Raphael Stevens
More stories
175 Shares159 Views
in LuxuryShaun White Lists His Midcentury Modern Hideaway in the Hollywood Hills for $5 Million
Almost a year ago, Shaun White and his longtime partner, The Vampire Diaries actress Nina Dobrev, jointly purchased an updated midcentury modern home secluded high in the hills above Hollywood. So it’s hardly surprising that White’s old house—a smaller but no less stylish and glass-walled midcentury modern elsewhere in the Hollywood Hills—has now popped up for sale, asking exactly $5 million.
White bought his former bachelor pad in 2018, paying $3.8 million, and has since given the circa-1955 post and beam-style structure a much-needed contemporary makeover, transforming the dowdy and dated interiors into terrazzo-floored and white-walled open spaces that more accurately reflect the home’s groovy heyday.
Due to the floor-to-ceiling windows throughout that flood the place with natural light, the house feels larger than its cozy stats would suggest. Per tax records and listing information, the structure has three bedrooms and two bathrooms in less than 1,900 square feet.
The house itself lies out of public view, shielded from passersby by a concrete wall and a gated entryway.
Google Earth
Tucked away on a little-known cul-de-sac in the Outpost Estates neighborhood, the 0.33-acre property offers a two-car carport and a petite driveway. The house itself is screened off from the street via a cement block wall painted a crisp white, while a gated walkway leads past a long thicket of bamboo on its way to the front door.
Once inside the residence, guests will be wowed by the combo living/dining/kitchen area, which is essentially one huge room full of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Hollywood and the L.A. skyline. The kitchen sports new cabinetry and premium stainless appliances, while sliding glass doors effortlessly blur the line between indoors and out.
Neither of the bedrooms or bathrooms are particularly large, but they all are nicely updated. At least one of the bedrooms has direct access to the backyard, where a classic kidney-shaped pool reigns supreme and is surrounded by tropically-landscaped patio area ideal for dedicated sunbathers. Beyond that, a big grassy lawn tumbles down to a fire-pit seating area with more big views of the city lights.
In an odd coincidence—or maybe it’s really not—White’s for-sale Hollywood Hills home happens to sit right next door to much larger contemporary mansion that he also used to own. After buying that larger house in 2015 for $6.4 million, White flipped the place two years later for $6.7 million to Shark Tank judge Robert Herjavec, who eventually sold the house at a loss to its current owner, a non-famous businessman.
White, 37, is a retired professional snowboarder and three-time Olympic gold medalist in half-pipe snowboarding. The San Diego native is also an entrepreneur with an ownership stake in Mammoth Mountain and his own lifestyle brand. More
138 Shares149 Views
in LuxuryLori Loughlin Is Seeking $17 Million for Her Lavish L.A. Mansion
Four years after she and longtime husband Mossimo Giannulli bought the place for $9.5 million, Lori Loughlin is returning her impressive “Full House” in guard-gated Hidden Hills back to the market, asking a much-increased $17.5 million. Fashionably dressed in the modern farmhouse architectural style and featuring a host of top-of-the-line amenities throughout, the 2019-built structure boasts six bedrooms and 7.5 baths in nearly 12,000 square feet of open-plan living space.
The big jump in price reflects Hidden Hills’ increased desirability, as buyer interest in L.A.’s gated communities has soared over the past few years. And it’s certainly worth noting that Loughlin and Giannulli have made some noteworthy improvements to the 1.5-acre property during their ownership tenure. The couple installed new landscaping—more than a dozen mature olive trees now hug the front of the property, providing increased seclusion and serenity. There are new contemporary chandeliers inside, a darker paint on the home’s outside, and a fully re-landscaped backyard with elegant new hedges, a fire-pit seating area, a bocce ball court and the same tranquil views of the hills that surround Calabasas.
Built on speculation in 2019, the modern farmhouse sits at the very end of a particularly prestigious cul-de-sac.
Google Earth
Behind equestrian-oriented Hidden Hills’ ubiquitous white picket fences, a short pathway leads to the house itself. Inside, guests will be impressed by the colossal foyer, which features soaring ceilings and clerestory windows that bathe the interiors in light.
