Mike and Irena Medavoy's Beverly Park Mini-Mega-Mansion

SELLERS: Mike and Irena Medavoy
LOCATION: Beverly Park, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $21,500,000 (reduced from $23,500,000)
SIZE: 10,769 square feet, 5 bedrooms 9 bathrooms (as per listing)
DESCRIPTION: Exceptional Hampton-Style Beverly Park Estate. Beautifully set on nearly 2 acres of rolling lawns. The best value in the area. Beautifully decorated & designed. Extraordinary 2-story entry. Fabulous living rm/projection rm. Study, double powder rms, sensational kitchen/family rm, & wonderful loggia out to the lush gardens, swimmer's pool, & guesthse. Amazing master suite w/beautiful dual baths. 3 add'l spacious family bdrms & maids. Excellent privacy in the most sought after gated community.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The children just looove to hear about the residents and humongous houses of Beverly Park and when we can, Your Mama likes to feed the children just what they're asking for. So today we bring y'all some Beverly Park goodness to chaw on.

Only in uber posh and guard gated Beverly Park, where 20,000+ square foot steroidal houses are the rule rather than the exception, is a nearly 11,000 square foot house considered a cozy mini-mansion. But that's what Your Mama would have to say about big time film producer Mike Medavoy's modest by comparison mansion that Your Mama hears from our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills will soon be hitting the market with an ear piercing asking price of $23,500,000.

There's no question a man like Medavoy can afford to own and maintain a house in hyper manicured Beverly Park, where the lawns are always meticulously mowed, the hedges impeccably clipped and the swimming pools glisten like sunlight itself. After all, he's responsible for bringing any number of block buster films to the screen such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Rocky, The Terminator, The People vs. Larry Flynt, The Thin Red Line and many, many more.

So the man prolly deserves his vast riches that in the year 2000 allowed him to build his dream house in one of the most exclusive and expensive developments anywhere in the world. The white clapboard and black shuttered East Coast traditional style with 10,769 square feet, sprawls across it's 1.8 acre lot that includes a double gated driveway, large parking court, and swimming pool and guest house complex, and an expanse of perfectly green grass. There is not, however, a tennis court, which for $23,000,000 would be a deal breaker for Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter who like to swing a racket now and again.

No official or new listing exists for the house that we've been able to locate, but thanks to our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills we managed to get a hold of a few photos and information from when the house was on the market a few years ago for $14,500,000 (reduced from $15,750,000). The pretty center hall quasi-Colonial 5 bedroom house includes 8 bathrooms (or nine according to old listing information), 6 fireplaces, a living room that converts into "one of the best screening rooms," and "one of the loveliest master suites" (again according to an older listing).

Your Mama is quite impressed with the bold color that the Medavoy's nice gay decorator used in the dining room. Never before have we seen or heard of a hot pink formal dining room, and honestly, we'd never have imagined we would have anything positive to say about a dining room with screaming pink walls. But we do. Maybe it's because we're having an off day or maybe it's because Your Mama has an unhealthy attraction to bright colors. We are not in love with the execution of this room, but children, try to imagine the space pushed beyond traditional towards something kooky and contemporary. Keep the ka-razy chandelier and the side table with the too cute topiary and the wacky sea sponge looking thing underneath. Whatever that thing is, we're coveting it. We don't understand the abstract artwork hanging on the wall, but it too can stay unless you can afford a subtle Rothko or glorious Gary Hume painting to replace it. Lose the carpet, paint the moldings and doors the glossiest white paint you can find, replace the very expensive but ordinary table with a big tacky Lucite thing and cover all those faux-Louis chairs in an even tackier shiny white patent leather. Now that would be a fucked up hot pink dining room even Your Mama could love.

We don't feel as forgiving of the study/library. Somehow the room appears remarkably bright for a room with coal black walls and Your Mama is quite certain every single object in this room cost at least $2,000, but it's a strange hodge-podge that isn't quite working for us. Could be the grainy photo or it could be that upsetting scroll/map thing on the wall? Your Mama is well aware that art is subjective, but we can only hope that particular piece was done by one of the Medavoy's grandchildren (if they have any). Please don't someone tell Your Mama that chicken scratch depiction of the earth is worth more than a Mercedes.

Your Mama doesn't have a clue why the Medavoy's would chose to leave the private and secure environs of Beverly Park. Maybe they're downsizing to a house in the flats? Maybe they're up sizing to something larger? Maybe they're tired of looking at the sculpture next door. Whatever the care, it'll be inneresting to see what rich and/or famous person steps up to buy this house.

