It was our BFF (Mama at Variety) who first alerted us to the fact that heading-to-Splitsville Hollywood couple Tobey Maguire and Jennifer Meyer have sold their Santa Monica micro-compound for $3,325,000 — a shocking $330,000 more than the asking price and a hefty $650,000 more than what Mr. & Mrs. Meyer-Maguire paid for the house barely 1.5 years ago. Obviously there were several people — or at least two — who wanted this particular house very badly.
They may not be each other’s soulmates ’til death do them part, but this erstwhile couple can celebrate making some big money together, eh?
Mr. Maguire is an ack-tore, duh. He has starred in many films, including Pleasantville, Seabiscuit, and The Great Gatsby. But he’ll always be Spidey to Yolanda. He’s also a legit card shark who has reportedly won up to $40 million playing Hollywood poker games. As for Ms. Meyer, she’s a jewelry designer and the daughter of uber-rich Hollywood heavyweight Ron Meyer, the current Vice Chairman of NBCUniversal.
Anyway, we digress. Yolanda just happens to know that the winning bidder who now holds the keys to the Santa Monica micro-compound we were previously discussing is a lady named Kathryn M. Ireland. And don’t you dare confuse her with model/business mogul Kathy Ireland. Or forget her “M.” middle initial. Ms. Ireland has been known to slap a beotch for such an indiscretion.
(We joke. Maybe)
Our Ms. Ireland was born and raised entirely in the UK –England and Scotland, to be slightly more specific. Upon her arrival to America in the ’80s, she met and married a film director named Gary Weis. (They are now divorced.) She’s a textile/interior designer with many years of experience and a celebrity clientele. And she sports a large Instagram following.
But Ms. Ireland is probably best-known for starring on the two seasons on the deliciously addictive Million Dollar Decorators show that was broadcast on Bravo for two seasons. Other stars on the show included LA-based designers Jeffrey Alan Marks, Mary McDonald, and Ms. Ireland’s BFF Martyn Lawrence Bullard.
The teensy-weensy compound is located on a pint-sized .18-acre lot in a prime inland area of Santa Monica, just about four blocks south of the Brentwood Country Mart. A drought-friendly yard filled with cacti and various other succulents and mixed with a woodchip ground cover greets guests.
For the owners, a single-file car driveway leads passes through a wooden gate which leads over some interesting mosaic-like inlaid stone and ends at a one car garage that Mr. Maguire and Ms. Meyer currently have outfitted as a gym.
The main house’s glass front door opens to a living room with exposed wood-beamed ceiling with skylights. Light-colored hardwood floors continue through most of the structure.
A compact kitchen with stainless appliances, natural wood cabinets, and a Buddha (always a Hollywood favorite!) connects to a family room with a row of colorful paddleboards (at least we think that’s what they are).
There are three bedrooms in the main house, including one with a curved, termite-friendly wood ceiling. Both bathrooms sport subway tiles and one-legged sinks.
Two of the bedrooms also connect to a loggia with sitting space and views of the surrounding rooftops.
Beyond the main house is a two-story guesthouse/studio type space that appears to be used as little more than a recreation area. Yolanda spied a ping pong table, a couple card tables (hmm!), and a sofa.
The third structure on the property is a one car garage that is outfitted as a yoga-quasi-gym studio. Total square footage of the micro-compound comes to a comfortable (but tiny by A-list celebrity standards) 3,601-square-feet.
Ms. Ireland is obviously quite a well-to-do lady, Yolanda finds evidence that she has owned at least four other multi-million dollar residential properties in recent years. She and her ex-hubby long owned a 1920s Spanish-style “farmhouse” in a prime north-of-Montana block of Santa Monica. It appears Ms. Ireland received the home in her 2010 divorce from Mr. Weis.
Ms. Ireland sold the house for $4,750,000 in 2014 to a not-famous couple who also appear to originally hail from London. Coincidence? Who knows.
In August of that same year (2014), Ms. Ireland paid $2,500,000 for a two-story Traditional (with a vaulted roofline) in the supremely trendy neighborhood of Venice (CA).
Exactly one year later, after Ms. Ireland had gussied up the house with her fabric swatches and such, the house sold in an off-market deal for $2,795,000 to merchant banker Brooks Hansen and his wife Alison.
Once upon a time, Ms. Ireland purchased a rather neglected Wallace Neff-designed ranch in gorgeous Ojai (CA) that she meticulously fixed up and had photographed for Vogue Living, Elle Decor, and House Beautiful. Every fashionable house fashion magazine on the planet, basically.
The property is truly stunning, and Yolanda is dead serious when she says that. It’s amazing. But anywho, Ms. Ireland sold the property for $5,800,000 in 2008 to Oscar-winning blonde actress Reese Witherspoon.
For reasons we can’t fathom, Ms. Witherspoon only held onto the Ojai jewel for a few years before she opted to sell it at a major loss — $4,983,000 in 2012 — to an ultra-mysterious buyer whose identity is veiled behind a blind trust.
Finally, Ms. Ireland also lays claim to a French Country villa. No, we don’t mean a faux-Frenchy pad here in LA — we’re talking French Country, as in a real damn villa out in the actual country of France.
As any good publicity hound would do, Ms. Ireland listed the Provence pad for sale in 2014 and subsequently agreed to have it featured in MyDomaine.com. The hilltop villa is located in southwest France and dates to 1760. Naturally, Ms. Ireland updated the structure with her signature flourishes — in a sensitive manner, of course. Is it just us, or does this look just like the homes that were featured in To Catch A Thief? (One of Yolanda’s favorite films.)
In the MyDomaine article, Ms. Ireland blabbed about how she already had her eye on her next personal project: a seaside house somewhere in grey Scotland. But to be honest, kiddies, we don’t know whether she ever bought that oceanfront residence or even if she ever sold her France home, for that matter. As best as we can tell, Ms. Ireland still owned the latter property as of about six months ago.
As for Ms. Meyer & Mr. Maguire, we must also confess we don’t know where the lady has moved. But as we recently discussed, Mr. Maguire paid $12,965,000 for a big Brentwood Park bachelor pad that’s just around the corner from a vacant estate-sized residential parcel that he’s owned for nearly a decade.
Tobey Maguire’s agent: Scott King, Compass
Kathryn Ireland’s agent: Otis Weis