LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $7,695,000 (list)
SIZE: 4,216 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in the mid-1990s when current Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was First Lady of the United States she tried to teach America—or tell America, depending on your point of view—that It Takes a Village to raise a child. Maybe it does or maybe it doesn't but Your Mama is here to tell y'all it does indeed sometimes take a village to put together the disparate pieces of a celebrity real estate puzzle.
The other day the New York Post tattled about new gay daddies Elton John and David Furnish selling their high-floor, two-unit condo-crib at the star-studded Sierra Towers apartment complex in West Hollywood, CA and "looking for an LA mansion" where they'll have more space to bring up baby.
Being a curious celebrity real estate beaver, Your Mama jumped on our beloved but bedraggled princess phone and did some dialing around. It wasn't long before we heard back from two of our better-connected Beverly Hills real estate insider informants—let's call them Frick and Frack—who told us that Misters John-Furnish and Furnish-John were not looking for a mansion in Los Angeles but had already purchased one.
Public transaction records don't yet reveal a purchase price but according to both Frick and Frack the magnificently bespectacled—and allegedly bewigged—U.K.-based superstar and his filmmaker man-mate/baby daddy just picked up a recently re-done residence in the terrifically trendy and hideously expensive Trousdale Estates area of Beverly Hills.
Your Mama has yet to have a helpful soul slip the purchase price under our proverbial door but we do know from listing information kindly provided by Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills that the single-story sprawler was last listed with an asking price of $7,695,000.
Listing information indicates the walled, gated, and vaguely boomerang-shaped house—described rather gauzily in the listing as a "Soft Contemporary" with the "essence of Ralph Lauren"—was originally built in 1966, measures 4,216 square feet and currently includes 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms plus a staff bedroom with attached lavatory and a separate pool cabana with lounge, fitness area and additional bathroom.
Luscious white oak floors and long runs of gallery white walls run throughout the open plan main living areas that include a "formal" living area with fireplace, "formal" dining space, and family room with wall-mounted flat-screen tee-vee. A wide opening in the family room connects to the breakfast room open to the all-white and expensively-equipped, galley-style center island kitchen.
Wide banks of floor-to-ceiling windows and sliders blanket the rear façade and provide panoramic city views and access to the deep and wide covered portico that runs along the rear of the residence. In addition to the slightly-bigger-than-plunge-sized sunken swimming pool, the pancake flat backyard has an unusually broad expanse of lawn perfect for the installation of a celebrity-style jungle gym set for Misters John and Furnish's growing baby boy.
Frick told us the reason for the move from a condo to a single family residence is because Misters John and Furnish would like to add more children to their family mix and their two (converted to one) bedroom condo at the Sierra Towers just isn't large enough to accommodate an expanding family, not to mention the considerable cadre of private staff they employ and tote to their various residences around the globe. Frack told us he expects the decoratively decadent men will spend a few more pennies on additional improvements and renovations.
In addition to his west coast holdings, Mister John is known and reported to maintain homes in seaside city of Nice in the south of France, the canal criss-crossed pièce de urban résistance of Venice (Italy), and the southern city of Atlanta, GA where he has long-owned what's been described in the local press as a "12,000-plus-square-foot," high-floor condo at the Park Place on Peachtree complex where other previous high-profile residents of the rather dour-looking tower have included Janet Jackson and Her Majesty Oprah Winfrey. Mister John's primary residence in the U.K., a 37-acre estate in the Windsor area just west of London's Heathrow Airport, was reportedly acquired back in 1975 for £400,000 and includes, amongst other structures, a massive Queen Anne-style mansion said to have 8 bedrooms.
No official listing for Mister John's two-unit pad at Sierra Towers is available and we don't yet know at what price it will be listed if it ever actually comes up for sale on the open market. However, the colorful and art-filled, Martyn Lawrence-Bullard-decorated aerie was photographed in all its high-glam 1970s-inspired glory for the glossy pages of Architectural Digest in December 2009 and, children, no matter what you may think of all, it is a juicy feast for the eyes.
photos: Pacific Coast News