Now, let's move on to some other Beverly Park bizness. There has been some discussion in the comments section of this blog about a Beverly Park house owned by Jeanette and Robert Bisno, who among other alleged infractions, famously ired their ridiculously rich neighbors with statuary that some Bev Park residents felt was suggestive, possibly vulgar, and simply did not conform to the 70-page homeowners covenants to which all Beverly Park properties must adhere. Well, wouldn't you know, the Bisnos' happen to live right next door to the Medavoys in their own 11,894 square foot mansion. Oh children, the rich people up in Bev Park were all up in arms over the Bisno's gates, garbage cans and motor court statuary. Just imagine the shock and nasty stares as resident slowly rolled by in their shiny Bentleys, the shunning and whispered mortifications. The whole uproar ended up in a convoluted lawsuit that involved such allegations by the Bisnos that the ruling judge was mentally incompetent and as such unable to decide the case effectively. Wow. These Bisno people must really have wanted that damn statue. We're not sure what the outcome of the statue wars was, but it does appear that the very expensive piece of outdoor art is still in place in the Bisno motor court. Which means it's probably still tied up in courts. What a stellar use of our over-burdened judicial system.

An excellent article from the New York Times reports that during the bickering the Bisnos were in the process of getting a dee-vorce. But the article also reports that the couple bought another vacant lot a few doors up from their current residence where they intended to build another dream mansion and take their naughty statue with them. We don't find any evidence of them buying a second lot up there, but then again, the real estate dealings of the super rich are often obscured and difficult to track, so our lack of evidence really means nothing.

One of Your Mama's readers has also suggested in the comments section that the Bisno house is in foreclosure. Your Mama can't find any evidence of that in our rather lax research, so we can't confirm or deny that bit of unpleasantness. It does appear that the house is heavily mortgaged, but honestly puppies, that does not mean a thing. Many, many vastly wealthy people borrow enormous amounts of money against their lavish homes for any number of reasons. We can't comment on the state of Mister Bisno's finances, because we simply don't know anything about them. What we do know is Mister Bisno is and has been a controversial figure anywhere you turn.

Moving on from the Bisno bizness...Of course by now, all the children know that Beverly Park is filled to the gills with the rich and famous including Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Jami Gertz, Reba McEntire, Sylvester Stallone, Paul Reiser, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, Avi Arad, Eric Schmidt, Martin Lawrence, Sumner Redstone, Barry Bonds, Michael Eisner, Samuel Jackson, Rod Stewart, porn king Norman Zada, Haim and Cheryl Saban, a couple of Saudi royals, Steve Udvar-Hazy, and of course, young Mister Russ Weiner, the Rockstar Energy Drink founder who is one of Bev Park's newest residents.

Mister and Missus Medavoy's little slice of residential heaven for the filthy rich is far from the only Beverly Park behemoth on the market. According to property records, mobile home maven Lee Kort is trying to get rid of a 3.35 acre lot for a shocking $49,000,000 (plans and permits for a 25,000 square foot house also available). Beer baron Adolf Coors owns a 9 bedroom and 9 bathroom monster mansion, dubbed "The Great 78," which backs up to the Medavoy mansion and is currently available for $34,000,000. George Santopietro, Vanna White's ex-huzband and current Bev Park resident, recently plunked a mammoth newly built spec-house on the market for a spine tingling $50,000,000. And the Moeljadi family have long been trying to unload their 20,612 square foot pile for $29,000,000. And these are just the houses Your Mama knows are on the market. You can bet that are at least 2 or 3 others that are quietly for sale for the right price.
YOUR MAMAS UPDATE: We take it back...after viewing more recent photos of the Medavoy mansion (above), we are not so keen on the dining room. It is not, after all, the modern and nutty color scheme we originally thought. The walls are not covered in unexpected hot pink paint, but rather with a light red damask wallpaper. Ugh. Dreadful. And in the study/library, we thought the walls had been painted a very progressive, if not particularly likable black. In actuality, they are green damask. DAMASK! On the walls! Yikes. We know damask wallpaper is not uncommon in a house with an old-guard sort of decor, but with all due respect and apologies to the Medavoys, damask wallpaper always reminds Your Mama of the "better" whorehouses in rural Nevada.

We realize many of the children relish in and prefer this traditional and safe form of interior decor, but Your Mama does not. Yes, it looks cozy and comfortable, which are indeed nice qualities in a house, but Your Mama gravitates to a more modern and eclectic sort of interior where one finds unexpected and quirky bits and pieces of person's life. But alas. That said, Your Mama will say, that to the Medavoy's credit, the mansion looks welcoming and not at all lavish and lurid in the way that many people, including Your Mama, imagine the homes in Beverly Park to be decorated. Remember Rod Stewart's obscenely over stuffed mess?