SELLER: Sally HershbergerLOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $5,500,000
SIZE: 3,645 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in the golden olden days–that would be March of 2007–Your Mama discussed the Beverly Hills, CA house of super successful scissor sister Sally Hershberger. At that time the tress tycoon's low and sleek west coast residence was listed with an astonishing price tag of $6,500,000.
The fully renovated, updated and upgraded 1960s modern was only on the (open) market for a few months before it vanished. But it's back, butter beans, only this time with a new and lower but still back breaking sticker price of $5,500,000.
Born into a substantial Kansas oil fortune, Miss Hershberger took to doing hair at an early age. While her list of accomplishments as a honcho of high-end hair is long, her claim to fame is that she's the She-rah of the Shag. Miss Hershberger, who herself sports a version of her signature shag style, is the woman responsible for the precisely tussled and perfectly choppy do that arguably made Meg Ryan's trademark hair do more famous then she ever was. In addition to Miz Ryan, Miss Hershberger boasts a bevy of past and present celeb clients include Kate Moss, Sandra Bernhard, Jane Fonda, Calista Flockhart, Vera Wang, and Annie Liebovitz who–if y'all will allow Your Mama to be catty for a moment–really shouldn't be spending more than six bucks to have her hair cut since she's constantly on the precipice of bankruptcy.
The notoriously aloof Miss Hershberger, a slim, rough and tumble type of gal not known for having a very pleasant or chatty chair side manner, took the tonsorial world by storm in 2003 when she opened an eponymous (and unmarked) salon in New York City's newly gentrified Meatpacking District and charged $600 for a damn haircut. It wasn't long before fellow Meatpacking District celebrity hair stylist Orlando Pita had the chutzpah–or, some will say, audacity–to up the price of his coiffuring services to $800. Miss Hershberger soon followed suit and raised the cost of one of her hair clips to $800. And, cinnamon sticks, people pay it, willingly and frequently. If forking over $800 just to have your hair snipped and styled seems a bit steep–and let's be honest, chickens, it's more than most people in this good ol' U.S. of A. pay in rent every month–Miss Hershberger developed an affordable line of hair care products sold at mass retailers such as Walgreens.
While New York-based, Miss Hershberger still owns a salon space in Los Angeles, which happens to be in the very same building as the offices of decorating dervish Kelly Wearstler. In addition to the above mentioned unmarked Meatpacking District space, she has a second New York City hair care emporiums for all the uptown ladeez located on two floors of a posh townhouse on East 71st Street.
Anyhoo, property records reveal that Miss Hershberger bought her Beverly Hills home in January of 2004 for $2,400,000. Given the jacked up asking price, Your Mama has to assume that she spent boo-coo bucks working this place over and fixing every broken doohickey and thingamabob.
Listing information shows the single story house, fronted by a gated motor court, measures a sizable but hardly huge 3,645 square feet. The three bedrooms and five poopers including the master suite at the rear of the residence that includes built-in bookshelves, fireplace, large sepia toned photograph over the bed that shows a preening and shiny horse, and a large private pooper with a spa tub sunk in to the terrazzo floors and a glass box shower. A full wall of frameless floor to ceiling glazing completely exposes the bathroom to a courtyard area with a shallow, rectilinear and minimalist lily pond. While this is all very theatrical in photos, in practice things could get a bit dicey iffin yer in the shower or settin' on the terlit and around the corner comes the unsuspecting gardener looking to trim the bushes and mow the lawn. Perhaps these windows have some of that new-fangled technology that frosts them over at the flip of a switch.
The ample, prairie-like main living space, with its vast expanse of eggshell colored terrazzo floors, includes a dining area and several sitting groups, one of which has a minimalist firebox and wood storage box trimmed with polished stainless steel and chocolate and caramel colored marble accents. A sensually curving wall of floor to ceiling glass panels obliterates any visual separation between the living room and the terrazzo terrace that surrounds the small but adequate, abstract shaped swimming pool. Panoramic views, the kind that wealthy Angelenos pay multi-millions to wake up to–stretch dramatically from the Hollywood Hills all the way to–on a clear day–the Pacific Ocean.
In the dining room, Your Mama is all bugged-eyed and bewitched over the half dozen luh-shus tri-legged Hans Wegner Heart Chairs that surround a rustic tressel-style table that may or may not be a $65,000 George Nakashima Frenchman's Cove table. We are not so bugged-eyed or bewitched by the photograph–or maybe it's a painting–on the wall behind the dee-voon dining room table. The painting–or photo or whatever–depicts a couple of virile-looking, wild-maned horses rubbing noses in a moment of private horse passion. Iffin Your Mama is being honest, and we always are, we're not sure what to make of Miss Hershberger's confusing affinity for equine imagery.
A sliver skylight sends soft light down a geometrically textured matte-finish wall in the kitchen juxtaposed against glistening white flat front cabinets that both hide the refrigerator and hold an array of high grade stainless steel appliances. The stone counter top of the work island cantilevers over the base to create a bantam breakfast bar just big enough to two to sip coffee and eat grapefruit.
Additional living areas, according to listing information, include a den, library, "bonus room," exercise room, office and a media/music room. Where not sure how all that fits into 3,600 square foot, but that's what the listing says. Listing information also states Miss Hershberger's home was recently featured in House & Garden. Maybe it was, but it wasn't recently since that shelter publication, at least the American version, closed its doors and shuttered its windows at the tail end of 2007.
In July of 2010 Miss Hershberger heaved her 905 square foot New York City penthouse pad on the market with a hair raising asking price of $5,900,000. The small but dee-lishus apartment, worked over by architect Brad Floyd and interior designer to the rich and famous Joe d'Urso–he also did up the Hamptons digs of celebrity stylist Lori Goldstein, remains unsold an on the market with its rose-colored five-point-nine million dollar sticker price.
In addition her house in Beverly Hills and her petite penthouse in New York City's West Village neighborhood–both of which are for sale–Miss Hershberger also owns a weekend retreat in the Hamptons, natch. Property records show that in December of 1999 Miss Hershberger paid $930,000 for a waterfront retreat in a woodsy, less expensive area of hoity-toity East Hampton, NY known as The Springs. As far as we know, which is next to nothing, Miss Hershberger's house in The Springs is not for sale.
listing photos: Prudential CA via Redfin
