s exterior were included in the listing. That aerial shot above kinda proves why, don’t it? The place is a rambling, rather disjointed mess that looks a bit like several architects added on to it at different points in time. Which they did, of course.
Anywho, Yolanda happens to know that the heavyset estate’s new owners are a guy named Todd Lemkin and his wife Kasey Sample Lemkin. Our Mr. Lemkin is a Partner at Canyon Capital, one of LA’s largest hedge funds. Meanwhile, Mrs. Sample Lamkin toils as the co-founder of a cute jewelry line.
The Lemkins currently make their home in the tony and family-friendly neighborhood of Brentwood Park, on the very same street where OJ gunned down his ex-wife, once upon a time. Yikes-arooney! And as it turns out, the Brentwood house in question recently popped up onto the market with a heavy-duty $17,500,000 asking price. Their “starter” mansion has a mere 12,003 square feet of living space with 7 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms.
Rather ambiguously described in marketing materials as a “magnificent estate”, the .66-acre spread’s main structure looks to Yolanda like a rather clumsy attempt at a modern Traditional. And it’s remarkably similar to the Bel Air house they just purchased, no? All the light wood, cavernous rooms and disjointed architecture. Not that it ain’t a very swanky pad, of course.
Mr. & Mrs. Lemkin purchased the house from mega-talent agent Michael (Mike) Ovitz back in 2010 for $8,500,000. Which means, of course, that they believe the thing is now worth more than double what it was six years ago. Hmmm. Ballsy!
Like many uber-wealthy Angelenos, the Lemkins also owned a vacation home out in Malibu, for which they paid $11,562,500 back in August 2013. However, they did not stay very long. The couple flipped the house this June (2016) for $13,085,000 to Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill, a guy who is quite the real estate baller himself. But that’s a story for another day.
The Malibu Road spread — which sits just a quick skip away from ol’ Camille Grammer’s new house — was designed by Scott Gillen of Unvarnished. He has bought, slicked-up, and very successfully flipped homes in the ‘bu from La Costa to Broad Beach.
Now as for Mr. Kaplan, the seller of the Bel Air estate, you might think that a 70+ year old guy like him is ready to downsize, right? 20,000+ square feet is a lot to handle. Not everyone wants to walk a quarter-mile from the master bedroom to the kitchen.
But nope. Just like Trump, Mr. Kaplan is gearing up for bigger digs. And while Trump may have won the election, Mr. Kaplan crushed the square footage game. Check out his new digs! (The satellite photo below is outdated. This shopping mall is now finished.)
“Moo.”
Mr. Kaplan has already moved to a monolithic mega-mega-mansion that is also located in ultra-prime lower Bel Air, just a quarter-mile from his old digs. The French-themed wildebeest “Chateau des Fleurs” reportedly weighs in at somewhere around 60,000 square feet, if the underground parking garage is taken into consideration. That means, kiddies, it is quite possibly bigger than both the White House (55,000 square feet) and The Manor over in Holmby Hills (56,500 square feet). We’re not certain, of course, but Yolanda suspects this might even be the biggest house in Los Angeles. Mr. Kaplan is obviously quite the real estate size queen.
As far as we can tell, the Kaplans (Jeffrey and his second wife, Tracy) bought the 3.12-acre, two parcel Bel Air spread for about $13,500,000 and spent nearly a decade constructing the oinker. Architect William Hefner is responsible for the design. For more information on the property, go here.
Records reveal Mr. Kaplan also lays claim to a modest 4,000-square-foot structure elsewhere in lower Bel Air. We’re not sure who lives here, but the house happens to be on one of the busiest and noisiest corners of the neighborhood.
Mr. Kaplan’s other Bel Air house… with a new Ferrari and Rolls Royce in the carport
Yolanda is not entirely sure why Mr. Kaplan needs a 60,000 square foot mega-mega-mansion in Bel Air and a 4,000 square foot “guest house” in the same neighborhood, but we figure this place must be for some sort of familial relative as opposed to staff housing. Yolanda spies a new Rolls-Royce Ghost and a new Ferrari California sitting in the carport. Both of those swanky rides are in the $300,000 range with options, and somehow we doubt the hired help would be cruising around town in one of those. But you never know.
Despite their limitless moolah and the colossal crib, the Kaplans remain somewhat of a mystery. We’ve never met them and they’re not part of LA’s richie-rich chi-chi social scene. They don’t slap their names on buildings or write big checks to pet causes. They don’t pour millions into politics. Or if they do any of those things, Yolanda ain’t know about it. Still, the fact that Mr. Kaplan built his fortune by owning trailer parks and lives in one of the world’s largest houses seals his fate as a legend in Yolanda’s mind.
Speaking of legends, Mr. Kaplan’s first wife was a lady named Donna Kaplan. Our Ms. Kaplan — who has long been divorced from Mr. Kaplan yet still retains his surname — currently owns and resides in a Brentwood house best-known as the house wherein Marilyn Monroe met her maker.
Marilyn Monroe’s final home… now owned by Donna Kaplan
Back in November 2012, Ms. Kaplan forked out a fat $5,100,000 for the 2,097 square foot Brentwood hacienda in a quiet off-market deal.
No shade, y’all, but Yolanda would honestly rather live in Donna Kaplan’s petite pad than in her ex-hubby’s bloated bovine. Like we always say, more ain’t always better than less. And sometimes the bigger figure doesn’t win the race. Just get what you need and the excess is irrelevant. Ain’t that the truth?
Now listen up, y’all. Yolanda will be out of town both this weekend and the next, so if you don’t see many new posts from us, that’s the reason. We’ll be back to our regular schedule very soon, so do not despair.
Speaking of despair! Seems like there’s a itsy bitsy lull in high-end LA real estate activity at this moment, so we thought we’d deviate from our normal transaction discussion routine and focus on a real estate-related current event instead. You know what we’re talking about, right?
The election. Duh.
Now, as you are aware (we hope), the United States has chosen its next president. Yolanda, for her part, chooses to stay neutral on the touchy subject of politics for the purposes of this silly blog. But many of our favorite celebrities did not follow our beautiful lead. Oh no. Lots of them very vocally opposed President-elect Trump’s (potential) presidency, which is absolutely their constitutional right. But some, we fear, may have taken it a bit too far. To the point where their whole damn leg — not just their foot — wound up lodged firmly in their big mouths.
At some point prior to November 8th, no fewer than 16 celebrities (and perhaps more) threatened to leave the USA should Trump be elected.
Now that he has won, we figure these celebs have a civic duty to follow through with their plans. Therefore, y’all should expect some super-prime real estate to very soon become available for sale. Moving out means moving out, after all. Surely celebrities never lie, right? In the meantime, Yolanda will take a tear-jerking look at the homes these folks will be selling. Here’s the list. RIP to their American life. We have Kleenex if you need it.
Note: in the interest of our vacation time (and because Yolanda is one lazy old hag), we’re just going to look at the real estate of six of the soon-to-be-bygone celebrities in question instead of the full sixteen. Don’t like it? Tough. Make your own damn blog!
1. Barbra Streisand:
Ms. Streisand — who is also known (informally) as Ms. Malibu for her longtime association with the seaside locale — currently resides on an epic blufftop compound on Zumirez Drive in the celebrity-heavy Point Dume area of town. The property is resort-like and the location is undeniably gorgeous. But apparently she’d give it all up for Trump.
“I’m either coming to your country [Australia], if you’ll let me in, or Canada,” is what the lady said.
Will she follow through with her promise?! What a stupid question! This is our Babs, after all. She only speaks the truth. Post-election, she opined “Words cannot express how I feel right now.”
You know what that means! She’s ready. Ol’ Babs is unspeakably ecstatic about her new life as a Canadian or Australian. Or perhaps she’s just speechless about the amount of money she’ll rake in for this ultra-ultra-prime, big-ass complex! And it’s a lot.
Ms. Streisand’s three-house Point Dume compound
The four structures encompass more than 18,000 square feet of living space at the end of a cul-de-sac. There are two outdoor pools and lots of lush vegetation on 3 acres of land. Yolanda will hazard a guess that the approximate value of this spread is about $50 million. Perhaps even $60 million. So yeah, it’s a big chunk of change. As Donny would say, it’s “HUUUUGE” or “YUUUUGE”.
