SELLER: Rose McGowanLOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,849,000
SIZE: 4,278 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Yesterday, while sipping an ice cold gin & tonic scoping out all the new listings in The City of Angels we ran across a particularly fetching abode in the Los Feliz area that set off all of Your Mama's highly-tuned celebrity real estate sensors. A short spin through the interweb and a few ringy-dingy's on our bedazzled Princess phone turned up two snitches who confirmed the house, listed with an asking price of $1,849,000, belongs to sultry actress, Boston Terrier advocate and sartorial daredevil Rose McGowan.
For better or worse and likely much to her chagrin, Miss McGowan will likely go down in Your Mama's (entirely subjective) version of Hollywood history for three things for which she might rather not be remembered: Her long-running role on that hare-brained tee-vee show about sister-witches Charmed, her 3.5 year relationship with Goth-rock provocateur Marilyn Manson and her sensationally ribald walk down the red carpet at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards in little more than a handful of beads that did nothing to conceal neither her booty nor her boobies. In an inexplicable nod to modesty, some of the children may recall, Miss McGowan did sport a sparkling pair of beaded thong panties that covered her (probably hairless) baby maker. Nowadays the Miss McGowan works her thing a far less scurrilous but still vixenish Betty Page-inspired sort of style mirrored in the day-core choices made in her house.
Anyhoo, Miss McGowan hung on to Charmed until it went off the air in 2006. A few of her more recent professional engagements include Brian de Palma's Black Dahlia, Quentin Tarantino's double-feature Grindhouse, Fifty Dead Men Walking and a stint on the boob-toob program Nip/Tuck with the also happy-to-be-expose-my-kiester-on-television Julian McMahon. According to her resume on the Internet Movie Data Base, Miss McGowan will appear in three movies in 2011 including a in the action-babe flicks Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja.
Property records show that Miss McGowan scooped up her walled and gated residence in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles in July of 2004 for $1,850,000. That's exactly one thousand dollars more that the property's current price tag of $1,849,000. Even with a full price sale–an unlikely event in today's still tough real estate times–Miss McGowan will be faced with a wham-blam to her pocketbook.
Old listing information Your Mama scared up out of the internets shows that Miss McGowan snapped up this house after just one day on the market. Listing information from that time also shows the house was priced at $1,749,000, which suggests that Miss McGowan paid about $100,000 more than the asking price. That was way back in 2004 when the market was sizzling. We doubt Miss McGowan will be so lucky but, chickens, iffin Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter were in the market for a nearly two-million smacker house in Los Feliz, we'd be all over this place lickety-split.
Listing information shows the muted coral-colored villa, an intriguing and exquisitely patinated melange of Spanish, Moroccan, Moorish and Andalusian architectural elements, was built in 1928 and spans 4,278 square feet. The house contains a total of 4 bedrooms–one located on the lower floor–and three bathrooms. Listing information indicates–but isn't entirely clear–that one of the upstairs bedrooms may have been converted to a walk-in closet/dressing room for all of Miss McGowan's many pairs of shoes and vintage dresses.
The front door, set dramatically into an elaborately carved stone threshold, opens into an impress-the-guests-style entrance hall with tile floor, double-height ceilings, stained glass window, decorative iron banister, minstrel's balcony and a trio arched doorways that lead to the living, dining and family rooms.
The sizable and architecturally swoon-worthy but not cavernous living room has peg-and-groove hardwood floors, a high pitched ceiling with exposed trusses, carved stone fireplace, classic arched window and four sets of French doors the open into courtyard-like gardens. While it certainly won't be to every one's liking, Miss McGowan's quirky personal style shines through in the living room that's done up with moss colored velvet Art Deco furniture, shimmery orange curtains (a bold statement that Your Mama loves but isn't fully effective here, and a burled wood credenza over which hangs an original lighted sign from the legendary Brown Derby restaurant that used to be at Hollywood and Vine. This may not be what we'd do with this house decoratively speaking but Your Mama would far more look at day-core that is an overt reflection of the occupant rather than to peep at the sterile decorative perfections that have been washed free of any personality and are often seen in most of the glossy shelter publications.
Miss McGowan wisely kept things basic in the nicely-proportioned formal dining room where a complicated geometric tile floor–that we hope and imagine is original to the house–takes center stage. The fab tile floor continues out a wide bank of French doors to a grassy and private part of the yard. A glorious and very shallow groin-vaulted ceiling graces the kitchen that opens to the dining room and is renovated in a manner that both preserved the original aesthetic of the house–note the lattice front lower cabinets–and added high-grade modern conveniences. The tile floor is an identical pattern to that in the dining room except with a tweaked color combination that swaps the red in the dining room for the yellow in the kitchen.
A family room with a coffered ceiling that mirrors the coffered detailing of the front door has hardwood floors, fireplace, built-in bookshelves filled with actual books–it seems Miss McGowan reads–and a big-ass flat screen tee-vee mounted on the wall above a streamlined Art Moderne cabinet. Like in the living room, Miss McGowan opted for Art Deco style furnishings–this time clean-lined black leather with white accents. Your Mama feels the room could benefit strongly from the introduction of a playful and richly colored antique Art Deco-style area rug with a rounder, more female pattern that plays off the hard edges of tile floors in the kitchen and dining room.
Miss McGowan's boo-dwar includes a bedroom with wood floors and French doors that open to a covered balcony with beautifully lathed wood columns and a perfectly period Jack-and-Jill-style pooper with spectacular lavender and black tile and historically accurate (and possibly original) fixtures.
While there does not seem to be a single large expanse of outdoor space there are several intimate courtyard-style terraces and patios that ring the residence and provide plenty of room for Miss McGowan's Boston Terriers or, perhaps, a couple of long bodied bitches like Your Mama and the Dr. Cooters' Linda and Beverly.
Miss McGowan's Los Feliz home has a long list of celebrity neighbors who include January Jones (Mad Men), Jon Hamm (also from Mad Men), Laura Prepon (That 70s Show), director David Fincher (The Social Network, Fight Club). A bit farther away are all the celebs that line the streets of the gated Laughlin Park community who include preggers Natalie Portman (Black Swan), pop star Natasha Bedingfield, Jenna and Bodhi Elfman, Casey Affleck and Summer Phoenix, and Black Eyed Pea will.i.am.
Previous to living in Los Feliz, Miss McGowan owned a Spanish-style casa in the historic Whiteley Heights 'hood in Hollywood. That house, interestingly, has had a slew of subsequent celebrity owners. Records show that Miss McGowan sold the house in July of 2004 for $1,235,000 to actress Rachel Bilson (The O.C.). Miss Bilson quickly caught a case of The Real Estate Fickle and sold the house in December of 2005 to the dee-voon Busy Phillips (Cougar Town) for $1,349,000. As far as Your Mama knows Miss Bilson still owns and occupies an abode in Los Feliz records show she bought in the fall of 2006 for $1,880,000.
Miss Busy and her rom-com screenwriter husband Marc Silverstein (He's Just Not That Into You) moved to bigger digs nearby they bought for $2,100,000 in March of 2008. In January of 2009 Miss Busy sold the 2,204 square foot house in the hills as a short sale for $1,075,000. We were told by the always knowledgeable informant Lucy Spillerguts that the house was acquired thespian turned tee-vee star Ginnifer Goodwin (Big Love) who recently became engaged to actor Joey Kern.
