BUYERS: Dennis and/or Kimberly Buffington-Quaid
LOCATION: Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE: $5,100,000
SIZE: 6,114 square feet, 5-7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to both real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak and our eerily well-informed informant Lucy Spillerguts, Your Mama has learned why the soon-to-be-divorced May-December duo Dennis and Kimberly Quaid—he's 59, she's 45—unexpectedly
flipped the contemporary Pacific Palisades pad they'd only purchased seven months earlier* back on the market two weeks ago with a fifty thousand dollar mark up: In early July (2103), through a vexatiously named trust, the estranged but co-parenting couple surreptitiously shelled out $5,100,000 to acquire a 1920s Spanish-style mini-mansion set privately and securely behind high hedges and an electronic drive gate on a sweeping curve of Sunset Boulevard in the ritzy
Riviera area of Pacific Palisades.**
Property records indicate the 6,114 square foot residence has three bedrooms and nine bathrooms but digital listing details Your Mama scrounged up show there are
six bedrooms and nine bathrooms. Making matters more confusing, the listing description parsed the bedrooms count as such: four bedrooms suites on the upper floor including a master suite with dual closets and bathrooms (shown above) and a fifth bedroom suite on the main level plus two additional staff rooms. As all of the children who can perform basic arithmetic can easily figure, that makes for a total seven bedrooms. Anyways...
The gated motor court at the front of the property has grass growing between the flagstone pavers and can accommodate up to ten cars, according to online marketing materials. A stout pair of mature palm trees frame the stained glass window flanked front door that opens into a circular foyer that steps down to a reception gallery. The hotel-lobby sized space sports an unfortunate and vaguely Medieval style with stone flooring, an ill-advised faux-stone wall treatment around the front door, numerous stone-framed doorways, and antique chandelier and half a dozen or more matching sconces, wrought iron stair railings, and what appear to Your Mama to be at least three—three!—stone and/or tile encrusted fountains.
An ever so brief hall with arched niches connects the foyer to the grandly proportioned step-down living room with dark brown wood floors, large windows on three walls, a colossal carved stone fireplace and chimney breast, two antique chandeliers, and a vaulted, exposed wood ceiling. Multi-paned glass and steel doors join the living room to the formal dining room where an over-sized, essentially square-shaped stained glass window sits colorfully between two tall and narrow ten-pane leaded glass windows.
The roomy, center island eat-in kitchen is fully updated with a vintage vibe and is dressed with marble counter tops and white subway tile back splashes the extend all the way to the ceiling and expensively equipped with two glass-fronted fridge/freezers, two dishwashers, a super-sized commercial-style range set into a subway tiled niche, a built-in coffee maker, a built-in vegetable steamer, and at least one under-counter wine fridge.
Double arched doors at the back of the reception gallery open to a small but state-of-the-art media room with terraced seating, a high-def projection system plus a large flat-screen t.v. set in to the wall, and a giant, pane-free window that overlooks the backyard.
Other notable features and creature comforts include a snazzy home automation system, a restored powder room with vintage tile work, a circular second floor sitting room, a ground level yoga/work out room (that was probably originally designed as a staff room). Listing details indicate there are two laundry rooms, a compact one just off the kitchen and another much larger one on the lower level that's kitted out with two washers, two dryers, two side-by-side slop sinks, and a stainless steel topped table in the center of the room.
The house sits tightly on a .37 acre sloping parcel but, none-the-less, outdoor living spaces are many and include a sun-baked tiled terrace atop the attached two car garage, a central courtyard embraced on three sides by the towering rear façade and at least one more dining/lounging terrace plus a flat patch of lawn ringed by a thick wall of trees and shrubs and a large swimming pool and spa girdled by a basket weave pattern red brick terrace.
*At least one report from the time of the purchase indicates that although title was held in both their names Missus Quaid, a real estate agent in Texas, and the couple's five year old twins retained exclusive use of the property until the children turn 18.
**Your Mama has no idea if Mister and Third Missus Quaid plan to reconcile and cohabitate in the Sunset Boulevard mini-mansion or if, more likely, the acquisition is part of soon-to-be-third-ex-Missus Quaid's settlement.