As you may recall, Ms. Streisand once sued a California Coastal Records Project photographer for posting an aerial photograph of her Malibu estate online. Her bungling attorneys bullied the man in a hilariously unsuccessful attempt to have the photo deleted. Ironically, as news of the incident spread, the picture — viewed just six times prior to a cease-and-desist letter being sent — went viral and has since been viewed hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of times. Today, the phenomenon of how attempting to conceal something actually draws attention to it is known as the “Streisand effect” after her.
We digress.
2. Miley Cyrus:
Oh, Miley. The poor dear broke all our hearts the other day when she posted a video where she tearfully babbled about something indecipherable. At least to Yolanda’s ears. Seriously, are we the only ones who thought her video sounded like pure, unfiltered gibberish? Y’all millennials talk with marbles in your mouths. Enunciate! That’s all we old folks ask.
Anyway, Miley’s video was very uncomfortable to watch. It was so graphic! One minute there she was — teeth gnashing, eyes bulging and twisting, limbs jittering and jumping, ears twitching furiously — and then the next there was a loud bang and a purple rain of body parts and all that was left was a supersized, bacteria-laced tongue. It was tragic. It is tragic. It will forever be tragic. So how did this all happen?
Le sigh.
Anywho, before the election Miss Cyrus was already feelin’ bad, y’all. She said “My heart is broken into a 1000 pieces…I am moving if this is my president! I don’t say things I don’t mean!”
But frankly, kiddies, we wonder if Miss Cyrus might be an undercover Trumpster agent. We can only imagine how many thousands of voters pledged support for the Orange Man in order to get this chick out of our hair. Even Yolanda nearly voted for him over this! Seriously, does anyone on either side — Democrat or Republican — want her?
Oh, Miley. You are oppressed so. But the good thing for Miss Cyrus is that she has the money to move wherever she’s wanted. Like Pluto or maybe an asteroid field somewhere.
Miss Cyrus, as far as Yolanda knows, currently owns three multi-million dollar houses. There’s a low-slung mid-century in Studio City that she bought in June 2011 for $3,900,000. Then there’s her ranch out in the guard-gated and Kardashian-infested Hidden Hills community, purchased in April 2015 for exactly $5,000,000. And finally, she’s got a house in a Malibu gated community for which she paid $2,525,000 just this January (2016).
How much are her holdings worth today? Well, the Malibu and Hidden Hills houses were purchased so recently that we doubt Miss Cyrus would be able to turn a significant profit on either one. The only potential upside is if she were get her betrothed Liam Hemsworth to acquire the Malibu place (it’s right next door to a much-larger estate that he himself purchased). But is he moving with her? Ugh. This is soooo complicated!
The Studio City house, however, has likely appreciated in the five years since she it was acquired. Yolanda believes she could get as much as $5 million for the property today. So we figure her entire portfolio is worth $12-$13 million. Nothing tearjerkin’ about that.
3. Amy Schumer:
The controversial comedian/actress also joined in the fun. She said “I will need to learn to speak Spanish because I will move to Spain or somewhere… It’s beyond my comprehension if Trump won. It’s too crazy,”
Why not learn Spanish for moving to Mexico, Miss Schumer? But we digress. She’s not really moving, sike!! It was all a big lie. Or just a joke, as Miss Schumer would like you to believe.
“First of all the interview where I said I would move was in London and was said in jest,” Miss Schumer wrote. “Not that anyone needs more than a headline to count something as official news. Anyone saying pack your bags is just as disgusting as anyone who voted for this racist homophobic openly disrespectful woman abuser.”
Wait a moment, Miss Schumer! First you say Spain, then you say it was London? And now you are calling folks disgusting when they encourage you to fulfill your promise? Come on now, baby. We hate homophobia and women abusers just as much as you, but don’t play Yolanda like that. Put on your big gurl panties and toot that boot right on out.
Miss Schumer must’ve been confident in Hillary because it was only a month or two ago that she plunked down a very A-list $12,147,000 to buy a 4,500-square-foot penthouse on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Unfortunately, she may take a loss on this place. Manhattan apartments generally don’t appreciate very quickly, especially not now when the market over there has been a tad saggy. Don’t worry, Miss Schumer is rich and talented. We’re sure she’ll be able to make do, wherever she goes. Just don’t renege on that promise. We got faith in you, Miss Schumer.
