LOCATION: La Quinta, CA
PRICE: $4,500,000
SIZE: 5,173 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We probably wouldn't have believed it if it hadn't come from our freakishly well-informed friend and informant Lucy Spillerguts who gave Your Mama a ringy-dingy the other day to dish about eccentric action flick star Sylvester Stallone and his third wife Jennifer Flavin who flipped a mansion-sized vacation villa in the upscale California desert community of La Quinta on the market with an asking price of $4,500,000.
For those not familiar with the southern California's hot as Hades Coachella Valley: La Quinta spreads across a flat few square miles of generously watered and hence unnaturally green desert lands a few miles down the highway from Palm Springs. In the 1920s and 30s it was a remote hideaway for xenophobes and intrepid famous folks. Today it's a highly manicured resort city comprised almost exclusively of top-flight golf courses surrounded by gated golf-oriented developments with curving streets lined with eerily similar mock-Meds and faux-Tuscans owned by well-to-do snowbirds, (reasonably) wealthy retirees and etc. who—no shocker here—like to golf.
Property records show a Woodland Hills-based trust, which Miss Spillerguts swears on baby bunny rabbits is connected to Mister and Third Missus Stallone, acquired the two-story, Addison Mizner-inspired Mediterranean-style villa in January 2010 for $4,500,000.
The single-family residence in question, one of four that surrounds a shared motor court, is one of 19 similarly sized and styled luxury villas set amid the dozens of high-cost custom home sites behind the guarded gates of the hoity-toity The Madison Club where it's not uncommon for vacant lots well under an acre to list for more than two million bucks but rarely sell for anything close to that amount.
A fairly swift change of mind, or something—possibly (but not necessarily) a classic case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle—prompted Mister (and Third Misssus) Stallone to flip the desert abode back on the market in November 2011 with and asking price of $4,300,000. Within 10 days the price tag quickly (and inexplicably) jumped to its current $4,500,000.
We're not sure what services (and etc.) the home owner's association dues cover or don't cover but listing information shows they run a hardly insubstantial $1,600 per month for the villa in question, high enough they make Your Mama's mouth run dry with—as our old pal Falsetta Knockers calls it—financial hypochondria.
A private, gated courtyard entry leads to the front door that opens in to the T-shaped main living/dining/entertaining space that includes a capacious 32-foot long "great" room with double-height wood ceiling, wood floors, colossal carved stone fireplace, multiple seating areas and multi-mullioned windows that slide open to disappear into the extra-thick walls and connect to a narrow loggia that overlooks the backyard and swimming pool.
Varied-width wood floors extend into the formal dining room through a pair of archways that flank the fireplace. A wider archway leads into the triple-wide galley-style kitchen with large center island, granite counter tops, top-grade appliances, wood-beamed ceiling, wine storage room and walk-in pantry. An adjoining space perfect for informal dining opens to both the front courtyard and a deep dining loggia equipped with a outdoor kitchen and barbecue station.
An L-shaped corridor off the kitchen/lounge eventually connects to the garage but not before passing an interior laundry room and a secluded guest or staff suite with nursery-sized walk-in closet and private bathroom. French doors that open to the front courtyard make it easy for a live-in domestic (or brazen hussy like our boozy b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau) to squirrel a beau (or no-name conquest) in and out without the homeowner being unnecessarily interrupted (or the wiser).
The main floor master suite, situated nicely for privacy off the front entrance hall behind the "great' room, has a modestly-sized bedroom with fireplace and more mullioned windows that disappear into the walls, one medium-sized walk-in closet, slender dressing hall, and over-sized bathroom with two sinks, separate cubicle for the crapper, spa tub, and separate shower with glass door to a walled courtyard and outdoor shower.
Second floor bedrooms (and an adjoining loft sitting room) are conveniently accessed by the interior stairway in the entrance hall or via an exterior staircase in the front courtyard. One of the upstairs bedroom suites has a fireplace and both offer entry vestibules, walk-in closets, deluxe bathrooms and private terraces with views through the swaying palms and over the hyper-manicured golf course to the rugged and dramatic mountains that rise steeply and form the western border of the valley.
The kitchen/lounge and formal dining room both open to a somewhat secluded covered dining terrace outfitted with a high-grade outdoor kitchen. The wrap-around backyard has broad terraces for dining and sunbathing, a heated swimming pool lorded over by a pair of palm trees, a nearby spa and a built-in fire pit just outside the lower-level master suite.
We don't know a hammer from a sickle so really can't say if the existing day-core is the handiwork of Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota, if it reflects Mister (and Third Missus) Stallone's combined decorative tastes, or this is simply a nice-gay or lady decorator's notion of a casual but quite pricey multi-million dollar desert getaway. Whatever the case, listing information indicates—but doesn't make entirely clear—that the posh villa is offered furnished. Your Mama does not know if the more vibrantly colored contemporary art is negotiable or not nor to we know if they are works produced by Mister Stallone who—in case y'all didn't know—paints.
The Madison Club was designed, according to its own website, "In the tradition of California's classic old-line country clubs" and its many luxury amentieis include 24-7 private security, concierge services, a 56,000 square foot clubhouse with several dining options (one with a sushi bar), movie theater, billiard room, fitness center with men's and women's locker room, full-service spa facility and outdoor swimming pool complex. A croquet lawn and numerous terraces with fire pits and quiet seating areas surround the sprawling clubhouse that overlooks a meandering pond and immaculate Tom Fazio-deisgned course.
Back in Los Angeles, Mister Stallone's primary residence is a 15,121 square foot mansion the guard-gated, high-profile, whisper quiet and Beverly Park community where even the smallest of the mega mansions are positively steroidal and his nearest neighbor is octogenarian media and Showbiz tycoon Sumner Redstone.
From July 2008 until September 2011 Mister Stallone owned a waterfront compound on Lake Sherwood, near Thousand Oaks, CA. Online documentation shows the still-buff senior citizen paid $4,850,000 for the property and sold it for $4,200,000, a serious-by-any-standard $650,000 loss not counting carrying costs, improvements and real estate fees that combined easily ran into the hundreds of thousands.
For a few years in the 1990s Mister Stallone owned a 11.8 acre waterfront estate with a titanic 18,000-plus square foot mansion in the supah-swank Cliff Hammocks 'hood in Miami, FL he sold in December 1999 for $16,200,000 to local banker Leonard Abess and his wife Jane
listing photos: Hideaway Properties Corporation via Trulia
floor plan: The Madison Club
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