Mark Ruffalo Moves On

SELLER: Mark Ruffalo
LOCATION: Bennett Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,685,000
SIZE: 2,957 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Celebrity owned 1933 East Coast Traditional, beautifully set on private, gated half acre. Suburb original detail, French doors throughout provide glorious light and views of surrounding gardens. Kitchen w/ granite counters, Sub Zero, Viking appliances. 2 WBFP, central air. cond, sun room, sep. breakfast room, Liv. rm w/ exposed beam ceiling. Flowing layout includes 3 beds, 2.5 baths in main house, plus guest unit with bath.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last night, while we worked our way through our soothing pre-bedtime g&t and waited for the sleeping aid to kick in, Your Mama perused the newest listings in LaLa Land when we stumbled upon a house in the Hollywood Hills being marketed as a "celebrity owned" home. Although a delicious serenity only booze and pharmaceuticals can bring on had settled our usually frazzled nerves, our eyes dilated with excitement. Okay, well, maybe they dilated because of the pills. Whatever the case, we did what we always do when we get a whiff of a property owned by famous folks, we calmly and cooly sifted through the property records in order to find out just who the celebrity owner is.

But alas, the property records were not quite as clear which meant waiting until morning to begin dialing up our spider web of well connected sources and informants in order to solve the property record puzzle. In the meantime, we kept looking at the listing photos which were oddly and painfully familiar. For some reason, which at first we thought might have been the gin and sleeping pill, the house tripped all the few memory wires we have left. Morning finally came and before we could even make a second inquiry the nearly omniscient Lucy Spillerguts sent word that the Bennett Drive domicile, listed at $1,685,000, is owned by none other than actor Mark Ruffalo and his pretty but absurdly named actress wifey Sunrise Coigney.

A stage actor turned indie film favorite, Mister Ruffalo has recently appeared in silver screen specials like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, All the King's Men, Reservation Road–which was a better book than a movie we don't care what anyone says, and The Brothers Bloom with Oscar winners Rachel Weisz and Adrien Brody. From the looks of things, Mister Ruffalo will be busy as a beaver the next couple of years with seven, count 'em, seven films in the hopper and in post- and pre-production. Despite his professional success, which includes a Tony nomination in 2006 for his role in the dramatic play Awake and Sing!, Mister Ruffalo has oft been visited by misfortune and tragedy. In 2002 he underwent brain surgery to remove a benign tumor which left him partially paralyzed and from which he's since recovered fully. In early 2008 he lost good friend Heath Ledger to a drug overdose and in late 2008 his hairdresser brother Scott was found dead of a gunshot wound outside his Beverly Hills residence.

Anyhoo, property records show the down to earth seeming Mister and Missus Ruffalo scooped up their 2,957 square foot house in October of 2004 for an undisclosed amount of money. If Your Mama was forced by the Gestapo to make a guess and based on information found in the property records we'd postulate they paid more than $1,600,000 and less than $1,800,000. But children, again, that is just a guess from someone who doesn't know a tractor from flip flop, so do not go running around quoting that number trying to act like a damn know it all.

According to listing information, Mister Ruffalo's main house was built in 1933 and includes 3 bedrooms and 2.5 poopers. A guest unit, located behind the garage, contains another private pooper. This set up is indeed great for guests but it would also be perfect for housing our meddlesome house gurl Sventlana who can be a little too curious, iffin you know what we mean. Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter call our dear ol' Svetlana Snoopy behind her back because if we said it to her face she'd probably go all bug-eyed and slice us into bite sized bits with her blood red acrylic nails and dishpan hands. But we digress...

A long walk from the gated driveway across a not exactly well kept lawn leads to a pleasantly tree shaded courtyard and the front door where for some inexplicable reason Mister Ruffalo (or the stager ladee) leaned a red surf board up against the house. The white painted exterior seems to be clad in a casual and country-ish board and batten siding that although not terrible is, as far as Your Mama is concerned, usually better left to barns and sheds and other farm structures.

The living room has been pared down to it's bare essentials with little unnecessary frou-frou while retaining all of its original non-chalant charm. There are wood floors, a fireplace and a magnificent wood beamed ceiling that has been stripped of any paint giving it a rustic yet still contemporary aspect. Up a couple steps from the living room is the dining room with old-school built-in china cabinets and a magnificently minimal chandelier hanging from the raised and rustic, stripped wood ceiling. The cozy and comfortable kitchen contains white Shaker style cabinetry, a porcelain farmhouse sink, some sort of beige-looking granite counter tops that we don't like very much and a bevy of high grade appliances including a six burner Viking range.

In addition to the well-sized and wood floored bedrooms, the main house also has a sun porch with brick colored tile floors and a mad mish-mash of furniture including a wicker sofa that we suspect is all staging because in January of 2009 Mister and Missus Ruffalo had this house photographed for the pretty pages of the sadly defunct Domino magazine and the day-core in those photos is quite different, more considered, thoughtful and better. The publishing powers that be at Condé Nast have seen to it that just about every shred of Domino has disappeared from the interweb. Thankfully the gurls and boys over at Casa Sugar have maintained their small cache of photographs of the house...mostly vignettes, but they'll give the children a better sense of the Ruffalo's quirky, laid back and casually elegant style of day-core. We should have known then that they were fixing to move because so often when a celebrity has their house photographed for a print publication they are just moments away from listing the property for sale. (P.S. we are positively dying over those two artworks over the bed in the master bedroom.)

Although the listing for the Ruffalo residence only popped up on the internets yesterday, the 1st of September, it appears to already be in contract. Lucky Mister Ruffalo. Your Mama has no idea where Mister and Missus Ruffalo will be moving but considering they have a trio of tykes we will take the liberty of assuming they are wanting and headed towards a larger nest in which to raise their chicks. Where that is, we don't know so don't bother asking.