The decor theme of warm tones — reinforced by creamy white walls and maple floors — continues throughout the home’s open-plan living spaces. The great room offers a chunky marble fireplace and a unique ceiling with parallel rows of skylights, while the dining room lies directly across from a temperature-controlled wine closet—which is currently equipped with a motorcycle—and can easily seat a dozen merrymakers.
As expected, the chef’s kitchen is undeniably lavish, sporting custom white cabinetry, marble countertops, and a bevy of high-end appliances. Wide banks of glass sliders blur the line between indoor/outdoor living and spill out to a massive covered dining loggia overlooking the backyard lawn and pool.
Other luxe spaces include a home gym with plenty of space for a row machine or two, a movie theater, and a large executive office. Upstairs, the primary suite offers a bedroom with a marble fireplace and private balcony, plus a spa-style bath and a bespoke dressing room.
Even if Giannulli and Aunt Becky were to sell their Hidden Hills house tomorrow, they assuredly won’t be homeless. The couple also still owns a $13 million desert vacation retreat at the Madison Club in California‘s Coachella Valley, where some of their nearest neighbors include Apple’s Tim Cook, Nike’s Phil Knight, Justin Bieber and multiple members of the Kardashian clan. More
138 Shares199 Views
in LuxuryThe World’s Most Expensive Home Lists For €425 Million In France
Share this home! Photo credit: Hemis / Alamy Stock Photo listed with Ignace Meuwissen of whisper auctions LOCATION: 1 Dom. d’Armainvilliers, 77220 Tournan-en-Brie, France PRICE: €425,000,000 This exquisite 100-room French Chateau, named “Chateau d’Armainvilliers”, is located in Tournan-en-Brie, France and is situated on 2,500 acres of land. It was built upon the foundations of a 12th century […] More
138 Shares159 Views
in Luxury‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Director Unloads Pastoral California Estate for $5 Million
About six months ago, Hollywood producer/director Jon M. Chu dropped $11 million to buy Halsey’s lush estate in the semi-remote mountains between Malibu and Calabasas. So it’s hardly surprising that the prolific filmmaker—he’s best known as the director of the 2018 blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians—has now sold his old house, a smaller but likewise gated and lush estate in the same general neighborhood as Halsey’s former spread.
Tucked into the unincorporated region known as Monte Nido, the nearly 2.7-acre ranch is about as quiet and secluded as any property in the greater L.A. area, set at the very end of a hidden cul-de-sac accessed via a whimsical wooden bridge. Screened behind stone walls and big gates, the estate features a Craftsman-style main house originally built in 1954, per tax records. Painted a rich henna color with teal trim, the nearly 4,800-square-foot structure packs in five bedrooms, lustrous pine floors, and numerous custom upgrades.
The house sold for just a hair under $5 million, a healthy jump over the $3.7 million Chu paid for the place just over three years ago. Per records, the buyer is an LLC linked to New Jersey-based real estate developer Robert Paulus.
Secreted away behind gates and ancient trees, the bucolic property spans about 2.7 acres.
Google Earth
On the main level, the house offers an airy living room is accented by massive wooden ceiling beams, triangular clerestory windows, a stone fireplace, and two sets of glassy French doors leading to the gardens. Likewise, the formal dining room also sports French doors of its own and a vaulted ceiling, while the adjoining kitchen has a distinctly 2000s flare with speckled granite countertops, plus custom cabinetry and top-of-the-line Wolf and SubZero appliances.
There’s also a huge den with enough space for large-scale events, and somewhere lies a so-called “bonus den,” with wood-paneled walls and big picture windows, that could be a home office or library. For social-distanced exercising, Chu and his wife Kristin (née Hodge) will enjoy a private gym. Upstairs, the master bedroom includes a cinematic wraparound wall of windows with views of the oak tree-studded grounds, and shoehorned into one corner of the room is a unique circular banquette-style lounge, perfect for curling up with a good book. For its part, the master bath is somewhat dated but offers dual vanities, redwood cabinetry, and a built-in soaking tub overlooked by skylights.
But the real star of the property show are the sprawling, ultra-private grounds, which contain native plantings, a canopy of mature oaks, fields of California poppies, and a fruit/veggie garden with plum, peach, and apricot trees. Various play and picnic areas line the trail to the far rear of the property, where there’s a large swimmer’s pool set into a stone patio, plus a BBQ and spa. Elsewhere on the lot is a detached five-car garage, plus off-street parking for several more vehicles.
