Henry Simmons Lists Hollywood Hills Hideaway

SELLER: Henry Simmons
LOCATION: North Orange Grove Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,397,000
SIZE: 2,026 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Celebrity owned 3BR/2/5BA beautiful Mediterranean oasis updated w/ contemporary finishes throughout. Gated mini-compound graced w/ tropical grounds offering total privacy & located blocks from Sunset Strip & Runyon Canyon. Open floor plan is complimented by French doors, glass tiled fireplace, cozy library, high ceilings & dark wood floors. Remodeled kitchen connects to adjacent family room w/ vaulted ceilings. Master suite features walk-in closets, steam shower & tumbled marble complete w/ outdoor spa.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last night, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter sat on the sofa all bug-eyed with mortification as as that poor Jeff Lewis from the Bravo's Flipping Out program broke up with his bestie Ryan Brown right on national tee-vee. Love him or hate him children, that was genuine reality tee-vee. During the too many commercial breaks we multi-tasked and maximized our precious free time by combing through the new real estate listings in LaLa Land and it wasn't long before we came across a house low down in the Hollywood Hills listed with an asking price of $1,397,000 described in the listing as "celebrity owned."

Well, Your Mama does not have to tell you that our mouth went dry, our blood began to race and we immediately began sifting through the property records. Lo and behold and much to our chagrin, we came up empty handed. So we took a moment to regroup, watched the big lips of Jeff Lewis quiver in honest to goodness sadness and then took a few more minutes to peep and poke around the interweb, twisted our data inside out in the hopes our property record machinations would flush out the identity of the famous owner. But alas children, we wound up still empty handed. We next dashed off a quick missive to our always well informed aide de camp Lucy Spillerguts and waited patiently for her reply. Early this morning while sitting quietly with the I.V. machine slowly drip, drip, dripping caffeine directly into our sleepy veins, we received a succinct communique from our dear Lucy who swears on her new house that the property on N. Orange Grove Drive is owned by actor Henry Simmons.

No babies, we did not know who Mister Simmons was either until we Blackled his name and discovered the tall and dark drink of water has a long list of television credits that includes–but is not limited to–a couple of years on the legendary soap opera Another World in the late 1990s, more than 100 episodes of NYPD Blue during the early to mid 2000s and, from 2006-2008, he appeared in thirty some episodes on a show called Shark, a now canceled program that Your Mama had neither seen nor heard of.

Property records reveal that Mister Simmons scooped up his 2,026 square foot Mediterranean casa at the foot of the Hollywood Hills in November of 2003. It's a wee bit unclear to Your Mama just how much money Mister Simmons paid for the property. One record we accessed shows a sale price of $1,120,0011 while another document we located shows $999,000. We're really not sure why a purchase price discrepancy exists, but one does. Let's just say Mister Simmons paid around a million clams for the property and call it a day.

Listing information indicates the walled, hedged and gated single story house includes 3 bedrooms and 2.5 poopers even though documents on file with the tax man say the house has only 2 full poopers. Again, we don't know why all the documents don't agree, but we're going to go with listing information and say there are three terlits in two full and one half bathrooms.

The front of the house presents a number of different styles that include the classic ocher and red tile roof of a southern California Mediterranean, an almost Regency style bay window on the left side, and a lot of Zen-like bamboo-y plants that shield and obscure much of the front facade. It's all a bit messy, but it sort of works in an organic food shopping, Prius driving, baby carriage left out in the front yard sort of way.

The interior of the 1922 house has been updated, upgraded and opened up to include wide openings between the living room and dining rooms as well as the dining room and the family room/kitchen at the back of the house. The living room has buttercup colored walls, dark chocolate wide plank floors and a wood burning fireplace with an ebony glass tile surround. Mister Simmons, clearly a fan of a colorful and international sort of day-core, has outfitted the room with wicker arm chairs, a leather sofa, multi-colored pillows and various knick knacks and paddy whacks that look to Your Mama like they were prolly bought at Pier 1 Imports rather than in Nepal or Tibet.

The chocolate wood floors–and the Pier 1 Imports day-core–extends into the unfortunately chandelier-less dining room painted a pale shade of melon. Some sort of tortoise or capiz shell chandelier would have worked wonders in here. Anyhoo, the dining room has a small bump out painted a rich shade raspberry that opens to the side yard through a pleasant wall of French doors framed by shiny–possibly silk, coppery-orange curtains. Listen chickens, although Your Mama does not care for Mister Simmon's decorative tastes and while we do l.o.v.e. the color orange, we feel very la-dee-dah-meh about the melon color. None the less, credit where credit is due, we do appreciate how Mister Simmons–or his nice gay decorator or his paint specialist or whomever–used darkening shades of color to entice and draw the eyeball from the front of the house towards the back even if we're not loving the actual colors.

A wide set of French doors opens from the dining room into the family room/kitchen/breakfast room which is all hexagonal Mexican tile on the floor and multi-paned windows on the back wall that open through more French doors onto the rear terrace. The kitchen has honey colored cabinetry, a big ol' sky light and all the blah blah blah of a well equipped kitchen even if the stainless steel appliances are not as industrial grade as we might prefer in one point four million dollar crib. The children will note that it appears that someone cheaped-out on the kitchen counter tops which appear to be granite tiles instead of granite slabs. Listen babies, Your Mama knows that everyone has a budget and not everyone's budget extends to the latest, greatest and most expensive materials. However, trust Your Mama when we tell you that granite tiles are a strict no-no. Granite tile counter tops are what Home Despot addicted landlords install in the kitchens of their crappy rentals when they are trying to fool a prospective tenant into thinking a house or apartment is high end when it is really middle-brow.

The home's three bedrooms include a master with a walk-in closet, a private pooper with a steam shower–which we love even if it's not a pretty steam shower, wall to wall deep shag carpeting–Oh, come on! No! Pleeze.–and a set of French doors that open to the rear terrace where there is a sunken spa surrounded by foliage. This is, obviously, the perfect spot for anyone who sees sitting in hot bubbling water as foreplay. The terrace leads down to a another larger terrace surrounded by towering and privacy making bamboo. Somewhere on the property that looks like it might be in some sort of basement, Mister Simmons has installed a home gym with rubber matting, a rack of free weights and a treadmill. Your Mama doesn't care for home gyms but it ain't easy looking all rock solid the way Mister Simmons does so it makes perfect sense he'd have a set up like this at home.

Mister Simmons home is well situated for easy access to the Sunset Strip, Hollywood, West Hollywood, the studios in Burbank and, one of Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's favorite places in L.A., Runyon Canyon where pooches of all sizes and breeds are allowed to run free and sniff each others booties. Your Mama hasn't a clue where Mister Simmons will be headed next, but wherever it may be we wish him a happy home free of granite tile and super shag carpeting.