It doesn't take a mathematics genius or even a bejeweled abacus to see that Mister and Missus O'Brien took a substantial $1,500,000 gut punch to their pocketbook, not counting carrying costs, expenses related to any improvements and renovations they may have undertaken and the significant real estate fees associated with with selling a property of this magnitude.
Avid celebrity real estate watchers will recall that Mister O'Brien and his missus Liza acquired the walled, double-gated and high-hedged mini-estate—located on a leafy and low-key but star-lined street in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles—in January 2008, not long before he began his tumultuous and short-lived but very lucrative stint as the host of The Tonight Show.
Alas, due to crap ratings and tense negotiations over time slot shuffling, Coco's heyday as the host of The Tonight Show went south in eight short months, albeit with a gasp-worthy $32,500,000 payout that surely cushioned and palliated the putrid sting of the $1.5-plus million dollar loss.
The recent transfer of ownership came as a surprise to Your Mama since we did not even know the house was for sale. Some research suggests the house was never on the open market and, of course, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of pocket listings in the pricier zip codes of Los Angeles that Your Mama does not know a damn thing about.
We can't be sure what—if any—changes the O'Briens may have made to the residence since 2008 but listing information from the time of their purchase shows the newly built mansion had six bedrooms, a total of 8.5 bathrooms, six fireplaces and 10 foot ceilings, no doubt a real plus for the statuesque ginger. Listing information also indicated the house was designed with a state-of-the-art screening room, a temperature controlled 1,500 bottle wine room, indoor and outdoor kitchens and a 60-foot long veranda at the back of the house. Beyond the swimming pool, spa and poolside pavilion there are multi-million dollar views that stretch to the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
The house was purchased by a non-celebrity couple.
So where, oh where has the O'Brien clan gone, you might ask? Your Mama queried Freddie Finefellow, one of our better clued in celebrity real estate canaries, who quickly shot back a detailed communique that revealed Mister and Missus O'Brien have decamped Brentwood for the Pacific Palisades where—way back in June 2011—they surreptitiously shelled out somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty million clams for a remarkably similar walled, gated and high-hedged East Coast traditional, this one situated on more than an acre in the leafy, low-key but very ritzy Riviera 'hood.
The 11,600-plus square foot residence, according to listing information, was originally built in 2005, sits on more than an acre of landscaped grounds and includes 5-6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms, a double-height foyer, formal living and dining rooms, a capacious kitchen/breakfast room/family room complex that opens to a broad red brick terrace, his and her offices, a home theater, a home gym, a chef-friendly kitchen with walk-in pantry, and a children's playroom.
The expansive, pancake flat and grassy grounds are well suited to outdoor entertainments and include an outdoor living room with massive river rock fireplace, a sports court, loopy bike path, an in-ground trampoline, and heirloom vegetable garden, fenced in swimming pool with inset spa and a patch of grass plenty big enough to add a soccer pitch or pitch a super-sized bridal tent.
The neighborhood is rife with high maintenance homes owned by a long list of Showbiz luminaries like Steven Spielberg, Whoopie Goldberg, Bill Cosby, Sugar Ray Leonard, Dan Castellaneta, Adam Sandler and Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.
The sellers of the Pac Pal estate, according to property records, were the philanthropically-minded Edward and Shari Glazer who have moved on to a recently completed, custom constructed and far more grand, 19,000-plus square foot mansion in the guard-gated Beverly Park community.
We're not sure if Mister and Missus O'Brien currently maintain a residence in Manhattan where they lived before schlepping west but they previously owned a massive, park view duplex at the magical Majestic building located on a particularly swank stretch of Central Park West.
At some point, no doubt in response to their relocation to Tinseltown, the O'Briens discreetly made their New York apartment available for purchase. It never, as far as Your Mama knows, appeared on the open market. There were rumors floating 'round the property gossip sphere that the titanic duplex was saddled with a hefty $35,000,000 asking price. The Wall Street Journal pegged the price at $29,500,000 and the New York Times revealed the apartment was sold, fully furnished, in July 2010 for $25,000,000 to David David M. Zaslav, the chief executive of Discovery Communications.
The Majestic is the same building where Susan Soros, the much younger second ex-wife of the newly engaged octogenarian macdaddy super-tycoon George Soros, recently listed her spectacularly sited 19th floor spread—once owned by boo-teek hotelier Ian Schrager—on the open market with a eye opening and publicity ensuring $50,000,000 price tag.
aerial photo (Brentwood): Pacific Coast News
listing photo: Sotheby's International Realty (via Haute Living)
0 comments:
Post a Comment