SELLER: Linda EvansLOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $3,295,000
SIZE: 3,904 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen, ginger snaps, the celebrity real estate world is dry as toast right now. Sure, Jennifer Aniston is reported to be shopping for a New York City pied a terre and new reports indicate that Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick didn't buy Loews theater heiress Laurie Tisch's sprawling and awkwardly laid out doo-plex on the Upper West Side after all. But in general we got diddly-squat, or next to squat anyway.
Taking our current information impoverished circumstances into account, bear with Your Mama as we continue our ugly quest to scrape some of the hardened up wads of gum off the bottom of our desk. One of the older hunks of gum clinging to our desktop is the Beverly Hills, CA residence that former actress Linda Evans put on the market more than a month ago with an asking price of $3,295,000.
Miz Evans, of course, is best known for her role as the iconic, flaxen haired high society beehawtcha Krystle Carrington on the 1980s night time soap story Dynasty. Her time in the business of show, however, began long before she solidified her role in pop cultural history with Dynasty. Among many other roles, in the early 1960s she played on The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, in the late sixties she shook her money maker opposite the legendary Barbara Stanwyck on The Big Valley and in the 1970s she appeared on Hunter as Marty Shaw, a U.S. government spy whose cover was, natch, as a model.
Along the way she married and went the court of dee-vorce twice, first with Beverly Hills Realtor Stan Herman and then with actor John Derek. She spent much of the 1980s in the company of mustachioed musician Yanni, an enormously successful New Age-y sort of fellow with a distinct musical aroma of cheese ball in the same vein as saxophonist Kenny G and singer Michael Bolton. At some point in the late 80s or early 1990s Miz Evans high tailed in out of Tinseltown for the rugged streets of Tacoma, WA. The move was, allegedly, embarked on so that Miz Evans could be nearer to her controversial (and some say crack pot) spiritual guide J.Z. Knight, a mystic-ladee who goes around telling people she channels some Lemurian warrior named Ramtha, whoever the devil that is.
Anyhoo, Miz Evans moved to Tacoma where she owned a chain of fitness centers and, until the early 2000s, lived at the Villa Madera (previously called Villa Carman), a 10,000+ square foot mansion built in 1919. The scenically situated lake front residence has 6 bedrooms, 6 fireplaces, a hotel lobby sized 1,400 square foot living room with 18-foot ceilings and a 1,200 square foot master bedroom with sitting area, fireplace and his and her poopers and dressing rooms. She sold the property, according to property records, in June of 2002 for $1,900,000.
All during her time in Tacoma, Miz Evans kept her home in Beverly Hills in her property portfolio. She probably occupied the house from time to time over the years she shacked up primarily in Tacoma but back in the fall of 2007 Your Mama heard from Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills that Miz Evans put her house in the Bev Hills Post Office out for lease with an asking price of $14,500 per month. We're not sure whether Miz Evans managed to lease out the house and, if so, at what price. What is clear is that she no longer wishes to own the home, which is why, of course, it's on the market.
Property records show that Miz Evans has owned the house since October of 1981 when she paid $590,000 for the near half-acre mini-estate tucked up into a quiet cul-de-sac in the Post Office area of Beverly Hills. The "Post Office" designation means that it has a Bev Hills zip code but City of Los Angeles services, a distinction that anyone in the 90210 will tell you is of enormous import when it comes to publicly schooling children or calling the po-po to come deal with the crack head quasi-celebrity neighbor who has a tendency to roam around the neighborhood in his (or her) under garments pulling weeds up out of other people's yards.
Current listing information shows the single story brick ranch spreads out over 3,904 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms, 5.5 poopers and 3 fireplaces. The walled, hedged and electronically gated grounds include a large circular drive at the front of the house where the front door is discreetly set into a small paneled alcove flanked by a couple of potted citrus trees. The long wood floored entry hall stretches clear through the house from the front door to a pair of French doors in the family room that open to the brick terrace at the back of the house.
To the right of the entry is the cozy formal dining room and to the right a partly wood paneled living room with vaulted wood-paneled ceiling, hardwood floors and a brick built corner fireplace. Beyond the dining room, an awful awful awful cornflower blue kountry kitchen has a large butler's pantry, sunny breakfast nook that overlooks the front yard, blue and white floral wallpaper and an exhaust hood over the island range that looks large enough to suck up every molecule of the smog in Los Angeles. Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter once had an old farmhouse on the east coast that came to use with a eyeball punishing cornflower blue kountry kitchen. We ripped that sucker out as soon as we had the dough-re-me to do so. But we digress...
A long multi-level family room that runs along the back of the house has hardwood floors, a raised eating area, built-in barbecue and booze bar, and a wall of floor to ceiling glass panels that look out on the small backyard and the steep hillside that rises directly behind the house. The family room looks like it got hit by the decorating stick of some nice, gay decorator whose decorative schtick is Mario Buatta goes to the French-ish countryside in 1982. There's a chintz roll-armed sofa, striped arm chairs, antique looking southwestern style rugs and the most upsetting balloon valance Your Mama has had the misfortune of laying eyes on for a long time. The track lighting and angular all glass coffee table are merely the icing on the démodé decorative cake. But in all fairness we're not sure if this day-core reflects the outdated and gurly taste of Miz Evans or that of a recent tenant...remember, she leased the house out before putting it on the market.
Anyhoo, back in the bedroom wing the master suite features a wood-paneled and barrel vaulted ceiling, sitting area in front of on imported fireplace, walk-in closets and oatmeal colored wall to wall carpeting. Your Mama regrets to inform the children that the oatmeal wall to wall goes right on into at least one of the two master poopers where there is also a sauna and a dangerous looking sunken soaking tub. A detached structure with private pooper can be used an a home office, fitness room, guest unit or sex dungeon, whatever your needs or pleasures may be.
Most of the usable outdoor space is actually in the front of the house and there's just a slim courtyard style back yard runs along the back of the house. A couple of brick terraces sit at opposite ends of the petite swimming pool that sits so damn close to the house that it gives Your Mama the vertigo just to think of the inner fortitude it would take to navigate that narrow strip of brick between the pool and the house after a long afternoon nipping at the bottle. You know what we're saying, you know you do. A low brick wall divides the shaded terrace from the steeply sloping hillside where scads of birds of paradise plants arch over the swimming pool like praying mantis looking to snatch up a puppy or a small child.
listing photos: Prudential California Realty–Beverly Hills
