SELLER: Daniel Dae KimLOCATION: Honolulu, HI
PRICE: $2,430,000
SIZE: 3,354 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Do the recent real estate doings of actor Daniel Dae Kim reveal something about the fate of the recent and ree-donk-ulous redux of Hawaii Five-O. Maybe, maybe not. Of course, Your Mama don't know a doorknob from a drainpipe about the current iteration of Hawaii Five-O, but thanks to Lei'lani Lets'usknow we've learned that just before Christmas (2010) Mister Kim and his wifey Mia flipped a housey-house in Honolulu, HI they bought just six short months earlier back on the market with an asking price of $2,430,000.
Hawaiian press reports also reveal that Mister Kim recently sold his stake in the Honolulu outpost of the franchised burger joint, The Counter. Co-inky-dink? Or is Mister Kim in the process of lightening his property portfolio and other investments in the Aloha State in anticipation of packing up his grass skirts and moving stateside? Make of all that what y'all will.
Although most of the world knew not a thing of Mister Kim until 2004 when he showed up on the recently wrapped-up cult hit Lost, he's a stage-trained actor who has worked the highways and byways of Hollywood since the mid-1990s when he got started with small parts in programs like Beverly Hills 90210, Seinfeld, Ally McBeal, Party of Five and All-American Girl, the high-stericial comedienne Margaret Cho's short-lived and dumbed-down sit-com about the most unfunny Korean family ever known to mankind.
In the late 1990s he landed a lead role on some program we've never heard of called Crusade and in the early 2000s Mister Kim secured a recurring role in Angel, one of the first of too many movies and boob-toob about vampires. Oh, lowerd hunnies, Your Mama will have to drive a damn stake through our own heart iffin we have to hear about, read about or heaven for fend watch another stoo-pid thing about vampires. Word to the Hollywood wise: The vampire trend has done played itself out and any more money you sink into the development any more copy-cat tee-vee shows or movies about hot-bodied bloodsuckers is akin to tossing money down the terlit. Trust, darlin', trust. Done. Kaput. Fini. Okay?
Anyhoodles poodles, he filled the few years between Angel and Lost with recurring roles on Miss Match, Star Trek: Enterprise, ER and 24. Currently the Korean-born and American-bred Mister Kim shakes his money-maker as Chin Ho Kelly on the silly and unnecessary reprise of Hawaii Five-O with Golden Globe-nominated Tinseltown scion Scott Caan.
Apropos of nuthin'to do with this discussion on Mister Kim's Hawaiian real estate doings, we ran across a mug shot of Mister Kim from 2007 when he was arrested on a DUI charge. Now, sweet potatoes, as awful and unwise as it is to drink and then operate a vehicle and it is indeed a terrible thing to do, just ask that poor Lindsay Lohan gurl if it's worth it to booze it up and drive it is arguably equally a crime to run around with a man-bouffant like this tonsorial hot mess Mister Kim sported on the day he got pulled over by the po-po. Oh, child, no. Please, no.
We digress yet again. Property records show that in June of 2010 Mister and Missus Kim shelled out $2,211,250 for a single-story residence on a short cul-de-sac just a block or two from the beach in the upscale Honolulu 'hood of Kahala, on the quiet east side of the long dormant Diamond Head volcano that dominates and defines the skyline in Honolulu. Thankfully, the neighborhood sits well away from the scantily-clad chaos of tourist-jammed Waikiki on the west side of Diamond Head, where vacationers–many of whom, like Your Mama, should not be seen in public in any sort of state of undress–fry themselves in the sun like they are a saltwater-bloated chicken breast.
Listing information for the residence, which clearly states that the home is "celebrity owned," shows it was built in 1948, is "partially renovated" by architect Peter Vincent and measures 3,354 square feet with a total of 5 bedrooms and 2.5 tropical poopers. It's not known nor does it really matter if Mister and Missus Kim ever occupied the nondescript residence or even if they ever planned to occupy the house. But based on the listing photos, which show no signs of life, including shelves devoid of books or other personal effects, we'd put our money on The Great Real Estate Roulette Wheel's Red Number 23 that the house is staged by Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota and that the Kim clan does not currently reside in this house. More on that later.
The residence has a rather mousy kind of curb appeal with a small front yard, a front-facing two-car carport and a shallow porch too narrow, it appears to our boozy eyes, to even set a little bamboo chair. The house does not stand on ceremony or architectural formality and as such the front door opens directly into a long, featureless living room. About the only thing worth a mention in the entry/living room is the ochre-colored (travertine or marble) tile floors. There, we mentioned them.
Although utterly nonplussed by the ochre-colored tile floors that continue right on into the dining area, things do perk up a wee bit with the long shed-roof skylight that runs the length of the dining room. Even more sugar in the real estate coffee is the extra-wide bank of eight-pane doors that slide open to a vine-shaded lanai. The dining room opens into the large kitchen with a myriad of cattywompus counter angles, very ordinary white raised-panel cabinetry topped with mottled grey and beige counter tops.
At least two of the five bedrooms open to the backyard, including the master bedroom that has two walls of sliding doors that, when pushed open, transform the room into a blissful if not entirely private open-air sleeping porch. The attached bath, the floor and walls slathered with the same tile style as the floor in the living, dining and kitchen areas, has a long vanity with two sinks, a separate shower and jetted tub.
In the backyard a small patch of grass separates the vine-shaded lanai from the terracing that surrounds the beautifully rectilinear swimming pool with old-style diving board. All around palm trees sway in the ocean breezes and speckle the blue blue blue Hawaiian sky.
Although we can't say with any certainty where Mister and Missus Kim currently shack up, both public and property records for the house they just flipped back onto the market link back to another house in the same fancy-pants Kahala neighborhood. That house, however, is not owned by Mister and/or Missus Kim, but, rather, was purchased in July of 2008 for $3,500,000 by a Hong Kong-based investment banker. The walled and gated residence measures 5,292 square feet with 5 bedrooms, five full terliting and bathing facilities and two additional powder poopers.
listing photos: East Oahu Realty via American Dream Realty
