Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Stevie Wonder Looking for a Fat Profit in Los Feliz

SELLER: Stevie Wonder
LOCATION: Chislehurst Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,200,000
SIZE: 4,511 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms (as per listing)
DESCRIPTION: Great view. 14 rooms including pool house in the back. Art Deco period design.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to our fine friend at Celebrity Address Aerial, Your Mama has learned that sensational song writer and blind as a bat music icon Stevie Wonder has decided to sell off one of his many Los Angeles properties. Before we get to the house, let's all take a quick moment to get our wee minds around the extraordinary fact that the magnificent Mister Wonder has earned himself an unbelievable twen-tee-six Grammy awards, the first being in 1974 and the most recent in 2007. Twenty six!

Property records show that the piano pounding Mister Wonder purchased this house on Los Feliz's Chislehurst Drive way back in October of 1979 for just $435,500. Oh children, remember the good ol' days when you could by a big house in a good part of town for half a million clams?

Anyhoo, Your Mama well knows how many Angelenos like to buy and sell their houses every two years in order to take advantage of a lovely loophole in the tax code, but in Mister Wonder's case it obviously benefited his pocketbook to sit tight and hang on to this house for thirty damn years. With a current asking price of $3,200,000, Your Mama's beloved and bejeweled abacus reveals that when he finally unloads this east side mini-manse Mister Wonder could easily pocket a princely $2,500,000 or more.

Given that the house was built in 1928 and appears to Your Mama to be more Spanish style with its red tile roof and white washed walls, we question whether the design of this house lends itself to the "Art Deco" as is noted in the description provided by Mister Wonder's listing agent, a gentleman who happens to be one of Mister Wonder's seven children. At the risk of sounding catty and crass (which we've been accused of an uncountable number of times), perhaps Mister Wonder's people told him this was an Art Deco style house?

Although records filed with the city indicate the house measures 4,511 square feet and includes only 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, listing information shows there are 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms squeezed into the 4,511 square foot domicile. Hmm.

Listing information for the Wonder property is about as slim as paper thin celebrity super-stylist Rachel Zoe, but fortunately for the children Your Mama is an expert at reading through the real estate lines and filling in the descriptive gaps. After several passes over the photos and information Your Mama was able to glean that additional features include a motor court with 3-car garage, a dramatic double staircase located in a rotunda like entrance hall, a large living room with fireplace and magnificent views, a swimming pool with adjacent pool house and a basement that sonny boy the listing agent indicates could be converted into a "possible theatre room."

Now listen children, before all you music nuts hop in your hoopdies and head over to Los Feliz to hold a candlelight vigil on Chislehurst Drive–something we can assure you will have the neighbors dialing up the po-po pronto–it's unclear to Your Mama whether Mister Wonder ever occupied this property or if it was just one of the many properties propping up his prodigious real estate portfolio. However, because we can see with our eyes we note there is a big black grand pie-ana sitting smack in middle of the otherwise empty living room, it seems entirely possible that Mister Wonder did indeed tinkle those ivories with his musically mighty fingers.

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