Since Your Mama was away on a much needed digital-free vacay there have been a number of celebrity (or celebrity related) real estate events that we didn't know about, of course, until we returned to the online accessing world yesterday. Now, children, iffin yer already all caught up with the recaps below, hold your horses—and your damn tongues, stay tuned, and we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming a.s.a.p. Okay? Okay. Let's go...
Always working blue-eyed actor
Elijah Wood (
Wilfred, Lord of the Rings franchise
, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) has reportedly hightailed it outta Hollywood—
well, Santa Monica, anyways—and done
dropped a cool million on a thoroughly modern-minded turn-of-the-20th-century Queen Anne Victorian located in the leafy, low-key and much sought after Bouldin Creek neighborhood just south of downtown Austin, TX.
(via Daily Mail; listing photos Realty Austin)When
Jeremy Renner isn't busy making movies and getting nominated for an Academy Award—okay, it was only once—he and his b.f.f., fellow actor
Kristoffer Winters, buy, renovate, and flip multi-million dollar homes in some of L.A.'s most coveted zip codes.
In August 2011 Misters Renner and Winters, through a corporate entity, spent exactly $7 million to acquire a 1.89 acre estate in L.A.'s high-toned Holmby Hills 'hood that's less than perfectly situated between a sweeping curve of busy, loud and dirty Sunset Boulevard and the estate of nonagenarian high society matron Betsy Bloomingdale.
The actor-flippers gave the 10,000+ square foot residence a slick, multi-million dollar make-over spearheaded by architect Phillip Vertoch, dubbed it—ahem—"
The Reserve," and flipped it back on the market in late 2012 with a hefty price tag of $24,950,000. The upper end real estate market in Los Angeles being what it is—that's pretty dang swift, according to the movers and shakers we consult with—the house was soon put into escrow—in mid-June (2013), actually—with an as yet unidentified buyer for an as yet unrevealed price.
Listing details show the glammy manse has a front entry portico with four almost luridly thick stone columns, voluminous 14-foot ceilings, six bedrooms, 8 full and 3 half bathrooms, five fireplaces, and—in addition to a cobblestone motor court the size of a small parking lot—garage parking for three vehicles.
(via Trulia Luxe Living; listing photos: Hilton & Hyland)Meanwhile, Misters Renner and Winters aren't the only actors who flip high-end mansions in Los Angeles.
Brad Blumenthal (
Pulp Fiction, Chaplain, Hook) recently heaved a
Hazy Belzberg designed contemporary confection set just about L.A.'s Sunset Plaza shopping and dining district
on the market for a mouth drying $28.8 million. The 13,000 square foot spread has three structures according to listing details: a main house, a guest house, and—this being Los Angeles, children—a wellness center above the garage.
(via Los Angeles Times; listing photos: Hilton & Hyland)Comely actress
Scarlett Johansson has divested herself of the last of her West Coast real estate holdings—at least it's the last of her L.A. holdings that Your Mama knows about. The husky voiced blond bomber
sold a one bedroom and two bathroom condo on the fifth floor of the boxy, mid-century modern
Hollywood Versailles Tower building located just west of the tourist packed heart of Hollywood. The $470,000 sale price is considerably more than the $425,000 asking price.
Fun fact about the full-service and extensively amenitied,13 story
Hollywood Versailles Tower: Rehabbing starlet Lindsay Lohan once leased a higher floor residence where she lived amid a
cacophonous clutter of multi-thousand dollar handbags, sky high high heels, designer clothes, and god only knows what else.
(via Zillow; listing photos PostRain Productions for Sotheby's International Realty)Guitarist Nick Valensi of The Strokes and actress turned celebrity chat show hostess
Amanda de Cadenet have put their contemporary Colonial residence in L.A.'s Studio City with
an asking price of $1,799,000. Property records show they bought the modest-by-celeb-standards corner lot property in February 2011 for $1.3 million.
Listing details indicate there are five bedrooms and six bathrooms plus a two bedroom and one bathroom guest suite over the detached two car garage. There is not, at least as far as Your Mama can tell, a swimming pool, which is kind of a bummer because it gets hot in Studio City in the summer.
(via Zillow; listing photos: The Agency)Iconic 1970s folk-pop singer-songwriter Carole King has been trying to unload her somewhat remote 128-acre compound in Stanley, ID for a goddamn Ice Age. The kinky haired songstress must finally be getting serious because she's
dropped the asking price by $2 million to $9,900,000.
The scenic spread includes a 7,300+ square foot lodge, an owner's residence, a caretaker's residence, and half a dozen or more log built guest cabins plus equestrian facilities, a swimming pool and spa, and a professional recording studio.
(via Curbed; listing photos: Hall and Hall)Quirky and theatrical, the John Lautner designed
Wolff House manages to both anchor into and cantilever over a declivitous down slope just above L.A.'s Sunset Strip. The revolutionary residence, built in 1961 for interior designer Marco Wolff, is sometimes poo-pooed by staunch architectural traditionalists for its blatant histrionics but is utterly beloved by others who don't mind a little—or even a lot—of gravity defying hyperbole in their residential real estate. Whatever one thinks of the show stopper, it has
returned to the market for the fifth time in nine years, now with an asking price of $7.995 million.
The four bed and four bath abode, aptly described by the kids at
Curbed as a "tangle of glass, steel, and stone," was bought in early 2006 for $4.1 million by wacky actor and architecture buff Vincent Gallo who flipped it the fall of 2006 for $4,950,000 to
Michael La Fetra, an occasional documentary/film producer and heir to a substantial southern California sprinkler fortune who is well known in L.A. real estate circles as a devout aficionado and prolific flipper of architecturally significant homes.
Property records we peeped are a mite perplexing but it appears to Your Mama the
Wolff House last traded hands in May 2008 for $5,550,000. We can't confirm the current owner's identity through property records but loose-lipped real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak swears he's another heir, this time to a Dominican Republic-based product packaging empire.
(via Curbed; listing photos: John Aaroe Group)
