Diane Keaton Buys Big Pac Pal Pad

BUYER: Diane Keaton
LOCATION: Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE $5,600,000
SIZE: 7,800 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We've occasionally wondered what often in the property gossip columns house hopper Diane Keaton had up her next real estate sleeve.

Over the years the Oscar-winning architecture and design junkie has owned scads and scores of architecturally notable residences all over Los Angeles, including the Alfred Newman estate in Pacific Palisades and the 1928, Lloyd Wright-designed Samuel-Novarro House in Los Feliz, later owned briefly by Christina Ricci. After selling her newly overhauled, Ralph Flewelling-designed hacienda-style mansion in the flats of Beverly Hills in September 2010 to Glee and Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy for $10,000,000, the preservation-oriented high-end house flipper leased former rom-com queen Meg Ryan's gated, almost-perfect Spanish-style mansion in Bel Air, right next door to fashion world royal Tom Ford's louche and ravishing Richard Neutra-designed compound.

Your Mama heard some time ago from someone we know who tends to know these things that Miz Keaton had moved out of Meg's mansion and today, much to our celebrity real estate surprise (and chagrin), we heard from the long-legged blond at Trulia Luxe Living that Miz Keaton just plunked down $5,600,000 to acquire a bulky and luxurious but hardly historic quasi-Cape Cod-style mansion in the upscale seaside community of Pacific Palisades, CA.

Miz Keaton's newly acquired crib in Pac Pal, built only in 2009, sits tightly on a 10,018 square foot corner lot near the grass-free, ocean-view bluffs of Asilomar Park, measures (around) 7,800 square feet spread out over three floors, according to listing information, and includes a total of 6 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms.

Formal living and dining rooms with pane-free French doors flank the grand, double-height center hall entry outfitted with a Tara-esque staircase, inky black floors and monumental upside down wedding cake-shaped chandelier. A short corridor connects the foyer at the front of the house to the less-formal, open-plan family quarters that extend along the back of the house and include a family room lounge with fireplace, built-in wet bar, and colossal, U-shaped kitchen with gleaming white Shaker-style cabinets, top-quality commercial-style appliances and Subaru-sized center island with snack counter and burnt caramel-colored butcher block counter tops.

The basement level is—to put it nicely—an entertainment extravaganza that includes a temperature-controlled wine cellar and adjoining tasting room/lounge; a bedroom-sized fitness room (convertible to a 7-th bedroom, as per listing details); an eggplant, purple and lavender hued movie theater with stepped seating; and a game room with built-in wet bar, built-in tufted banquette and glass doors that open to a basement level outdoor terrace with spiral staircase for easy (if dizzying) access up to the backyard.

The master suite—with private deck, fireplace, lots of built-in bookshelves, bedroom-sized walk-in closet, and attached facility—sits up on the second floor along with three more family guest suites. A fifth bedroom with en suite pooper on the main floor perfect for the lazy or the infirm and a sixth bedroom with en suite is located down in the basement may (or may not) have been intended for permanent habitation by a live-in domestic or part-time by a less-favored family member or house guest.

A blue stone terrace (or slate or some such upper end stone material) tucked into the inside crook of the mansion has a stacked stone fireplace and built-in barbecue station. The terrace gives way to a (mostly) flat expanse of lawn and blue stone terrace (or slate or some such upper end stone material) that surrounds the plunge-sized swimming pool and inset four-person spa. In addition to the fenced and hedge-ringed backyard, outdoor living spaces also include a wide covered front porch, a couple second level balconies, the aforementioned basement level terrace and a meandering roof deck that allows for over-the-roof-top views of the Santa Monica Mountains.

It's hard for Your Mama to imagine that after owning a couple handfuls of architecturally significant homes that quirky Miz Keaton would see this big, fancy and new if stylistically unremarkable mansion as her $5.6 million real estate destiny. Then again, maybe she's tired for fixing and selling. Maybe she plans to fix and sell this place. Who knows? If we've said it once we've said it dozens of times (too many): It's a futile game to attempt to unravel the mysteries behind the sometimes capricious-seeming real estate behaviors of the rich and/or famous.

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty