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    Richard Simmons Called This $7 Million Hollywood Hills Estate Home for Decades

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    By the time he graduated from high school in the 1960s, Richard Simmons clocked in at nearly 270 pounds. A few years later, he received an anonymous note on the windshield of his car that read, “Dear Richard: Fat people die young. Please don’t die.” He tried everything from fad diets to laxatives to slim down. He even stopped consuming food altogether, dropping 215 pounds in about two months and winding up in the hospital before deciding to pursue a balanced lifestyle of moderate eating and exercise. The New Orleans native subsequently headed to the West Coast to share his inspiring journey as a self-proclaimed “former fatty” via classes and seminars at his Anatomy Asylum turned Slimmons studio/eatery in Beverly Hills, where his clients ranged from Barbra Streisand to Paul Newman.

    The frizzy-haired, Dolphin short- and sparkling tank top-wearing “Pied piper of pounds” went on to help millions of overweight men and women of all shapes and sizes lose more than 3 million pounds via his custom meal plans and fun and energetic workout routines. He created more than 65 aerobics videos that sold upward of 20 million copies—think Sweatin’ to the Oldies, Dance Your Pants Off, and Disco Sweat, just to name a few. His first book, Never-Say-Diet, hit The New York Times bestseller list; he also appeared on numerous TV and radio programs, including stints as himself on General Hospital and Arrested Development, and hosted his own nationally syndicated talk show.

    A two-way fireplace in the living room connects on the other side to a light-filled music room.

    Marcelo Lagos Photography

    RELATED: Quincy Jones’s Longtime Bel Air Mansion Just Hit the Market for $60 Million

    In the early ’80s, his success enabled him to purchase an impressive home above the Sunset Strip in the Hollywood Hills for a reported $670,000. He eventually withdrew to the Colonial abode around 2014 and was rarely seen in the public eye afterward, closing his studio in 2016 and keeping up with his fans and encouraging them to  “enjoy your life to the fullest” via Facebook. Now, after his death last July, just one day after his 76th birthday, his longtime refuge has popped up for sale at a speck under $7 million. John A. Lucy of Keller Williams Hollywood Hills holds the listing, which is being marketed as a “one-of-a-kind opportunity to own a landmark home or construct a new masterpiece.”

    Built way back in the ’30s and personalized by Simmons during his tenure, the cream and white premises are tucked away behind walls and a gated motor court amid a hillside spanning over half an acre. A stately columned portico entryway flows inside, where four bedrooms and five baths are spread across a little more than 4,100 square feet of living space on multiple levels.

    The four-room primary suite is highlighted by a cherub-lined bath and second-floor gym.

    Marcelo Lagos Photography

    RELATED: Jackie Collins’s Former Beverly Hills Home Can Be Yours for $66 Million

    Highlights include a living room anchored by a two-way fireplace that connects on the other side to a music room, as well as a formal dining room and an updated kitchen outfitted with Thermador appliances and a breakfast nook. A curving pink-carpeted staircase lined with painted cherubs leads upstairs, where the four-room, double-height primary suite is spotlighted by a fireside bedroom with a private balcony, a large dressing area, a bath sporting a spa tub and Juliette balcony, and a lofty gym that still retains its Keiser exercise equipment.

    Elsewhere is a secondary guest suite and a study, as well as a flexible lower-level space with its own entrance. The amenities continue among the garden-encased grounds, where an expansive veranda steps down to an eye-catching circular pool and pool house beyond. There’s also a detached two-car garage.

    Click here for more photos of the Hollywood Hills residence.

    Marcelo Lagos

    Authors

    Wendy Bowman

    Wendy Bowman is a real estate writer at Robb Report. Before that, she was a freelancer for Modern Luxury and several other media outlets, where she primarily covered luxury properties for…

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      An L.A. Home With Ties to Leonardo DiCaprio and Adrian Grenier Can Now Be Yours for $25 Million

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      Though its coveted Bird Streets locale high above the Sunset Strip is indeed impressive, perhaps the most intriguing thing about this place is its Tinseltown ties. Not only does the posh pad just happen to sit right next door to a vast multimillion-dollar compound owned by Leonardo DiCaprio, it also has the added cachet of having served as the home of Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) during the fourth season of the popular HBO show Entourage.

