LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $6,100,000
SIZE: 7,318 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A little more year ago, television and movie actors Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze, Jr. produced a second child and, just as so many rich and/or famous folk feel they must do when they issue forth with an heir, the veteran Showbizzers bought a big new house in which to bring up new baby. Although the property records Your Mama peeped are pretty opaque, the industrious impeccably connected real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak swears on her heavily fortified French-made undergarments that the Gellar-Prinze's shelled out $6,100,000 for a three-story East Coast-y Colonial deep in Los Angeles's low key and semi-rustic but most assuredly swank Mandeville Canyon area.
Property records are quite clear when it comes to the sellers: powerhouse entertainment attorney Ernest Del and his talent agent wife, Danielle Del, who Yolanda described to Your Mama as "part of the Tinseltown 'Ladies Who Lunch' crowd and is b.f.f. with Hollywood hostess du jour Alexandra Dwek" who—some of the children whose brains aren't ruined by booze and television—lives in a Georgian mansion in Bel Air she bought a few years ago from Giannulli Mossimo and Lori Laughlin for almost $20 million. But we digress...
In 1995, a teen-aged Miss Gellar won a Daytime Emmy for her make-believe work the soap story All My Children before she trampolined to sci-fi superstardom the following year as the star of the cult-favorite television program Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Since her seven season run on B.V.S. Miz Gellar—a.k.a. Missus Prinze—has worked almost constantly, often in overlapping television and movie gigs and most notably, perhaps, in a series of horror film franchises (I Know What Your Did Last Summer, The Grudge, Scream).
Mister Prinze, Jr., the son of late comedian/actor Freddie Prinze of the 70s sitcom Chico and the Man, shot to teen flick stardom in the She's All That, I Know What Your Did Last Summer, and Scooby-Doo movie franchises, all of which he co-starred opposite his wife. He very briefly starred in an eponymous sitcom, popped up several times on Boston Legal and 24, and, like his wife and dozens of other Hollywood stars, has done occasional voice over work on the animated sci-fi comedy Robot Chicken. Much to Your Mama's surprise—and, we'll be honest, flabbergast—Mister Prinze has twice taken steady gigs as a director and producer for the WWE, short for World Wresting Entertainment. That's right, children, Mister Prinze is waist deep in the low-brow and high-camp professional wrestling world. Who knew? Not Your Mama, that's who. Anyhoo...
Listing details show the Gellar-Prinze's new, many-gabled center hall Colonial was built in 2006, clad in classic clapboard siding, and accessorized with black shutters and a columned portico. The six bedroom and five bathroom house sits tightly on a wedge-shaped parcel of just over a third of an acre and measures in at an ample but not embarrassingly bloated 7,318 square feet.
Invited guests and the Chinese food delivery man are meant to be impressed by the voluminous double-height entrance hall where light from a drippy cluster of crystal chandeliers is reflected and refracted in lustrous, medium brown-toned wood floors. An over-sized formal dining room and a cozier-scaled library flank the foyer that stretches deep in to the house before it opens into a formal living room large enough to accommodate a baby grand piano and a sizable seating arrangement in front of a fireplace. Multi-pane windows and French doors stretch luxuriously from floor to ceiling and provide a wide view of the (surprisingly compact) backyard entertainment and recreation areas.
A less formal, open-concept kitchen/family room, conveniently located behind the direct entry two car garage, orbits around a commodious kitchen finished with white, glass-fronted cabinetry and glossy black counter tops and equipped with a three-seat snack counter and a full suite of industrial-minded stainless steel appliances including two refrigerators. The sellers hung an iconic Slim Aarons photograph of the Kaufmann House in Palm Springs over the corner fireplace in the dining area and the lounge area is anchored by a built-in entertainment center with open shelving and closed storage for board games, table cloths, and media equipment.
Front and back stairs ascend to the second floor where, in addition to a handful of guest/family bedrooms and an unknown number of bathrooms, the roomy master bedroom has a vaulted and dormered ceiling, a sitting area with fireplace, a large bathroom, and two sets of French doors that open to a small terrace with backyard overview.
Speaking of the backyard, it appears to Your Mama to be a fairly compact situation compared to what many might expect in a six-plus million dollar property but it is none-the-less jam-packed with a decent list of amenities and luxuries that include a pergola-shaded flag stone terrace with retractable canvas awnings, a built-in barbecue/kitchenette, lots of mature foliage, and a wee patch of grass. Tucked in to the verdant hillside that rises steeply at the rear of the property, a dark-bottomed swimming pool and spa and additional flagstone terracing for sunbathing and horse playing.
Since October of 2001, Mister and Missus Prinze, Jr. have shacked up in a 7,300+ square foot house with seven bedrooms and 7 bathrooms in the very same guard-gated community in L.A.'s Bel Air area where reality television royal Kimmy Kardashian and her humorously arrogant baby daddy Yeezus apparently plan to shack up in a $9 million mock-Med macmansion with their directionally-named baby, a four gold-plated toilets, and a million dollars worth of custom-made mattresses.
listing photos: Coldwell Banker
