SELLER: Daria 'Dasha' Zhukova
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $16,500,000
SIZE:9,691 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 8.5 bathrooms
UPDATE: Since this discussion Your Mama received a missive from a representative of Miss Zhukova who informed us the property is, "most definitely not for sale." For the record, the real estate aggregating website Redfin shows the property was listed on the 15th of November and quickly de-listed on the 17th of November. You got that, butter beans? She says it's not for sale so it's not for sale.
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In September of 2008, one of the largest estates in The Bird Street area of Los Angeles above the Sunset Strip came on the market with an über optimistic asking price of $29,000,000. By August of the following year the price tags and plummeted to $21,900,000.
Then along comes the a gal named Dasha Zhukova, the Russian born American bred daughter of a wealthy oil tycoon and arms dealer and the twenty-something year old ladee-friend of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. In December of 2009 Miss Zhukova pushed out Mister Abramovich's sixth shorty and just a month later, according property records and previous reports, she signed on the deed's dotted and paid $19,500,000 for the 9,691 square foot mansion.
Since Miss Zhukova lives primarily in London and Moscow–and on whichever of Mister Abramovich's many mega-yachts–the humongous house high in the hills above LaLa Land was purchased as a pied a terre where she could stay when visiting her mother or–since she owns and oversees a pioneering contemporary art gallery in Moscow and was until recently the Editor-In-Chief of the fashion/art/culture publication Pop magazine–look at art or whatever it is she does in Los Angeles.
Anyhoo, Miss Zhukova grew bored–or something–with her pied a terre in Tinseltown and flipped her huge house in The Bird Streets above the Sunset Strip back on the market with an asking price of $16,500,000.
No, puppies, Your Mama's flying fingers did make not a mistake. Miss Zhukova actually listed the Los Angeles mansion she bought only 11 months ago ago for $3,000,000 less than she paid for the place. That's a hair curling loss but when your father and man-friend combined are worth more than the GDP of any number of sub-Saharan countries, it probably stings a little less.
Now, how many times have we told the children how fickle rich and/or famous people are when it comes to their real estate? So capricious they'll take a multi-million dollar loss on a house they just don't want anymore. Harumph.
photo: Bing