4. Cher:
The Queen of the Undead aka The Ageless Wonder aka Cher is one of Yolanda’s favorite celebrity subjects ever. She’s just so unique, so legendary. The O.G. diva. And predictably, she had the most entertaining I’m-leaving-America statement of them all.
“IF HE WERE TO BE ELECTED, IM MOVING TO JUPITER >:|“, opined Ms. Cher, who apparently has not yet mastered the fine art of operating her caps lock key.
Although Cher has yet to comment on the status of her interplanetary moving process, rumor has it that she just plunked down $20 million — through a mysterious corporate entity called “Big Ass Bewigged Frontier Explorations LLC” — on a gas-view compound in the coveted Great Red Spot neighborhood. But that’s neither here nor there, is it?
Back on Earth, her custom-designed Gothic-meets-Italian Renaissance Malibu blufftop house measures more than 13,000 square feet with 6 beds and 7 bathrooms on a 1.72 acre lot. There is a huge infinity pool and a full-size tennis court sitting right on top of an underground parking lot. And there must be a temperature-controlled wig storage facility on the premises, right?
No shit, kiddies, but we have heard many times over the years that Cher turned down not one but two $45 million offers for this house. So whenever she gets serious about selling, it’s a virtual guarantee there will be demand. Perhaps George Soros will throw her a bone and fork over $50 million for the spread.
Although she may be leaving off into the big red-orange yonder, we will always love Cher and we wish her well in her solar system exploits.
5. Chelsea Handler:
Another comedian who is leaving us. Or not! Here’s the whole story from Ms. Handler’s lips:
Before the election: “I did buy a house in another country just in case, so all of these people that threaten to leave the country and then don’t, I will leave the country,”
After the election: “Yesterday, my staff reminded me that platforms and voices like mine are needed more than ever; leaving the country is quitting.”
First of all, you did?! Yolanda doesn’t know where Ms. Handler’s foreign-country house is, but we congratulate her on being the most likely celeb to follow through with her action plan. She actually went out somewhere and shopped around. And she even bought the house! Secondly, facepalm. Way to ruin that momentum! You’re not leaving because we need you? Yolanda can manage this country just fine, thank you very much.
Yep. Turns out Ms. Handler is actually one of those folks she swore she was not. Homegurl flip-flopped way faster than Trump’s own opinion of the electoral college. Couldn’t resist the allure of her Bel Air home.
The contemporary crib, which sits fairly close to Elon Musk’s five-house complex, rests on a knoll and up a long gated driveway. There are 3 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms plus maids quarters and a gym. More info can be found on the old listing.
Ms. Handler paid just under $6,000,000 for the property back in 2010. Yolanda happens to know that she has done some remodeled the property, and it is entirely possible that she could sell it for significantly more than what she paid. $8 million or so? Perhaps. We really dunno about this one.
6. Samuel L. Jackson:
Mr. Jackson — a prolific and award-winning film actor, in case you didn’t know — publicly appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live last December and generously offered to “move his black ass to South Africa” if Trump won. But alas, even the best-laid plans go awry. Turns out it was just a skit, y’all! In Mr. Jackson’s own words, “When you learn the difference between My Actual Opinion & A Kimmel Skit… Maybe we can talk. Till then, I’m Barbed Wire Up Your Asses!!”
Ouch! That sounds mighty painful. We do pray Mr. Jackson might reconsider on that last point.
But really, there’s no reason to get so upset. We think Mr. Jackson’s Beverly Park tennis court estate — which has 6 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms in a hefty 11,738 square feet of living space and is situated very privately down a long driveway — might be worth as much as $20 million today. He could afford just about any South African mansion with that. And Yolanda has previously visited South Africa, so we know there are some beautiful homes down there.
No need for barbed wire, Mr. Jackson.
One last note. These changing times might be stressful, but our mission is to discuss real estate and poke a little fun at everyone and everything. Don’t get mad — get glad. We can ride it out together. And to all celebrities — shut your big trap next time. Except when it comes to being drama queens and moving out of the country. That is excellent real estate story fodder for Yolanda, after all.
Color Yolanda shocked in regards to this next story. Thanks to our real estate insider pal Don Won/Wan/Juan, we have learned that a somewhat notorious vacant lot located up on what is probably the best cul-de-sac in trendy Trousdale Estates has sold in an off-market deal for a fat figure.
Before we digress any further, a bit of background information.
The $22 million patch of dirt
Back in 2007, there was an old and rather unattractive mid-century residence on the property. The house was sold that year for $7,470,000 to British entrepreneur Peter Jones. After a long slog, Mr. Jones dumped the house in March 2013 for $12,500,000 to New York-based hedge fund couple Ed & Victoria Parisi. The Parisis quickly razed the house and flipped the vacant lot for $15,000,000 to a shady character named Khadem Al Qubaisi, an Emirati man with close ties to the 1MDB multi-billion dollar worldwide corruption scandal that has ensnared everyone from the Prime Minister of Malaysia to Oscar-winner Leo DiCaprio.
Mr. Qubaisi
Mr. Qubaisi is not a very nice man. Well, we don’t know him, but that’s what we infer from everything we’ve heard and read. It is widely believed that he purchased this lot with stolen cash from Malaysia. In August (2016), a cloud was placed on the property’s title, as the Department of Justice attempted to seize it. In her prior report, Yolanda assumed that the property would be seized and tied up in the courts for years.
But not so fast.
Apparently a certain someone pulled some satin strings or something. Just days after filing the Lis Pendens against the property, it was quietly withdrawn by the United States government.
What that means is that the property title was cleared, giving Mr. Qubaisi free reign to sell the land — if he chose to do so. And he did choose to do so just two months later, for a hefty $22,400,000.
Wait a minute! Did this fraudster really receive $22.4 million into his bank account?! It sure looks that way, although it’s worth noting that Mr. Qubaisi was recently arrested and may be currently locked up in a U.A.E. clink. So he may not be enjoying the money at the moment. Still, the claim release seems odd to us.
What’s even more intriguing is that Mr. Qubaisi also owns a $31 million mansion in Beverly Hills that also had a Lis Pendens placed against it. As far as Yolanda can tell, the title to that property has not been cleared. See what we mean? It’s all very strange.
Although we do not really expect to receive a response, Yolanda has emailed the DoJ and requested information regarding why the claim against this property was dropped in less than two weeks. This deserves an explanation, thankyouverymuch.
For now, let’s move on. Property records reveal the new owner is a local private equity guru named Alex Soltani, a former Tom Gores associate and the founder of Skyview Capital. He’s not on the Forbes billionaires list, folks, but Yolanda rather suspects he may be a bonafide billionaire, just judging by the elephantine amounts of cash he throws around.
Mr. Soltani
It was only last year, you may recall, that the Rolls Royce-driving Mr. Soltani threw down a staggering $32,000,000 for Dr. Dre’s viewgasmic spread in the sexy “Bird Streets” neighborhood of the Hollywood Hills. Astute real estate lovers may recall that (at the time) Mr. Soltani blabbed to the LA Times that he planned to raze the good Doctor’s house and construct a $100 million compound to properly befit his billionaire self. But since Mr. Soltani, his wife Sandra and their kids are currently living in that house, we figure he must’ve changed his mind.
Could Mr. Soltani have decided to build his dream house somewhere else? Like, say, a super-prime lot in the trendy Trousdale Estates neighborhood? Yes! We think he may have done just that.
Although we have no idea is Mr. Soltani is inclined to use them, the sale included plans and renderings for a 24,500-square-foot uber-modern mega-mansion by LA-based architects Shubin + Donaldson and designer Michael Palumbo. The proposed 7 bedroom and 14 bathroom residence sports many cool features: “a 2-lane bowling alley, lounge, nightclub, bar, theater room, salon, gym and wellness center and a 140-foot long vanishing edge pool that runs the entire length of the palatial estate”. Just the necessary stuff, obviously. You’d never need to leave home again!
