SELLERS: Katy Perry and Russell BrandLOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,395,000 (list); $3,300,000 (sale)
SIZE: 4,706 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Cool your jets and loosen them pin curls now, children. Your Mama is well aware we are inexcusably tardy to this here celebrity real estate party. None the less we feel the need this morning to touch upon the recent and severe case of The Real Estate Fickle caught by Grammy-winning SoCal native Katy Perry and bawdy, vulgar and makin'-it-in-America British comedian Russell Brand.
In December of 2009, almost a year before the increasingly rich and famous couple officially hitched their wagons in a traditional Hindu ceremony at a lavish resort in India, he/she/they coughed up $3,250,000 for a walled, gated and recently reworked residence in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, CA.
Current listing information for the house, which the newlyweds only put on the market about two weeks ago with an asking price of $3,395,000, shows it was originally built in 1922, stands a total of four stories tall, does not have an elevator, measures 4,702 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. Close to 20 sets of French doors that open many rooms to multiple terraces and terraced back yard.
The public entertaining rooms have a circular flow that's good for the chi and include a sizable living room wrapped in French doors that frame city views, formal dining room with a tinsel-like silver wall covering and an all-white eat-in kitchen with marble counter tops. The kitchen opens to a family room and breakfast area where more French doors open to a small city-view terrace shaded by a striped awning.
Upstairs a library provides a more private lounging area and shares a full bath with a separate office where the personal assistants of the homes wealthy and/or celebrity residents can toil the day away in relative seclusion. The "ballroom" sized master bedroom has 13-foot ceilings, fireplace, balcony with city view through still more French doors, a five-star hotel-style bathroom and an a-lister's walk-in closet/dressing room.
The terraced grounds include long strips of long bordered by stone balustrades, an intimate stone-walled courtyard with gurgling stone fountain, a small-ish swimming pool and elevated circular spa with peek-a-boo view, a stone dining pergola dripping with vines and gated motor court and direct-entry three car garage.
When we first looked at the current listing photos for Mister Brand and Miz Perry's unwanted residence we thought the decidedly spare and contemporary day-core was staged. A few days later, our booze goggles still in the liquor cabinet, we looked a little a closer and realized the current listing photos are the exact same as those used for the listing and marketing materials at the time Miz Perry and Mister Brand bought the house in late 2009. This, hunnies, could only mean one of a few things:
1. Mister Brand and Miz Perry purchased or rented the crisp if eensy bit recherché day-core, added little or no personal effects and used the house only minimally as more of a hotel than a home.
2. They've declined to have their Tinseltown crash pad photographed for public consumption. Pity that because Your Mama imagines these two colorful and bawdy people would create some kind of wicked fairyland of alternately too-trendy and wonderfully personal and quirky day-core.
Although it can be dangerous to question and futile to attempt to sort out the fickle real estate ways of the rich and famous Your Mama can't help our self and all too frequently tie our mind up in knots trying to figure out what's up with all these rich and famous folks people who can't seem to sit still in a house long enough for even a pot of water to boil. Then again, who are we to get persnickety about such matters? Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are neither rich nor famous and in the decade we've shared the same tube of toothpaste we've between us has rented or owned 13 apartments, homes, weekend houses, offices and studio spaces. Anyhoo, in the case of Mister Brand and Miz Perry, their reasons may (or may not) be related to constant aching ass muscles due to the lack of an elevator in the 4-floor residence and/or their desire for a more a-list abode in which to alight when camping out on in Tinseltown.
Your Mama recently heard through the real estate gossip grapevine that the beauty and the beast-like couple want to play with the real estate big boys and have been combing some of the better zip codes in Los Angeles for a larger and much more expensive celebrity-style crib in the ten to fifteen million dollar range. In fact, we heard from our chatty informant Nelly Knowsitall that the pair peeped their real estate eyes on Ben and Christine Stiller's two-house compound in the star-riddled Outpost Estates area of Los Angeles, now listed with an $11,495,000 price tag.
Mister and Missus Stiller–who officially relocated to a ten million dollar duplex in New York City–have had their house on and off the (open) market since September 2009 when it was put out there with an asking price of $12,500,000.
Neither do we have a horse in this race nor do–we imagine–Mister Brand and Miz Perry care a goddam whit about what Your Mama thinks but we're going give our humble and meaningless opinion anyway. We think Mister Brand and Miz Perry ought not opt for a residence with much if any gravitas of any kind. It just doesn't suit their public image(s). They would do better, we feel, were they to buy something rather absurd, over the top and utterly ridiculous like, say, the 9,000 square foot Villa Fiona, a melodramatic mansion just down the road from the Stiller spread that has an $8,485,000 asking price and includes 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, crazy trompe l'oeil detailing everywhere and a screening room with a distinctly ecclesiastical and slightly unnerving architectural thing happening.
According to Redfin, the property was put into escrow a week ago so it appears that Mister Brand and Miz Perry are some of the lucky real estate winners who just might skate away from their real estate mistake with a minimal loss.
A few minutes research on the interweb shows that Mister Brand and Miz Perry continue to own a petite and less-than-optimally-laid-out duplex penthouse in New York City's TriBeCa neighborhood that property records show was purchased in September 2010 for $2,680,000.
listing photos: Teles Properties