Chu, 41, was born and raised by a Taiwanese mother and a Mainland Chinese father in California’s Silicon Valley. Before “Crazy Rich Asians,” he was perhaps best-known for directing the second and third installments of the critically-panned “Step Up” film series, in addition to directing Justin Bieber’s lucrative 2011 and 2013 concert films. More
188 Shares169 Views
in Luxury‘Grand Theft Auto’ Creator Flips Spare L.A. Home Back Up for Sale at $9.2 Million
Though it’s been barely a year since Dan Houser and Krystyna Jakubiak doled out $8.5 million for a traditional New England-inspired home in Los Angeles, the English video game mogul and his longtime Russian voice actress wife are already looking to unload their place in an inland Pacific Palisades neighborhood with a nearly $700,000 jump in price, asking a speck under $9.2 million.
Newly built in 2018—and purchased by the couple in spring 2023 at a substantial $1.5 million discount off its original ask—the wood-shingled structure sits atop an attached two-car garage and basement, and features six bedrooms and seven baths in 7,000 square feet of multi-level living space boasting blonde hardwood floors, high ceilings and wainscoted walls throughout.
Especially standing out on the main level is a gourmet kitchen decked out with an expansive eat-in island, top-tier Miele, Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances, and an accompanying breakfast nook and butler’s pantry, plus a fireside family room displaying glass doors spilling out to a landscaped backyard enclosed with a hedge-topped stone wall, and hosting a pool and spa, built-in barbecue and custom fire-pit. Elsewhere are formal living and dining rooms, along with a bookshelf-lined library.
A winding skylight-topped staircase heads upstairs, where the primary bedroom sports a sitting area nestled beside a fireplace, private balcony and walk-in closet, as well as an Ann Sacks-tiled bath equipped with dual vanities, a soaking tub and shower; and the basement level holds a movie theater, and an entertainment room flaunting a wet bar and temperature-controlled wine cellar.
Houser is best known for co-founding Rockstar Games with his older brother Sam in 1998 and producing the Grand Theft Auto franchise, which has generated revenues of almost $10 billion worldwide and become the highest-grossing media title of all time. After officially stepping down from the company in 2020, the 50-year-old formed Absurd Ventures, which specializes in producing multimedia projects spread across video games, TV, film and comics; his estimated net worth is around $150 million.
Houser and Jakubiak recently sold an elegant Brentwood mansion to Canadian Reuters heiress Taylor Thomson for $16 million. But the couple still owns a $12.5 million mansion in New York City’s posh Brooklyn Heights neighborhood that’s got the added cache of having once belonged to Truman Capote, a Santa Monica beach getaway that cost them $6 million in summer 2021 and another Pacific Palisades home they picked up unfinished back in summer 2021 for a whopping $31 million. More
175 Shares159 Views
in LuxuryAn Oceanfront Malibu Retreat Sells to Affordable Housing Guru for a Pricey $38 Million
Roughly seven years after it first popped up for sale with an impressive $57.5 million ask, a blufftop mansion in western Malibu’s desirable Encinal Bluffs neighborhood officially traded hands last month for a discounted but still hefty $38.4 million—ranking as one of 2024’s top five priciest Los Angeles County deals.
Property records reveal the buyer is Andrew Schwartzberg, managing partner of Washington, D.C.–based Pennant Housing Group, which specializes in the preservation, development and acquisition of affordable housing properties throughout the U.S. He also serves as a principal of SSC Partners, the Affordable Housing Management Group and Subsidized Rental Housing Investments, which collectively own more than 25,000 low- and moderate-income rental units.
The sellers, per The Real Deal, were investors Mark Cirlin and Man Li-Yeh, who paid Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman and her now ex-husband Michael Skloff $10.7 million for the home back in 2017. The investors subsequently spent several years and millions more razing and rebuilding the premises in collaboration with architect Doug Burdge.
