Hollywood Hills

Halsey recently put her extravagant estate near Calabasas up for sale, asking $12 million. Previously owned by One Direction’s Liam Payne and sprawling across some five contiguous acres, that property has since sold for $11.6 million to an anonymous buyer.

The “Without Me” singer appears to have radically altered her living situation; records confirm she’s paid $2.5 million to buy a small but stunning bungalow in L.A.’s musician-loved Laurel Canyon neighborhood. Nestled into the base of a rugged hill, the 1929 cottage was recently updated and heavily revised by Lauren Caris Cohan, a filmmaker and chief creative officer for the fashion brand Reformation. Before that, the 1,117-square-foot residence was long owned by music industry legend Geoff Emerick.

Emerick, best known as an audio engineer for The Beatles, helped produce some of the most iconic albums in rock history — “Revolver,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Abbey Road.” And Emerick’s talents proved immensely popular with other industry folk, as he later worked with Elvis Costello, Kate Bush, The Zombies, and Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles group Wings.

Walled, gated and set high above the street, the Laurel Canyon home is admirably private. A quaint stone-and-brick staircase leads to a hand-carved front door; inside, the two-bedroom structure includes a surprisingly large living room with a soaring ceiling, original oak hardwood floors, intricate iron detailing and an original wood-burning fireplace.

Mixed in with all those vintage features are plenty of modern amenities, too. Most notably, the kitchen offers new Italian terracotta floors, top-of-the-line Bertazzoni appliances and brass fixtures. Elsewhere are two bathrooms, both slathered in Japanese ceramic tile, and a spacious rooftop deck with built-in seating and a gas fireplace.

Out back, the half-acre lot is shaded by mature trees and is visually spruced up by a Mediterranean-style garden awash in lavender and bougainvillea. Those lush pantings surround multiple terraced patios ideal for al fresco entertaining, a petite plunge pool and even an outdoor shower.

Halsey, 28, is new to the Laurel Canyon area but not to the Hollywood Hills. From 2017-2020, she lived in the nearby Beachwood Canyon neighborhood, where she owned an updated midcentury home situated almost directly below the famed Hollywood Sign. More

In early 1987, Mexican media tycoon Emilio Azcarraga Milmo paid $2.3 million for the famed Sunset Plaza Apartments building. Located in the lower Hollywood Hills just a short walk north of the Sunset Boulevard, the 1930s structure was designed by prominent architect Paul R. Williams and occupied through the decades by a litany of Tinseltown stars: Carole Lombard, Charles Farrell, Katharine Hepburn, Mitzi Gaynor and Bernadette Peters, to name a few.

Months after acquiring the building, Milmo demolished it to build a lavish private estate that became his part-time residence. Designed by noted Mexican architect Tomas Cajiga, the hacienda-style compound was completed in 1990. Following Azcarraga Milmo’s 1997 death from pancreatic cancer, that estate was put up for sale at $16 million, though the ask was eventually slashed to $10 million. After the property did not sell, it eventually became a residence of Milmo’s son, billionaire Emilio Azcarraga Jean.

Now offered at a whopping $60 million, indicative of how home values in the surrounding area have soared, the property is an anomaly in many ways. After all, 2.3 acres of usable land is an extremely rare find in the tightly-packed Hollywood Hills, particularly on a property so close to the Sunset Strip and West Hollywood. The estate’s gardens are also some of the most elaborate and manicured in the entire surrounding neighborhood, more akin to a palatial estate in Holmby Hills or Beverly Park.

The estate includes an 11,000-square-foot main house, plus a separate guesthouse.

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The setting is also quirky. Though impressively private thanks to enormous hedge walls and mature trees, the house sits directly across the street from a large apartment complex, and it’s immediately next door to a spacious parking lot used by businesses on one of the Sunset Strip’s busiest blocks.

Perhaps that’s why, despite the sky-high $60 million price tag, the place is being marketed as a development opportunity. According to the listing, which provides no interior photos of the residence, the estate is “an ideal canvas for visionary developers” and could be used to construct several new homes or multiple apartment buildings.

But much like the loss of the Sunset Plaza Apartments, destruction of the Azcarraga Milmo estate would be a shame. Featuring appointments “suitable for royalty,” the Mexican Colonial-style property includes two dining rooms adorned with hand-cut stone and centuries-old wood beams, a chef’s kitchen, wine cellar and a library. Outside, stunningly sculpted grounds are decorated by the aforementioned lush gardens, grassy lawns and numerous fountains. There’s also a rectangular swimming pool abutted by a stone patio. And in addition to the 11,000-square-foot main house, the property includes a 2,000-square-foot guesthouse and off-street parking for more than 20 cars.

Alejandro Aldrete and Mauricio Umansky of The Agency share the listing.

Azcarraga Jean remains chairman of Televisa, Mexico’s largest television broadcasting company, though in 2018 he stepped away from the CEO role following two decades at the reins. The 55-year-old owns a number of other homes around the world; in 2016, he reduced the asking price of his 257-foot yacht from $144 million to $102 million. More