BUYER: Natasha Henstridge and Darius CampbellLOCATION: Sherman Oaks, CA
PRICE: $1,300,000
SIZE: 3,476 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: When she was just 14 years old actress Natasha Hentsridge legally emancipated herself, packed her bags, left the Canadian trailer park where she lived with her parents and decamped for the chic streets of Paris where she stomped the catwalks as a fresh-faced if barely pubescent walking manikin. At 15 she appeared on the cover of the French version of Cosmopolitan. Six years and several commercials later Miss Henstridge made her film debut in the sci-fi thriller Species. More films followed (The While Nine Yards and its sequel) as well as a myriad of roles on the tee-vee (Eli Stone, Commander in Chief, She Spies, Would Be Kings).
Miss Henstridge–by then briefly married and divorced with two children by a man who was not her first husband–met future second husband Scotsman Darius Campbell (née Danesh) in 2004 at a traffic light on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA. Mister Campbell, as it turns out, was also well on his way up his own ladder of fame and fortune. In 2001, Mister Campbell was finalist on Pop Idol, the U.K.'s version of American Idol. After turning down a record deal offered by entertainment industry gajillionaire Simon Cowell, he went on to make a platinum-selling album on another label, write a book about the music industry (Sink or Swim) and appear in several musicals on London's West End, the U.K.'s Broadway. In 2010 the showbiz dilettante trained for and won the Popstar to Operastar reality program.
The couple reportedly busted up in late 2009 or early 2010 but had mended their romantic fences by February 2011 when the model/actress and the pop star/divo hightailed it to the celeb-friendly San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara, CA where they hitched their wagons in a ceremony so secret they didn't even tell their parents until several days after the clandestine nuptials.
The Los Angeles-based newlyweds soon went on a hunt for a new crib in Tinseltown where they could live happily ever after. A brief communique from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial snitched that the in early June (2011) happy ex-pat pair settled on a very ordinary (if not exactly inexpensive) spread situated south of Ventura Boulevard in super-suburban Sherman Oaks, CA. Property records reveal they paid $1,300,000 for the gated property.
Listing information for the aggressively nondescript contemporary crib shows it was built in 1961, measures 3,476 square feet and has 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms including a master suite with vaulted ceiling, glass doors that open to the backyard, two custom-fitted walk-in closets and a travertine-tiled bathroom with double sinks and separate tub and shower.
A double gated driveway curves up to the front of the house where the dominant feature is a front-facing, attached two-car garage. A wide half-flight of tiled stairs with decorative Spanish tile detailing climbs up to the main living area, a voluminous living/dining room with vaulted ceiling, hardwood floor, fireplace and tall banks of windows that look and lead out to the backyard.
The hardwood floors continue into the sizable cook-friendly center island kitchen kitted out with Shaker-style custom cabinetry, granite counter tops, high-grade stainless steel appliances and wood-framed glass doors that open the breakfast area to the stone terrace that surrounds the swimming pool. Your Mama hopes that Mister and Missus Henstridge-Campbell remove the puny pot rack that hangs precariously over the center island. If there's anything worse than a Mercedes-sized pot rack laden with dusty cookery that craves a cranium to crash down upon it's an itty-bitty pot rack with scrolled wrought iron detailing and a Napoleon complex. Have mercy.
Anyhoo, like all good houses in southern California, the Henstridge-Campbell clan's new digs offers easy-breezy indoor/outdoor living perfect for year-round grillin' and chillin'. Many of the main rooms open to the private backyard where entertainment areas includes a pergola shaded dining terrace, a stone terrace, swimming pool and spa. The horrific screen that surrounds the pool in the listing photos is meant to keep the kiddies from drowning but it's also a damn eyesore. We go berserk with annoyance over those things despite their small child-saving purpose.
Miz Henstridge's humble hailing from a trailer park in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada hasn't kept her from catching a classic case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle; In the last 12 years she's owned no fewer than five homes in and around Sherman Oaks, including her the marital mini-manse she and the hubby just acquired. In December 2003 Miss Henstridge paid $1,360,000 for a five bedroom house in Sherman Oaks that she sold in August 2009 $1,750,000. Previous to that she owned another house in Sherman Oaks she sold in June 2003 for $2,399,000 and prior to that she owned yet another house in Sherman Oaks, this time a more modest 2,180 square foot house with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms that she sold in August 2001 for $689,000. Before schlepping her shit around to her various homes in Sherman Oaks, Miz Henstridge owned a 3,691 square foot residence in über-suburban and hot and Hades Calabasas, CA that she snatched up in May 1999 for $1,050,000 and sold not quite one year later for $1,270,000.
Your Mama wonders how long Miz Henstridge will stay put in her new house of happy marriage. If real estate history repeats itself she'll be on the move again in about two years. We shall see, butter cups, we shall see.
listing photos: John Aaroe Group
