LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $2,995,000
SIZE: 7,453 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama's inbox practically overflows this morning with breathless and squinty-eyed queries about the 5 bedroom and 6 bathroom Beverly Hills, CA mansion owned by recently engaged pop music superstar Britney Spears* that unexpectedly popped back up on the (open) market yesterday with an asking price of $2,995,000.
*Technically, the Bev Hills area house is owned by the court-appointed conservatorship that manages Miz Spears financial affairs. More on that in a minute.
Tabloid and celebrity gossip glossy readers will recall this is the very same (in)famous mansion where Miz Spears lived during her chaotic, troubling and terribly public meltdown in 2006-08. Remember those days, kittens, when just about every damn day there was some new, horrible thing in the press about Miz Spears shaving her head and/or clumsily exposing her lady parts? Those days, thankfully and hopefully, are long behind the mother of two, now risen like a phoenix from her mental and professional ashes.
No matter how you slice it, $2,995,000 is a lot of freaking money for a single family house but, in this case, according to Your Mama's bejeweled abacus, it's also a pocketbook punishing $3,755,000 less than the $6,750,000 property records show Miz Spears impulsively paid for the 7,453 square foot faux-Tuscan villa in January 2007. Miz Spears, at that time an erratic hot mess who gal palled around with party goers like Paris Hilton, quickly caught an extreme case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and the property, which she reportedly purchased almost completely furnished, was back on the market within a month with a $7,495,000 asking price. Since then, the two-story, canyon view mansion has been on and off the market so many times at so many prices that we just can't be bothered to count and recall them all.
Although Miz Spears paid nearly seven million smackers for the well-maintained manse, a little calculating of comparable cribs shows the current price tag of nearly three million dollars stands well in line with the recent sales of equivalently sized and equipped mansions in The Summit, a 24-hour guard-gated community that spreads tentacle-like over the rugged ridges that divide Beverly Hills from Studio City.
The late Ed McMahon's 7,013 square foot mansion just sold for $3,475,000 and actress Holly Robinson Peete (Mike & Molly, Hangin' With Mr. Cooper) and her retired professional pigskinner husband Rodney Peete sold their 7,234 square foot mansion—as a short sale—in November (2011) for $3,015,000 after first listing it in early 2007 for $5,995,000.
Listing information shows Miz Spears former home is offered as a "Probate Sale. Subject to Court Confirmation." The most common kind of court confirmed probate sale is, as anybody who knows any thing about real estate surely knows, when the executor of the estate of a deceased person sells off a piece of real estate. Miz Spears, however and of course, is quite alive.
A little research on the interweb brought to our attention another, lesser known type of probate sale when real property is sold under a conservatorship, as is the situation of Miz Spears' former residence in The Summit. In 2008, when Miz Spears was still in the ugly thick of her troubles, the entirety of her personal and business affairs were placed by court order under a conservatorship headed up by her father and an attorney.
The sometimes long and difficult conservatorship sale process is much better explained on the website of Miz Spears' real estate agent than Your Mama could or would ever care to do justice. If you yearn for the details we suggest you head on over there.
As it turns out, in addition to Brit-brit's unwanted white elephant in Beverly Hills, there are at least three other luxury residences in the Los Angeles area once owned or occupied by Miz Spears and currently for sale on the open market.
The ill-fated pair's Malibu love shack sat smack between a mansion owned by Olivia Newton John (since sold) and two mansions both owned by three-time Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron. Some of their other notable nearby neighbors included mouthy and volatile actor Mel Gibson, octogenarian entertainer Dick Van Dyke, and sit-com star Kesley Grammer and his now ex-wife Camille of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Miz Spears and her ex-mister sold the nearly 10,000 square foot spread for ten million clams shortly after they were divorced in the summer of 2007. The buyer was horror film writer/producer/director Stephen Sommers (Van Helsing and The Mummy franchise) who gave the entire property a complete overhaul and currently has the 6 bedroom and 7.5 bathroom compound back on the market with a $13,500,000 price tag.
Newly single Miz Spears moved from her Serra Retreat retreat to a couple of rented residences before she rather rashly snatched up the mansion in The Summit.
The property, owned by L.A.-based construction magnate (and current resident of Beverly Park) Ron Tutor, was once on the market with an asking price of $18,900,000 but now has a significantly lower $9,995,000 price tag.
Hidden Hills, celebrity property watchers well know, is riddled with mansions owned by entertainment and music industry bigwigs who include (but are far from limited to) include Jennifer Lopez, Melissa Etheridge and Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne who have their house in H.H. listed for $12,999,000.
listing photos (Beverly Hills): Prudential California / Beverly Hills
listing photo (Calabasas): Ewing and Associates / Sotheby's International Real Estate
listing photo (Hidden Hills): Partners Trust / Brentwood
listing photo (Malibu): Re/Max / Olson & Associates