...from well-placed peeps in the Platinum Triangle real estate scene that dancing chat show hostess Ellen Degeneres and her actress wife Portia de Rossi (Arrested Development, Nip/Tuck, Better Off Ted) have their secluded Beverly Hills, CA compound quietly on the market with a mind-bending price tag.
Your Mama first discussed this celebrity real estate rumor way back in mid-February but it seems to be bubbling back up to the surface and, indeed, twice yesterday we heard about this again from a couple of contacts who tend to know about these things. One of our better informed sources snitched to Your Mama that the numbers being batted around Beverly Hills are $49,000,000 for the main house (which includes a detached guest house, staff quarters and an underground garage) and a buckle-your-seat belts-ballsy $60,000,000 for the entire compound (main house plus two adjacent residences purchased as a privacy buffer).
When queried about the sky-high price, one of our more eloquent informants, let's call her Miss Formerly Seductive Realtor Sally (who–it should be noted–needs an honest head shot), hissed and snorted that the Sapphic couple's "absurd desire for $60 million" is pie in the real estate sky, partick since the compound is not in Beverly Hills proper but, "It's BH POST OFFICE for God's sake."
The distinction between Beverly Hills and the Beverly Hills Post Office may not be clear–or matter–to anyone who does not live in either Beverly Hills or the Bev Hills Post Office but the issue becomes abundantly clear when it comes time for residents to call the po-po or send their precious children to public school. Beverly Hills is a city all of its own where residents in need of the law call the fast-responding Beverly Hills Police Department and have the option of sending their off-spring to the well-regarded and high-testing Beverly Hills High School. The Bev Hills Post Office, on the other hand, is part of the City of Los Angeles–rather than the city of Beverly Hills–and as such residents have to cough up the cash for private school or send their kiddies to lackluster and economically starving public schools and they have to call the notoriously slow-responding Los Angeles Police Department when they need an armed officer.
Anyhoo, Missus and Missus Degeneres–it seems Portia took Ellen's name making it quite clear who wears the pants in that family–started to cobble together their compound above Coldwater Canyon in late 2007 and, before they'd put away their checkbook, spent a combined (and approximate) $48,000,000 on the multi-acre and multi-parcel property.
Missus Degeneres–Ellen–is notoriously fickle when it comes to real estate, rarely staying put for more than a few years at a stretch. In the last 5 or 10 years Missus Degeneres has owned scads of contemporary cribs in Los Angeles, several ranches in the Santa Ynez Valley and an historic George Washington Smith-designed mansion in Montecito, CA.
As far as Your Mama knows–and we really know so little–in addition to their up-for-sale compound in the Bev Hills Post Office, Missus and Missus Degeneres's only other real estate holding is a ten million dollar horse farm in the scrubby hills outside Westlake Village, CA and a two bedroom condo in a boring Beverly Hills building bought in late 2010 for $835,000.
We really have no idea where Missus and Missus Degeneres might go when–and if–they sell their Bev Hills Post Office compound. Ages ago we heard through the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine that Hollywood's most famous property-luvin' scissor sisters were poking around in the equestrian-friendly and guard-gated Serra Retreat in Malibu but we shall see, children, we shall see...
No comments:
Post a Comment