SELLER: Ethan SupleeLOCATION: Studio City, CA
PRICE: $2,295,000
SIZE: 3,787 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Due to a slew of circumstances that include an unexpectedly inordinate amount of time spent riding around to various places in Sister Woman's mini-van, we are, once again this morning, behind the celebrity real estate 8-ball this week. It seems that today's topic, a funky mini-estate in tucked into a quiet hollow in Studio City, CA owned by actor Ethan Suplee and listed yesterday on the open market with an asking price of $2,295,000, was yesterday already covered by the busy beavers over at Curbed.
Actress/activist/fitness freak Jane Fonda is said to have occupied the woodsy lodge-like residence in the early 1970s back when she was making headlines and enemies with her vehement and vocal opposition to the Vietnam War. Property records show the kooky Laurel Canyon crib was acquired in 1973 by game show director and producer Richard S. Kline (The Joker's Wild, Joker! Joker! Joker!, Win, Lose or Draw)–not to be confused with the actor Richard Kline of Three's Company fame–who paid just $77,500 for the tree-shaded property. That's right children, seventy-seven thousand clams. Can anyone remember those real estate days?
Mister Kline–who, according to The Movieland Directory, raised more than a dozen children in the house–owned the property until early 2006 when records show the game show maker sold the nearly one acre gated mini-estate estate for $2,000,000 to Mister Suplee and his wife Brandwynne "Brandy" Lewis, sister of actress/rocker babe Juliette Lewis.
Mister Suplee, a devoted Scientologist who once weighed more than 400 pounds and had a heavy duty drug problem, has managed to scratch out a solid if not superstar place for himself in Tinseltown with roles on both the big screen (Mall Rats, American History X, Cold Mountain) and the small screen (Boy Meets World, My Name Is Earl).
Listing information shows the Robert Byrd-esque house, the architectural equivalent of a beaded headband and fringed leather vest from the 1970s, was originally built in 1951, sits behind a thick row of trees above the street, and measures 3,787 square feet. There are a total of 7 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms plus something that listing information rather disturbingly refers to as an "outdoor bathroom," whatever exactly that is. Listen, kids, indoor/outdoor California living if fantastic and nobody loves an outdoor shower in the summertime more than Your Mama but there is most definitely a line in that sand. Lowerd have mercy, puppies, Your Mama won't even use a god damn port-a-potty unless its vitally necessary so we're not about to voluntarily cop a squat on an al fresco crapper in the back yard. Pleeze.
Anyhoo, the rambling barn-like residence offers at least three living/dining room spaces, each with wide-plank pine floors, partially to fully-paneled walls, a stone or brick-faced fireplace, voluminous vaulted ceilings with exposed beams, wide-expanses of multi-paned windows, and numerous sky lights that include a spine-like ridge-line number and a way too authentically hippy-dippy circular stained glass sky light that scares the bejeezus out of Your Mama's sometimes delicate decorative and architectural sensibilities.
The galley-style kitchen seems surprisingly small in listing photos but perhaps we're just not seeing the full scope of the space that includes rustic wood cabinetry stripped of paint and/or varnish, board and batten paneled walls, brick accents that include a wide archway over the range, a vaulted wood ceiling, and a flagstone floor.
There are just three bathrooms–plus that scatologically distressing "outdoor bathroom"– to service all the many seven bedrooms. One of the bedrooms depicted in listing photographs, which may or may not be the master bedroom, plays against the expected style of the house with pale grey-blue walls, too-puny crystal chandelier, a pair faux-French Provincial night stands and beige and rose-colored striped drapery that puddles on the wood floors.
One of the bathrooms shown in listing images, which may or may not be the master bathroom, has a tile floor composed of shards of broken Mexican pavers, barn-style wood doors, a sunken spa tub for two surrounded by a wide apron of high-varnish decking, floral wall covering, a couple of framed drawings of naked people and, finally, a pitched wood ceiling with stained glass skylight. The whole thing, that bathroom in particular, for some reason brings to mind Linda Ronstadt's seminal 1975 album Heart Like a Wheel.
The back of the house opens though French doors to a broad brick terrace laid in a swirling circular pattern that features a free-standing brick fireplace and built-in barbecue. Set up the hill a good distance from the house there's rectangular swimming pool with rounded corners and a wee gazebo tucked into the trees.
A fully detached, 8-sided pavilion contains what listing information calls a "whimsical" office space or guest residence. The yurt like-interior space has wood floors, a steeply pitched ceiling with exposed beams, and a carved wood spiral stair case that connects to a two-car garage space on the street level constructed of stacked river rock.
listing photos: Extraordinary Real Estate
