LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,675,000
SIZE: 4,894 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Movie producer Donald De Line has re-listed his East Coast-y farmhouse meets classic California ranch-style mini-compound in the Mandeville Canyon area of Los Angeles, CA with an asking price of $3,675,000.
Mister De Line, Your Mama well knows, may not be a household name outside the confines of Tinseltown but, as best as we can tell from our admittedly brief online research, within The Industry he's a smooth-pated and chic-ly bespectacled veteran player with an impressive list of credits. As a young studio executive Mister De Line oversaw the production of a number of notable movies such as Pretty Woman, What’s Love Got to Do With it, Sister Act, Ed Wood and Armageddon. Since branching out on his own in the late 1990s with an eponymous production company (De Line Pictures) he's produced a dozen or so reasonably high-profile hits and misses that include The Italian Job, The Stepford Wives, Body of Lies, I Love You, Man, Burlesque, and Green Lantern.
Property records reveal Mister De Line acquired the .41 acre Mandeville Canyon mini-compound in January 2006 for an undisclosed amount from Oscar-nominated screenwriter Steve Kloves (The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Amazing Spiderman, eight of the Harry Potter film adaptations).
Tall privet hedges and a thick screen of dense foliage encircle the property's perimeter and protect the 4,894 square foot single-story sprawler from the (possibly) prying eyes of passers by. Once through the front age that opens from the driveway and inside the soft but forbidding hedgerow, things get much friendlier with a rocking chair-worthy, wrap-around, covered porch and tomato red front door that opens to a traditional, center hall foyer.
The medium dark brown hardwood floors in the entry extend into the otherwise pale-paletted formal living room with fireplace and library niche with built in book-cases as well as into the more moodily done formal dining room with bay window and deep, aubergine-colored walls against which pop the also tomato red upholstered chairs around the circular dining table.
There are more hardwood floors and a sky light or two in the huge, almost-colossal, center-island country kitchen expensively outfitted and equipped with a combination of white and faux-distressed green raised panel cabinetry; glossy black granite and butcher block counter tops; commercial-style stainless steel and integrated appliances. There are more sky lights (and hardwood floors) in the adjoining family room/breakfast area as well as a second wood-burning fireplace.
The four family/guest bedrooms include a master suite with even more medium dark brown hardwood floors; a third, window-flanked fireplace; and French doors that open to the central courtyard at the rear of the residence. We can mostly tolerate the elegant yet aggressively impersonal, high-end-hotel-type day-core but we absolutely draw the damn line at the ur-feminine, gold- and rose-colored floral wall covering behind the bed that perplexes and, frankly, depresses Your Mama. Does a dignified but run-of-the-mill and slightly Anglophilic lady live here?
The U-shaped back of the house tightly hugs a planted courtyard that bursts opens up to a tree-shaded, (essentially) rectangular swimming pool and raised spa surrounded by red brick terraces furnished with a extensive, matching set of of thickly-padded, ass-friendly chairs, ottomans and chaise lounges.
Nestled into the trees on the far side of the swimming pool from the main house sits a two-story, stone- and clapboard-side pool/guest house with poolside office/lounge and a spacious guest suite on the second level with—you got it—more hardwood floors plus a quaint row of multi-paned sash windows, an airy, pitched and beamed ceiling, and a private bathroom.
Some of Mister De Line's nearest neighbors include Oscar-nominated actor Greg Kinnear, who bought his house in 2001 for $3,650,000 from hard rock music legend Meat Loaf, and Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon, who bought her equestrian estate for $6,900,000 in August 2010 from freaky-deaky action-flick actor Steven Seagal. Just up the road a short piece is the tony, guard-gated enclave where some of the dozen or so mansions are owned by big-livin' folks like philandering ex-governator Arnold Schwarzenegger, soon to be divorced supermodel turned reality tee-vee mogul Heidi Klum and musician Seal, and professional pig skinner Tom Brady and his supermodel wife Gisele Bündchen who recently moved into their 22,000 square foot, custom-built—and, ahem, green-minded—mega-mansion.
As it turns out —and as mentioned by one of the children in the comments section—Mister De Line also currently owns a much more significant, high-walled and electronically gated residence in the historic Hancock Park 'hood. For some reason, Your Mama's previous spin through the property records failed to to reveal ownership but a second, more focused perusal does indeed reveal Mister De Line paid $4,600,000 in November 2008 for a 7,437 square foot mansard-roofed manse that backs up to the Wilshire Country Club.
When we first caught wind of the Hancock Park house we quickly queried our deliciously gabby pal Kenny Kissintell, who often knows a thing or two about a thing or two in Tinseltown, and he told us Mister De Line "actually lives in Hancock Park." Given that bit of intel, we don't know who occupies the Mandeville Canyon mini-compound but property records are quite clear: it's owned by a corporate entity that uses the same business address as Mister De Line's other and previous residences.
Previous to moving to the West Side, Mister De Line lived just above the swanky Sunset Plaza area of the L.A.'s famed Sunset Strip in a high-hedged and gated 4,689 square foot traditional bought in February 1994 for $1,630,000, listed in November 2008 for $4,750,000 and sold in mid-February 2009 for $3,925,000.
listing photos: Teles Properties