SELLER: Adrián Beltré
BUYER: Lynsi Martinez*
LOCATION: Bradbury, CA
PRICE: $17,410,961
SIZE: 16,600 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 14 full and 2 half bathrooms
NOTE TO THE CHILDREN: Scads of photos of the property can be seen here, here, here, here, here here, here and here.
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: According to a covert communique from a trusted snitch—let's call him Bradbury Barker—exceedingly well-compensated professional baseball baseball player Adrián Beltré, the former third baseman for the L.A. Dodgers now throwing, catching and swinging for the Texas Rangers, sold his titanic resort-like estate in the über-affluent, suburban community of Bradbury, CA in late August (2012) for the somewhat unusual price of $17,410,961 to Lynsi Martinez, the low-profile heiress to a substantial Southern California-based fast food fortune.
Missus Martinez may not be, Your Mama realizes, a household name in the manner of movie stars like Tom Cruise or trouble-making tabloid train wrecks like Lindsay "In Trouble Again" Lohan and Paris Hilton but her family's 275 (or so) In-N-Out Burger joints spread throughout southern California and the southwest hold near-mythic and cult-like status amongst fast food hamburger connoisseurs who laud their low-cost, high-quality, never-frozen ingredients and not-so-secret "secret menu." They have also made 30-year Miz Martinez remarkably rich with, by at least one fairly recent account, a still-growing net worth of half a billion bucks.
Itty-bitty and decidedly sedate Bradbury, tucked into the often oppressively smoggy foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains about 22 miles (or so) northeast of downtown Los Angeles, might seem to some like an out-of-the-way place for a filthy rich and twice-divorced young mother of toddler twins but it happens to be one of the most expensive enclaves in the entire country and Miz Martinez seems to prefers a low-key if luxurious suburban lifestyle.
In 2010 Forbes ranked Bradbury-Duarte as the most expensive zip code (91008) in the country with a spine-straightening median home price of $4,276,462 and Miz Martinez—now the owner and president of the privately held burger chain and a hardcore drag racing aficionado—was bluntly (and reductively) described in a scathing Wall Street Journal review of a book about the fascinating, deeply religious and (in)famously turbulent In-N-Out dynasty as having "only a high-school education and an affinity for joining off-beat Christian sects."
Property records indicate Mister Beltré purchased the approximately 4.16 acre spread in the ritzy (if starchy) heart of the 24-hour guard-gated Bradbury Estates enclave for $3,425,000 in April 2006 and proceeded to custom-erect a massive, mod-Med/pseudo-Italianate residential monument to his mountain of money and athletic success.
The result of Mister and Missus Beltré's efforts, according to listing information we teased up out of the internets, shows the sprawling compound comprises a 16,600 square foot main house with 7 bedrooms, 11 full and 2 half bathrooms plus a 2,500 square foot guest house with three more bedrooms and two more bathrooms, a recreation building, and a 1,300 square foot, open-air poolside cabana with outdoor kitchen and his and her changing rooms and bathrooms.
Almost as soon as the colossal compound was complete in (or around) 2010 Mister and Missus Beltré heaved and hoed the palatial property on the market with a heavy-duty $19,800,000 price tag. The asking price eventually dipped to $19,500,000—as per online documentation we discovered—before the fast food heiress snatched it up for a bit more than $17,400,000.
The multi-winged mansion is entered through a double-gated circular drive that arches up to a porte-cochere and cavernous, meant-to-impress-the-guests-style foyer finished with inlaid marble floors, curved twin staircases, a glimmering, economy car-sized crystal chandelier, and a soaring, 35-foot high custom painted ceiling. There are spacious formal living and dining rooms—natch—plus a dark-paneled library/office with fireplace and glass-fronted display cases.
More casual quarters include a double-height family room with wood floors, hulking, carved stone fireplace and built-in wet bar. The voluminous family room connects through a wide and shallow archway to a more intimate but still super-sized breakfast room that, in turn, joins up with the commodious, double-island kitchen expensively fitted and equipped with slab granite counter tops, top-grade integrated appliances, a kitchen-sized butler's pantry and more carved corbels and accents than ought to be allowed in a single house.
The super-sized master suite includes (but may not be limited to): an amply-scaled bathroom with two-person soaking tub and separate shower; a custom-fitted closet/dressing room; a living-room sized sitting room with fireplace, intricate molding and direct access to a large balcony and a sizable separate bedroom with second sitting area oriented towards a wall-mounted television.
Some of the compound's indoor amusements include: a 20-plus seat movie theater; fitness room; game room with built-in carved wood wet bar; batting cage; temperature-controlled wine cellar and adjoining tasting room with barrel-vaulted brick ceiling.
Numerous outdoor recreation facilities include (but may not be limited to): deep, shaded dining and lounging loggias; vast terraces that step down to an infinity edge swimming pool and spa; a children's playground with jungle gym and sunken trampoline; a north/south aligned tennis court and separate basketball court; built-in fire pit; several putting greens and sand traps set into an acre or more of rolling lawn.
According to the knowledgeable Bradbury Barker, Miz Martinez owns several other homes in the area including a 6,880 square foot mansion on 2.1 hilltop acres in the guard-gated Gordon Highlands community in Glendora, CA that she purchased in February 2006 for $3,150,000. In late 2010, just prior to her (second) divorce, Miz Martinez spent $1,175,000 on a 5 bedroom and 5 bathroom residence in a gated community in Glendora, CA. that Bradbury Barker snitched to Your Mama is occupied by Miz Martinez's second husband Richard, a former employee of In-N-Out and now an ordained minister.
In addition to the scores of ordinary, under-the-radar rich folks—doctors, lawyers, business people and the like—some of the more illustrious residents of Bradbury include a former porn star turned lady-televangelist, a self-proclaimed (but widely debunked) prophet and faith healer, a prominent civil rights activist and media mogul, an exiled Chinese billionaire automotive tycoon, and a former owner of Packard Bell and his former Hong Kong film actress wife.
Mister and Missus Beltré have moved to Dallas where, property records reveal, in April 2011 they scooped up a large but comparatively puny 8,204 square foot mansion last listed for $2,999,000.
*Although The Bradbury Barker swears the property was purchased by Miz Martinez—and has several times provided us with dead-on accurate intel in the past—property records shield the identity of the owner behind a generically named trust we're unable to link directly to Miz Martinez. That makes the purchase rumor and gossip at this point.
listing photos: Deasy/Penner & Partners via Zillow and Realtor.com