      Canadian businessman Stan Bharti last picked up the estate from hospitality mogul Sam Nazarian as part of a clandestine off-market deal in 2011 for $14.5 million, with the property selling in just a week due to the unusual concierge service perks that went with it. Now the contemporary structure has popped up on the market again for a speck under $25 million, with James Harris, David Parnes, and Kris Everett of Bond Street Partners at Carolwood Estates sharing the listing.

      The formal dining room’s floor-to-ceiling awning windows picturesquely frame the city skyline.

      Christopher Amitrano/CS8 Photo

      RELATED: A Couple of Pop Culture Icons Just Sold Their Hollywood Hills Villa for $7.8 Million

      Spanning 6,300 square feet, with a trio of bedrooms and half a dozen baths spread across three levels, the snazzy villa rests on a hillside parcel of nearly an acre and offers sweeping city lights and ocean vistas from almost every vantage point. A gated entry with water features opens to the all-white house, which has an attached three-car garage and private street parking that can accommodate several more vehicles.

      A latticed screen hides the glassy front door, which pivots into a double-height entry foyer donning a transparent floor and a floating staircase. From there, the living room boasts a TV nook off to the side. Walls of glass also spill out to an alfresco entertaining balcony, which overlooks an amenity-filled backyard hosting a Viking-equipped kitchen, a sunken fire pit, a mirrored bar with a craft beer dispenser, and a curvaceous infinity-edge pool with a raised spa.

      The backyard is spotlighted by a curving infinity-edge pool and an elevated spa.

      Christopher Amitrano/CS8 Photo

      RELATED: This $10 Million House Above L.A.’s Sunset Strip Has a Two-Story Entertainment Complex

      Other highlights include a formal dining room and a piano lounge with a fireplace and bar, as well as a sleek kitchen outfitted with a marble-clad island, top-tier Miele appliances, and a butler’s pantry. The top-floor primary suite is another standout, flaunting a fireplace, a separate office, and a luxe bath holding a wet room with a soaking tub and steam shower, while the lower level features a bar and lounge leading to a movie theater that opens to the outdoors.

      Bharti, founder of the Toronto-based merchant bank Forbes & Manhattan, recently sold a waterfront Florida mansion on North Bay Road in Miami Beach that was originally listed for $42.5 million. He acquired the glitzy estate from chicken restaurant magnate Christian de Berdouare and his former TV journalist wife Jennifer Valoppi in 2021 for nearly $30 million.

      Click here for more photos of the Hollywood Hills residence.

      Christopher Amitrano/CS8 Photo

      Authors

      Wendy Bowman

      Wendy Bowman is a real estate writer at Robb Report. Before that, she was a freelancer for Modern Luxury and several other media outlets, where she primarily covered luxury properties for…

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      Adam Lambert’s Glam Sunset Strip Home Is Up for Grabs at $7.4 Million

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      It’s been an almost unbelievably successful ride for Adam Lambert ever since he came in second place behind Kris Allen on the eighth season of American Idol back in 2009. Not only has the flamboyant singer, songwriter, and actor released several albums that included his early hit Whataya Want from Me, but he stepped in for the late Freddie Mercury as lead vocalist of Queen, made his Broadway debut as the Emcee in Cabaret at The KitKat Club, and was most recently tapped to play Judas in a Hollywood Bowl production of the classic Broadway musical Jesus Christ Superstar.

      Word on the street has it that he’s also been seeking new digs in New York City. So it’s really no surprise he’s decided to let go of the Los Angeles home he picked up in 2018 for $6.5 million, listing the modern Hollywood Hills spread high above the Sunset Strip with Greg Holcomb of Carolwood Estates for nearly $7.4 million.

      The streamlined kitchen comes with a massive stone island that can accommodate up to eight people.

      Christopher Amitrano/CS8 Photo

      RELATED: Rapper G-Eazy’s $3.7 Million Hollywood Hills Home Comes With a Professional Recording Studio

      Resting behind a gated driveway on a hilltop parcel spanning a quarter of an acre, the boxy white stucco and black-trimmed structure was originally built in the early 1950s. Extensively upgraded and customized during Lambert’s tenure, it features four bedrooms and six baths filtered across roughly 5,000 square feet of three-level living space accented with rich hardwood floors, high ceilings, and vast expanses of glass overlooking sweeping views of L.A.

      Among the highlights is a combined living and dining area boasting a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace and collapsible glass doors spilling out to the turf-clad backyard, plus a sleek kitchen furnished with an eat-in island that can seat up to eight and Wolf appliances. Up a floating staircase topped with a bulbous topaz light fixture is a posh primary suite sporting a mod fireplace and a wraparound balcony, as well as dual walk-in closets and a luxe bath flaunting a black soaking tub and glass-encased shower big enough for an entire swarm of folks.

      The primary bedroom has a mod fireplace and walls of glass opening out to a wraparound balcony.

      Christopher Amitrano/CS8 Photo

      RELATED: Red Hot Chili Peppers Frontman Anthony Kiedis’s Former L.A. Home Lists for $5.5 Million

      Rounding it all out in style are the secluded grounds, which host an L-shaped infinity pool and spa flanked by a sundeck and fire pit, along with a barbecue and bar setup nestled beside an alfresco dining area. There’s also an attached two-car garage with glassy doors out front.

      Per the New York Post, Lambert has been spotted house hunting in New York, where he recently toured a snazzy $10.5 million duplex unit in Tribeca at 108 Leonard St., the first residential condo conversion of a McKim, Mead & White Beaux-Arts building.

      Click here for more photos of the Sunset Strip residence.

      Christopher Amitrano/CS8 Photo

      Authors

      Wendy Bowman

      Wendy Bowman is a real estate writer at Robb Report. Before that, she was a freelancer for Modern Luxury and several other media outlets, where she primarily covered luxury properties for…

      Read More More

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      in Luxury

      Liberace Once Owned This L.A. Townhouse. Now It Can Be Yours for $3.6 Million.

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      In 1937, MGM built The Shoreham, an elegant, Hollywood Regency-inspired complex just above L.A.’s Sunset Strip. Built to house the studio’s stable of up-and-coming ingenues, leading men, and visiting stars, the long list of silver screen residents reads like a who’s who of Golden Age Hollywood: Marlene Dietrich, Katharine Hepburn, Fernando Lamas, Ava Gardner, Veronica Lake, and Olivia de Havilland.

      Though he bought a 28-room mansion in Beverly Hills in the early 1960s that was once described as “a combination Versailles Palace and Vic Tanny Gym,” the famously flamboyant entertainer Liberace later owned a much more modestly proportioned townhouse condo at The Shoreham that has popped up for sale with an asking price of almost $3.6 million.

      It’s not known if Liberace dressed the almost 2,400-square-foot condo, one of the largest of the 15 townhouses and apartments within the tranquil gardens of the half-acre complex, with the same sorts of feathers and sequins he favored for his showy stage performances. However, the townhouse certainly retains much of the original architectural flair that was no doubt appreciated by the fleet fingered pianist. 

      Period details include herringbone-pattern walnut floors, French doors and mullioned windows that look out to a walled courtyard, Doric columns in the entryway between the living and dining rooms, a chateau-style marble fireplace in the living room, and staircase railings that resemble the swooping lines of a velvet theater curtain.

      The main entrance gates at The Shoreham in West Hollywood.

      Daniel Dahler for Sotheby’s International Realty

      Once occupied by Barbara Marx Sinatra, the former Las Vegas showgirl who became the fourth and final wife of Frank Sinatra, the later owners of the three-story townhouse condo include interior designer Dan Zimmerman and Beverly Hills ophthalmologist Joseph Sidikaro. The townhouse last changed hands only about a year ago, when it was sold for $2.6 million to veteran entertainment executive Glenn Geller, the former president of CBS Entertainment, now President of TV at Skybound Entertainment.

      Among the many improvements Geller has made over the last year, the lattice that adorned the double-height porch was removed, bookshelves were added to the fireside living room, mirrored tiles were affixed to the walls of the dining room, and the galley kitchen was updated with new paint, new countertops, and new high-end appliances.

      The view from the private roof terrace.

      Daniel Dahler for Sotheby’s International Realty

      Besides its show business provenance, the feature that really sets the townhouse apart from the other units at The Shoreham is the 2,000-square-foot private roof terrace. A tented dining area takes up a portion of the landscaped space that also has a built-in grill, a projector for alfresco movie nights, and a glittery city lights view beyond the neon lights and billboards along Sunset Boulevard.

      The townhouse is listed with Chris Laib and Michael Remacle of Sotheby’s International Realty—Los Feliz Brokerage.

      Click here for all the photos of Liberace’s former townhouse.

      Daniel Dahler for Sotheby’s International Realty More