Schwartzberg’s newly acquired Cape Cod-style residence is perched atop a gated blufftop parcel spanning 1.7 acres and offering sweeping ocean vistas. There’s a two-story, elevator-equipped main home rife with wide-plank oak floors and floor-to-ceiling windows, plus a separate guesthouse—for a total of six bedrooms and eight baths filtered across roughly 4,000 square feet.
Among the highlights: a spacious great room showcased by a fireplace, built-in cabinetry and a wall of custom French doors spilling out to a terrace. An adjacent gourmet kitchen is outfitted with a stone-topped island, top-tier appliances and a breakfast nook with banquette seating, while other amenities include an office and a formal dining room.
Elsewhere is a lavish upstairs primary suite resting beneath a high arched ceiling, and sporting a wraparound ocean-view balcony, fireplace, and dual closets and spa-like baths; and outdoors, the picturesque grounds host a pool and spa, an open-air pavilion warmed by a fireplace, a sunken fire-pit, and an al fresco kitchen with a grill, pizza oven and two stone-clad bars. There’s also an attached two-car garage flanked by a motorcourt, along with steps leading down to a secluded beach.
In addition to his new Malibu property, Schwartzberg and his wife Jaime have long owned another lavish Los Angeles home—a $16.5 million, 3.4-acre spread in the Pacific Palisades enclave of Rivas Canyon, which has eight bedrooms and 12 baths in over 10,000 square feet of living space. More
163 Shares109 Views
in LuxuryBlackpink’s Lisa Picks Up a Chicly Revamped Beverly Hills Home for $4 Million
Back in late 2023, Disney actress-turned-pop star Sabrina Carpenter doled out $4.4 million for a Hollywood Hills house renovated by Taylor Hahn and Amanda Leigh of House of Rolison. Now the Los Angeles-based design/build duo has already wrapped up another deal on a similarly reimagined house in the 90210. First listed at $4.2 million, the roughly 3,400-square-foot Spanish Mediterranean-style home just sold for a speck under $4 million to 27-year-old K-pop sensation Lalisa “Lisa” Manoban of the girl group Blackpink.
Records show the House of Rolison team bought this particular property for nearly $2.4 million almost a year ago, back in spring 2023, and then proceeded to breathe new life into the century-old home—giving it a fresh and contemporary flair, while still honoring its soul. Originally built way back in the early 1920s, the creamy stucco and stone structure now features four bedrooms and an equal amount of bathrooms spread across stylishly reimagined living space boasting stone walls and floors, custom-stained cedar ceilings and light fixtures imported from Italy. There’s also a brand-new terracotta roof.
A windowed dining area boasts a flamboyant chandelier and large windows.
Gavin Cater
Main-level highlights include a fireside living room with French doors spilling out to a covered balcony and formal dining room topped by a vaulted ceiling, plus a sky-lit kitchen outfitted with oak cabinetry, marble countertops, brass fixtures, a quartzite island, an Ilve range and accompanying breakfast nook. There’s also a posh primary bedroom flaunting a spa-inspired bath equipped with dual vanities, a freestanding soaking tub and rainfall shower, as well as a lower-level space with the original stone floors, a river rock fireplace and separate entrance.
A charming downstairs space with its own entrance is accented by stone floors, a wood-beam ceiling and river rock fireplace.
Gavin Cater
The house is sited on over an acre of greenery-encased land, amid a prime locale on a private flag lot set far back from the street, with the picturesque grounds hosting an al fresco dining terrace sporting a pizza oven and grassy lawn with plenty of room for a swimming pool should the new owner decide to take advantage of included plans. A two-car garage and driveway parking for up to three vehicles also can be found on the premises.
Per Variety, the Thailand-born musician known simply to her fans as Lisa has been pursuing a solo career parallel to her work with Blackpink for the past several years. Her 2021 single Lalisa saw her become the first female artist to sell nearly 750,000 copies during the first week it was released in South Korea. Most recently, she inked a deal with RCA Records that will allow her to release new solo music and retain full ownership of all her recordings, and the Bulgari brand ambassador also is set to make her acting debut in the upcoming third season of the HBO series The White Lotus.
The listing was shared by Brock Harris and Lori Harris of Brock & Lori Real Estate, and Farrah Brittany of The Agency; Amy Black of Redfin repped the buyer.
Click here for more photos of Lisa’s Beverly Hills house.
Gavin Cater More