Thursday, 10 January 2013

Eriq La Salle Lists Beverly Hills Faux-Tuscan

SELLER: Eriq La Salle
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $7,950,000
SIZE: 6,000 square feet (approx.), 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen children Your Mama was stricken yesterday with a particularly punishing flu and we are—for all intents and purposes—down for the count again today. However, rather than leave y'all high and dry we thought we'd offer up a brief celebrity real estate tidbit in the form of the Beverly Hills, CA mini-compound owned by actor Eriq La Salle and listed on the open market yesterday with a $7,950,000 price tag.

Mister La Salle's claim to Showbiz fame and fortune is his long-running role as Dr. Peter Benton on the hospital drama ER. That gig ran from 1994 to 2009—lucky him—but since then his Tinseltown career has been in the doldrums with supporting appearances on a handful of programs that include 24, How to Make It in America, A Gifted Man and Blackout.

Property records show Mister La Salle bought the view property way back in July 1996 for an unknown amount of money. The house underwent an extensive remodel in 2006, according to listing information.

The house sits hard up on the street—which lacks the sort of privacy celebs usually insist upon—and is perched on a steep hillside that overlooks Franklin Canyon.

Listing information describes the approximately 6,000 square foot house as a "celebrity owned Tuscan Villa" but this seems nothing Your Mama has ever seen in Tuscany. Maybe it's just our sick goggles but the whole thing looks more to Your Mama like a quintessentially SoCal faux-Tuscan contempo extravaganza jam-packed with every conceivable design conceit and high-end gewgaw that the architect and/or decorator could come up with.

Just a few of the notable features includes a full wall of glass that peels back and exposes the main living space to the courtyard-type back yard and swimming pool. In the living room a television drops down out of the ceiling at the touch of a button, in the dining room there's a walk-in wine closet and in the center island kitchen there's a notably expensive La Cornue brand range that easily set Mister La Salle back ten grand.

Somewhere up in the house there's a home fitness center and up the master bedroom there's a very modern copper fireplace set into a frameless ribbon of glass that allows for long, wide and almost unobstructed views out over the canyons towards the towers of downtown. There's also a meticulously kept walk-in closet and a large bathroom with a super-sized soaking tub that also looks to be crafted from copper.

Across the courtyard and swimming pool from the main house is a glassy guest house with full kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom.

Property records indicate Mister La Salle is in the mood to shake up his property portfolio. In addition to selling his house in Bev Hills he also recently unloaded his own private Xanadu—a six bedroom and 5.5 bathroom lake front house in Lake Arrowhead, CA that also, coincidentally, has a copper bathtub—sold in August 2011 for $2,724,000.

A few months later, in November (2011), Mister La Salle took a huge hit on the sale of another house he owned near L.A.'s dog-friendly Runyon Canyon that he bought in 2005 for $2,250,000 and sold for $1,610,000. Ouch.

listing photos: Hilton & Hyland