OWNERS: Charlize Theron and Stuart TownsendLOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $30,000 / month
SIZE: 2,095 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama recently came across the listing for an ocean front house in Malibu, CA available to lease with a steep but not unheard of for Malibu asking price of $30,000 per month. It was late, Your Mama was tired and full of gin. The house looked familiar but we just couldn't focus our fuzzy mind to figure out just which famous person owns the house.
Exasperated with our failing memory, we took to the interweb where we discovered the ugly on the outside pretty on the inside residence belongs to Charlize Theron and her not nearly as successful former boy-beau, actor Stuart Townsend. The wonderfully unafraid to look 12 kinds of ugly for a part Miss Theron is not only a statuesque and uncommonly beautiful Academy Award winning actress (Monster, North Country, The Italian Job, The Cider House Rules) she is, as it turns out, a bit of a budding real estate mogul; She owns no fewer than 6 homes and condos in the Los Angeles area, a couple of which she owns with her ex-man-friend Mister Stuart.
In late 2009, after 8 or 9 years of messin' around, Miss Theron and Mister Townsend called it quits. Like the blizzard of other a-list Tinseltown actresses who will remain nameless but frequently rebound from long-term romance and marriage shockingly quickly, Miss Theron has done moved on too. It's reported the blond turned brunette is now gettin' with the much more macho but not any more successful actor Eric Thal who appeared Law & Order: Criminal Intent from 2001 through 2006. Since then, according to his Internet Movie Database resume, he's worked very little in the showbiz.
Since earning her Oscar, South African born Miss Theron has appeared in a bunch of films Your Mama ain't never heard of like Battle in Seattle and The Burning Plain. She's currently producing and starring in the Diablo Cody written/Jason Reitman directed Young Adult and it's rumored she'll be shaking her money maker as The Wicked Queen opposite Johnny Depp in the not yet filming Snow White and the Huntsman.
Lucky Miss Theron doesn't even need to make a damn movie to bring in boo-coo bucks and keep her bills paid up and on time. No siree, children. Thanks to her smoldering good looks and outrageous success, Miss Theron reportedly rakes in two million clams a year for endorsing Christian Dior's J'Adore terlit water and another $2,500,000 a year for her endorsement contract with Swiss made Raymond Weil watches
According to property records, Miss Theron purchased her first home in Los Angeles in June of 1998 when she shelled out $1,650,000 for a 5,005 square foot walled and gated Mediterranean style mansion in the star-studded Outpost Estates neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills. Some time ago, one of Your Mama's many real estate spies whispered in out ear that Miss Theron had embarked on a major renovation of the property that may or may not be completed by now.
Some of Miss Theron's neighbors in the Outpost Estates include homes owned by Gore Vidal, Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy, and Orlando Bloom. Until recently Scarlett Johansson owned a house on the same street as Miss Theron until she sold it at a gut churning $3,000,000 loss.
In April of 2000, Miss Theron bought a modest 1925 Spanish charmer in West Hollywood for $519,000. The hedged and gated 1,539 square foot house, located walking distance to the Beverly Center, has just 2 bedrooms and 1 pooper according to the Los Angeles County tax man.
Perhaps paid for with monies earned on her über successful pair of 2003 films (The Italian Job, Monster), Miss Theron and her man-friend Mister Townsend bought themselves a beach bungalow in The Bu. Records reveal that in January of 2003 the erstwhile couple laid out $3,495,000 to purchase an oceanfront home on La Costa Beach from actor Steven Weber.
Current listing information for the house, available to let for a not insubstantial thirty grand a month, reveals the white stucco and red tile roof residence measures 2,095 square feet and includes a total of 3 bedrooms and 3.5 poopers. One of the bedrooms has a private entrance, which Your Mama thinks is just dee-voonly perfect for overnight guests like our practically feral b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau who, when she comes for a visit, has the troubling tendency to drag any ol' cat home with her at night. This way, her "friends"–about whom she always tells Your Mama just need to come in to use the terlit–wouldn't have to traipse through our living room on the way to Fiona's "terlit."
Anyhoo, like most houses in Malibu, Miss Theron and Mister Stuart's beach bungalow sits on a tight lot cheek to jowl with the neighboring properties. The house, the oldest house on La Costa Beach according to listing information, has charcoal colored slate flooring throughout the lower level that includes a cozy living room with fireplace and an ocean view window seat and a lanai–or sun porch or whatever–wrapped on three sides with wood-framed floor to ceiling glass panels that slide open to the seaside deck.
