Listen, turtle doves, every now and then Your Mama gets some unintentionally incorrect information on the real estate doings of the rich and famous. The reality is this whole celebrity real estate thing is far from an exact science, which means sometimes we veer off course and make a mistake. Yesterday, we got it wrong. This is our correction.Last week celebrity real estate gossip Richard Mineard reported in the Montecito Journal that one of the newest high profile property owners in the star studded seaside enclave of Montecito, CA is Hollywood hot shot Drew Barrymore. Shortly after Mister Mineard let Miss Barrymore's real estate cat out of the bag Your Mama heard from a Montecito local whom we'll call Bea Aman who provided Your Mama with listing information for a property that perfectly matched the description of the property in Mister Mineard's report: 3.5 acres, three story Mediterranean mansion, 6 bedrooms 5 bathrooms, first listed at $7,900,000 later lowered to $6,900,000. Based on the identical descriptions of Mister Mineard and listing information for the estate in question we went ahead and typed our fingers to the nubbins on a screed about the child star turned wild child turned movie making mogul and the house we thought she bought. But alas...
Yesterday we received a covert communique from Suzie Saysitaintso who whispered in Your Mama's big ol' ear that a local real estate insider told her that Mister Mineards over at the Montecito Journal got it wrong wrong wrong. Miz Saysitaintso went on to snitch that Miss Barrymore did not buy the Riggs-designed residence we thought she had but rather another house just spitting distance away.
We quickly got on the horn to our impeccably knowledgeable friend and informant Lucy Spillerguts–which, in hind sight is exactly what we should have done from the get-go–who confirmed the real estate 411 provided by Suzie Saysitaintso.
This means all that brouhaha about Miss Barrymore's new crib in Montecito over the last few days was nothing but a lot of celebrity real estate steam. The real deal on Miss Barrymore's Montecito estate is as follows.
In early June of 2010 a trust that Miss Spillerguts swears is connected to Miss Barrymore purchased a 2+ acre estate on a quiet lane in Montecito, CA. Listing information shows the purchased property was last listed with an asking price of $6,900,000 and the folks at Zillow show it was sold for $5,705,000. Listing information also shows the multi-winged Monterey Colonial style mansion has five bedrooms, 6 full and 2 half poopers, 3 fireplaces, an attached garage with 4 bays and a 2-car detached garage with guesthouse or–as preferred by our house gurl Svetlana who sometimes likes to sneak men into her room at night–staff quarters above.
A massive oak tree in the center of a large circular drive shades the discreet front entry that opens into wood-floored entrance hall with lemon chiffon colored walls that Your Mama hopes Miss Barrymore's nice, gay decorator will do something about. The hard wood floors continue into the formal living room made cozy and somewhat masculine with fireplace, pine colored paneled walls and built-in book cases. Listing photos for the 6,000-ish square foot traditional mansion shows a formal dining room with paned windows that reach down to the floor and a library with wood floors, fireplace, dark stained wood paneling and built-in bookshelves. It looks like the sort of room a bizness man or a young female showbiz mogul like Miss Barrymore might smoke a cigar.
A long glassed-in lanai with basket weave pattern brick floor runs along the back of the house and overlooks a wide terrace with protected views of the secluded grounds that include a vast and amorphous patch of grass, avocado and citrus trees, and a walking path that meanders through thick and lush landscaping. Much to Your Mama's surprise and chagrin, the gated grounds do not, it would appear, have either a swimming pool or a tennis court.
The master suite, according to listing information, has "considerable dressing and bath areas" and opens to an oak and sycamore shaded private garden. The remainder of the bedrooms, some of which are suitable for flexible use, are contained in a large guest wing.
Breezy and free-spirited Miss Barrymore's story is a Tinseltown turnaround tale of epic proportions to be sure. Born into the deep roots of an American acting dynasty, she started up her ladder of fame as an infant when she appeared in a dog food commercial. In the early 1980s an impossibly cute and precocious 7-year old Miss Barrymore nabbed the part of Gertie in E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, a film directed by her godfather Steven Spielberg that instantaneously rocketed Miss Barrymore to international super-stardom and has grossed nearly half a billion bucks since its release.
It wasn't long before a pre-teen Miss Barrymore began to make the very adult rounds at debauched (and fabulous) nightclubs like Studio 54 and, at just seven years old, hosted Saturday Night Live. By the barely pubescent age of 14, Miss Barrymore was a smoking, drinking and coke snorting machine that attempted suicide and had herself emancipated from her less than conventional parents. Her reckless but oddly endearing ways continued into her late teens and early twenties when Miss Barrymore posed nekkid in the pages of Interview and Playboy magazines, received a second Golden Globe nomination (Guncrazy) and, on national tee-vee, with her back to the cameras, stood up on David Letterman's desk, did a stripper jig and quickly flashed her bra-less chee-chees to the slack-jawed delight of the middle-aged comedian.
Only in her mid-30s and a ladee who defiantly paves her own roads with an infectious giggle and a toothy grin, Miss Barrymore has gone from rebellious teen aged tragedy to showbiz icon and entertainment industry tycoon. In the mid-2000s she was one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood. Her films have grossed more than $2,300,000,000 and she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She was named Ambassador Against Hunger for the United Nations in 2007, shills cosmetics for CoverGirl and owns Flower Films, an enormously successful production company she runs with long time pal and producing partner Nancy Juvonen, a fresh faced blondie who hitched her love wagon to comedian Jimmy Fallon in 2007. Flower Films has pushed out a number of notable and high earning movies including Donnie Darko, the Charlie's Angels film franchise, 50 First Dates, He's Just Not That Into You and, most recently, Whip It! Say what any one might about Miss Barrymore and her wild and wacky ways but the admirably ambitious beehawtcha has earned the bank to buy and sell most of Hollywood and the five and some million smackers she's dumped on a fixer-upper estate in hoity-toity Montecito ain't nuthin' but chump change for this Hollywood heavyweight.
Since April of 2002 Miss Barrymore has lived primarily on a private promontory in the celebrity choked hills above Hollywood. Records show she shelled out $4,350,000 for a palm-tree dotted compound with a 7,756 square foot multi-winged ranch house with 4 bedrooms and 6 poopers. Her nearly neighbors in Los Angeles include Jason Schwartzman, Hayden Panettiere, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Holland Taylor, Adam Brody and Sheryl Crow.
listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty
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