BUYER: Katy Perry and Russell BrandLOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $6,500,000
SIZE: 8,835 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne are not the only titans in the music and entertainment industry making real estate headlines this week, so are increasingly powerful showbiz young guns Katy Perry and her bawdy British comedian hubby Russell Brand.
It was only in December 2009 when the pop star and the comedian–then not married–shelled out $3,250,000 for a fully renovated and updated four story house with 4,706 square feet and a city view in the historic Los Feliz area of Los Angeles nestled into the foothills just below the magnificent Griffith Park.
Just about 2.5 years later, in May 2011, the button-pushing pair put the 4 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom house on the market with an asking price of $3,395,000. The fact that young Missus Perry-Brand's security team had to call the po-po in March 2011 after some moe-ron fan sat suspiciously out front of the house for several hours may or may not have had something to do with their decision to sell the gated but not particularly private property.
Listing information shows the couple's Los Feliz house is now in escrow and recent reports reveal that Miss Perry and Mister Brand–now husband and wife–have just acquired a much pricier and more private a-list type of residence about 5.5 miles due west in the lower Laurel Canyon area.
Property records show the couple's new crib, a double-gated 2.98 acre estate perched on a private promontory, was purchased just this week for $6,500,000. Listing information and previous reports on the property–sold by former National Lampoon CEO Danial Laikin who was sent to the slammer last year on a fraud conviction–shows the three-story main mansion was built in 1925 and measures 8,835 square feet with 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms and at least 5 fireplaces. The expansive estate also includes two detached guest residences that could also be used for staff, office space or a recording studio.
Although without much ornamentation on the exterior, the tile-roofed Mediterranean mansion drips with exquisite (and original) architectural detailing on the inside. The two-story circular entry has a sweeping staircase with intricate wood and wrought iron banister, inlaid marble floor and faux-stone walls, or at least we think that block pattern is a paint treatment but in truth we really aren't sure. A pair of arched doorways lead into the magnificently proportioned living room that includes wood floors, double-height hand-painted wood-beam ceiling, monolithic stone mantelpiece and minstrel's balcony. A soaring arched window that makes Your Mama tremble with envy has towering side lights that open to a small terrace with panoramic view of the urban carpet that is Los Angeles. The adjacent formal dining room also has gorgeous city views but who can look out the window when the ceiling is blessed with an antique hand-painted honey-comb pattern ceiling?
Other living areas, according to listing information, include a vast eat-in kitchen renovated with great expense but middle-brow style, a family room with antique carved stone corner fireplace, billiard room, a media room with wide-screen projector system and built-in snack counter. But of course, the new Mister and Missus of the house may opt to redecorate and re-purpose rooms so the day-core and utility of the rooms shown in the above listing photos is all but irrelevant.
At the front of the house a broad lawn at the front of the house encircled by a circular driveway makes a rather grand statement while the various tiled terraces, patios and balconies that surround the house provide more intimate lounging, dining and entertainment areas. A grotto-style swimming pool, tucked behind the detached garage and guest house off the front driveway, nestles into the steep hillside that drips with lush foliage and a small stream spanned by a Japanese style arched bridge tumbles down a rock waterfall into the pool.
Your Mama wonders if Miss Perry plans to install the vintage-looking pink fridge/freezer at the new house that she had put into the kitchen of her old house in Los Feliz.
listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty / Beverly Hills