The day-core, a colorful and inviting hodge-podge of high and low, inexpensive and expensive, appeals to Your Mama because it actually looks like the (beach) residence of an actual person. A rich, actual person, but a real person none the less rather than looking like it was all done up by a nice, gay decorator.
Maximum use was squeezed out of the narrow dining room room with it's built in bench seating with olive green cushions and tough wearing canvas throw cushions for extra comfort. Miss Theron and Mister Stuart, clearly no slave to any specific or restrictive decorative dialect, suspended a funky chandelier over the extra-long and rustic and long farmhouse table and hung a couple dozen over-sized antique skeleton keys on the wall for visual interest in the manner of artwork.
The kitchen has poured concrete cabinets and counter tops, glossy black doors on the lower cabinets, open shelving up top, a a sexy six-burner Viking range. Your Mama can get down with Miss Theron and Mister Stuart's too cluttered counter tops because all that cockamamie crap on the counter actually gives the place a homey lived in look that we find seductive. However, we're deeply saddened and decoratively disheartened to see that Miss Theron and Mister Stuart hung a dangerous looking pot rack hanging directly over the sink. We can only hope that this crime of kitchen day-core hasn't been repeated in all of Miss Theron's many residences.
The small but adequately sized ocean view master bedroom upstairs has honey-colored hardwood floors, a fireplace with a minimalist concrete surround, a wall-mounted boob-toob, and a private pooper with sea foam blue tile work and a soaking tub for two set into a bay window through which the ocean can be seen. The simply furnished bedroom has a custom built white tufted headboard surrounded by built in shelves filled with actual books for a change, a Jute rug, a credenza we would d.i.e. for, and canvas colored curtains that slide over the beachy matchstick blinds
The hardworking backyard deck, far more contemporary than the exterior of the house–we keep thinking that the carpets don't match the drapes– wraps around the back of the house with steps down to the sand and shore includes a sunken hot tub, built-in bench seating for sunset watching, a ping-pong table, fire-pit, sunbathing loungers, and a simple structure that hold strips of bright orange fabric panels that can be opened or closed depending on how Miss Theron and/or Mister Stuart wish to create or eliminate shade.
Other tidbits and morsels at the unassuming beach house include a drop down tee-vee, sound system security cameras, a walled front courtyard and single car garage, and a cute little space under the deck to hang beach toys.
The year after buying her beach house with Mister Townsend, in July of 2004, Miss Theron forked over an even-steven $3,000,000 for a 2,764 square foot house privately situated down a long private drive off of the famed and fabulous Mulholland Drive. A brief examination of the property records and Your Mama is somewhat certain that Mister Stuart has no direct ownership of this 3 bedrooms and 3 pooper property. Perhaps this is where Miss Theron's mother lives? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
In December of 2005, Miss Theron bought a second house on the very same West Hollywood street where she bought a wee nest in April of 2000. This time Miss Theron layed out $1,843,000 for a 2,019 square foot Spanish style casa with 4 bedrooms and 3 poopers.
The most perplexing and seemingly irrational real estate choice Miss Theron has made was in September of 2007 when she scooped up a 2,350 square foot penthouse doo-plex at the celebrity friendly Broadway Hollywood building smack in the heart of Hollywood. Other famous condo owners in the building include Jason Statham, Danny Masterson and 30-year old Wilmer Valderrama who may or may not have been dating 18-year old Disney darling Demi Lovato before she got herself up in the rehab facility recently.
Property records show the Miss Theron paid a rather stunning $2,760,500 for the lofty-like corner condo that has 2 bedrooms, 2 poopers, a living room surrounded by windows and views up and down Hollywood Boulevard, two small terraces on the first floor and a larger terrace on the second floor with an outdoor fireplace and private access to the building's residents only rooftop swimming pool.
At the same time Miss Theron was signing the deed's dotted line for her penthouse doo-plex, Mister Townsend–who was at that time still her one and only–paid $1,255,000 for the open plan (and single level) 1 bedroom and 1 pooper penthouse loft-condo next door. The "L" shaped unit has a trio of French doors that open to a north facing terrace that connects to one of the terraces off Miss Theron's condo pied a terre. Perhaps now that Mister Townsend got put out of Miss Theron's Sugar Momma Land, this is where he's shacking up? Could be. Maybe not. We don't know.
Your Mama has no idea if Miss Theron and Mister Townsend proceeded to spend additional funds to remodel and combine the two units and we can't even imagine why Miss Theron and Mister Stuart would spend a nearly four million dollars combined to buy up a couple of condos located less than 2.5 miles from their Outpost Estates mansion at all. However, if we've said it twice we've said it more times than we can count that: Who are we to understand the wacky real estate ways of the rich and famous?
listing photos: Coldwell Banker Previews