Oh, and in case you think $22,400,000 is an absolutely obscene price to pay for a 1-acre lot, you are kinda correct. But let Yolanda remind you that this is Trousdale Estates, y’all. Take a look at the neighborhood and the money seems almost rational. Right next door is a soon-to-be-completed spec-mansion being built by spec-mansion master Nile Niami and his architect cohort Paul McLean. Mr. Niami plans to ask $90,000,000 for the house. And no, we didn’t drunkenly add an extra zero to that pricetag.
Two doors down is another spec-mansion that Minecraft billionaire (and Trump supporter) Markus Persson paid a record-breaking $70,000,000 for back in 2014. At the end of the street is a massive mansion that multi-billionaire Clinton pal Gilbert Chagoury is trying to sell for $135,000,000 — as a teardown. Next to that is the old Elvis house that Egyptian tycoon Hamed El Chiaty is selling for $30,000,000 (probably as a teardown). And on the other side of Mr. Soltani’s property is a double-lot for which hedge fund honcho David Kabiller recently paid more than $50,000,000.
Keeping up with the Joneses has never been more stressful than on this cul-de-sac. Yikes.
Speaking of Mr. Kabiller — in an odd coincidence, he and Mr. Soltani are currently next-door neighbors on high-priced Oriole Drive in the Bird Streets.
Bizarrely, as we’ve already told you, they will also be next-door neighbors in Trousdale Estates once their new $100 million compounds are complete (and provided one or both does not decide to flip out).
It’s a small world after all in the ultra-high-end real estate bubble. Even in Los Angeles.
Listing agents: Ben Bacal, Rodeo Realty & Mauricio Umansky, The Agency
When this house first came to market way back in April (2016), Yolanda saw it, liked it, and hoped it would sell to a preservation-minded individual. You know, someone who would caress the ol’ gurl and revive her faded glory. Not one of those house-flipping development firms who would quickly bastardize the place by slapping some recessed LED lighting and bolting some disappearing glass walls into it, ya know?
Although the mansion was originally asking $8,195,000, it didn’t sell until last week and traded hands for a significantly lower $6,500,000. Although property records show the discount buyer only as a spookily-named blind trust, Yolanda happens to know the identity of the new homeowner. And we’ve gotta say that it seems an ideal match.
You see, the new owner is a woman named Katherine von Drachenberg, though she’s better-known as Kat Von D. Our Ms. Von D has a well-known fondness for this sort of architecture. And Yolanda has complete confidence that she will preserve the bones of this place while polishing and updating where necessary. We just hope she doesn’t take it too far and turn the place into the world’s largest Hot Topic store like she did with her other LA house. But let us not get ahead of ourselves!
The inimitable Ms. Von D
Ms. Von D is, of course, the Mexico-born former LA Inkreality show star with the successful Hollywood tattoo parlor and a series of high-profile romances (Jesse James, Nikki Sixx, Deadmau5, Steve-O). She is also a successful entrepreneur and businesswoman.
Didn’t know that Ms. Von D had $6.5 million to drop on a massive, high-maintenance mansion? Yeah, Yolanda didn’t either. But she has been quietly building a bonafide cosmetics empire over the past decade. In 2008, she launched a limited-edition makeup line through Sephora. That line was so successful, apparently, that she’s expanded it every year and it now includes items for every type of cosmetics product (lipsticks, lipglosses, powders, brushes) in existence.
Additionally, Ms. Von D is a vegan. And she recently announced that her makeup line has been converted to cruelty-free (vegan) products, too. So to all you animal-loving lipgloss consumers: Ms. Von D has the product for you. Yolanda doesn’t wear much makeup — not to toot our own horn, but our natural beauty requires little accentuating — but when we need a touch-up for a long night out, we always reach for a tube of Ms. Von D’s Backstage Bambi Studded Kiss Lipstick. The formula is gamechanging.
But we digress. At one point this story was supposed to be about a house, right?
The 12,565-square-foot mansion rests on an oversized .62-acre corner lot. Depending on where you look, there are a total of either 11 or 12 bedrooms and either 8.5 or 9.5 bathrooms spread out in the three-story main house and the two-story carriage/guest house.
By the by, the current property was not the original location of the circa-1890 mansion, which was built by businessman/rancher Isaac Newton Van Nuys. Our Mr. Van Nuys at one point owned the entire southern portion of the San Fernando Valley and it’s he, of course, who is the namesake of today’s Van Nuys.
Frankly, y’all, Yolanda is not entirely certain where the house was originally located, but per the listing it was moved to its current spot in the hoity-toity Hancock Park-adjacent Windsor Square nabe sometime around 1915 by Mr. Van Nuys’ son, J. Benton Van Nuys.
Holy hell! How the heck did they move a 12,000+ square foot, three-story house back then? Yolanda feels sorry for the squad of horses and/or mules who valiantly hauled this beast from whence it came.
Since 1998, the property was owned by British screenwriter Lucy Dahl and her American husband John LaViolette. The pair divorced recently and — supposedly — that’s what drove the erstwhile couple to unload the house to Ms. Von D. Our Ms. Dahl, incidentally, is the daughter of the late, great British children’s author Roald Dahl, whose books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide, and the late American actress Patricia Neal, who won an Oscar for her superb portrayal of housekeeper Alma Brown in 1963’s Hud.
White roses flank the swimming pool. Yolanda loves the turntable in front of the carriage house, although we wonder if that can accomodate Ms. Von D’s rather wideset Bentley.
Ye olde grandeur seems is the obvious theme upon entering the house. Hand-carved inlaid wooden walls, a stone fireplaces and a glamorous wooden staircase harken back to the days of yore, when Yolanda was a mere tot. Even the furniture looks like it stinks with the stench of old money.
The kitchen features no Viking appliances, no center island, and a distinct lack of counter space. And nary a glass-front refrigerator. Gasp!
What it does have are high ceilings, a vintage range, and a whole assortment of pots and pans (and knives!) hanging out in plain sight. While we appreciate that the previous owners did not bastardize the original nature of the room, we’re gonna have to move on. All that crap covering the walls is about to give Yolanda an OCD heart attack.
The dining room screams mogul with its wooden floors, linen-fold paneled walls, intricately-carved ceiling and somewhat goth-looking wooden table. A hand-carved fireplace and leaded glass windows coupled with blood-red drapes reinforce the macabre atmosphere.
The speakeasy-style bar room is pure Hollywood (it even features a secret door to the backyard!). The French ballroom has plenty of space. Perhaps Ms. Von D will set up another tattoo shop in here.
Okay, so the second and third floors make it clear that the property needs some work. The first order of business would be to rip out all that hideous carpet and possibly stain the wood a darker color.
The second floor features 6 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, all of which are slathered in marble. Sorry, y’all, there’s no master suite with a walk-in closet and living room. The bedroom above, with its wood bedroom floors and checkerboard bath tiling, is the one Yolanda would choose as the master. We wouldn’t even change the pale pink walls.
Some of the other bedrooms and bathrooms on the second floor. We’re sure Ms. Von D did not appreciate the bear carcass by the fireplace.
The third floor features a full-size stage with “original footlights”, currently utilized as a game room.
The third floor also features four more bedrooms, at lease one of which was used by the former owners as a gym. That’s a lot of scary-looking equipment! Up here there are also two more bathrooms, these with a no-frills look as compared to those on the second floor.
The maintenance and upkeep on a 126-year-old mega-mansion is no easy (or cheap) task. But Ms. Von D is a very rich lady. Avid real estate watchers may know that this is not her only Los Angeles house.
Back in August 2011, Ms. Von D paid $2,175,000 for a charming 1920s Spanish-style casita in the celebrity-popular “Outpost Estates” area of the Hollywood Hills. She briefly had the property on the market over the summer of 2013, so we got to see her eclectic taste in decor after her goth-style renovation.
Love it or hate it, you must admit it’ll be interesting to see Ms. Von D’s take on her humongous new Victorian manse. And it’s in hoity-toity Windsor Square/Hancock Park, that upright (and uptight!) central neighborhood of LA. That neighborhood doesn’t have the best reputation for welcoming outsiders. What will the neighbors think of some tattooed chick faceliftin’ the ol’gurl?!
Well, when you’re as rich as the entrepreneurial Ms. Von D, you don’t sweat that stuff so much.
Listing agent: Lisa Hutchens, Coldwell Banker Kat Von D’s agent: Jamie Sher, The Sher Group
