Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Megan Ellison Shakes Up Real Estate Portfolio

SELLER: Megan Ellison
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $15,500,000
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A week or so before Your Mama left for a wee summer vacay in a semi-remote region of the Forty-Ninth State, we (dissed) and discussed the quirky New York City pied-a-terre recently picked up for $2.8 million by 27-year old high-tech heiress turned increasingly powerful indie film producer Megan Ellison. She, in case you somehow didn't know, would be trophy property collecting gazillionaire Larry Ellison's daughter. That explains, of course, how it is the ever-so-young but already Oscar-nominated young lady can maintain a residential real estate portfolio worth well in excess of $35 million.

Her purchase of a $2.8 million one bedroom bedsit in downtown Manhattan's perennially chic Police Building is hardly, however, Miss Ellison's only recent spin on the fast-paced upper end real estate merry-go-round. Like her father, Miss Ellison nurses a well-exercised penchant for the procurement of prodigiously pricey properties in desirable locales. In addition to her new digs in The Big Apple Miss Ellison owns three contiguous and uniformly contemporary residences perched near the edge of a vertiginous bluff high above the Sunset Strip in an area known by L.A. savvy real estate-o-philes as The Birds.*

The first Bird Street nest Miss Ellison bought and feathered, a sensationally sleek Steve Hermann-designed domicile, was acquired in February 2008 for $12.6 million and she unexpectedly picked up the glassy, also-Steve Hermann-designed abode next door in April 2009 for $6.25 million from media mogul Byron Allen. Even more surprisingly, in early 2011, the neophyte compound creator coughed up a back stiffening $13.8 million for the newly constructed mini-compound next door to the second one—the one she bought from Byron Allen—for $13.8 million. Her total outlay for the three contiguous cribs in The Birds? Nearly $33 million dollars, according to Your Mama's bejeweled abacus.

It seems, however, that three is more than enough for Miss Ellison who last April (2012) briefly made her first Bird Street acquisition available on the open market for an unknown price. The boxy but sexy residence was on the open market a scant four weeks but, as was pointed out to Your Mama by tipster Paulina Pointsitout, still appears on the listing agent's internet portal. The property does not, however and as far as we can tell, show up as an active listing on the Multiple Listing Service or any of the other two listing aggregators Your Mama briefly consulted.

Whatever the case, current digital listing details show the three bedroom and four bathroom residence carries a hefty asking price of $15,500,000. Listing details do not state the square footage but the L.A. County Tax Man puts it at 3,065 square feet. That seems to Your Mama a little small given the scale of the house as seen in listing photographs but, of course, what do we know? Nuthin', that's what. Listing details go on to explain that there are soaring 13-foot ceilings, custom Poliform kitchen and closets, whole house audio and security systems, and "outrageous views" through vast expanses of floor to ceiling windows, some of which telescope and disappear into the walls.

Other notable creature comforts and luxury amenities called out in listing details include an eight-foot wide gallery hallway, a warehouse-sized open-concept main living area with knee buckling city views, a state-of-the-art 20 seat home theater, and an interior courtyard with swimming pool and spa.

What's interesting, at least to a snarky property gossip like Your Mama, is that the publicly online marketing materials seem to make use of the exact same listing images as when Miss Ellison acquired the property residence back in 2008. Funny that, no?

Anyhoodles, poodles, as it turns out, this isn't the only multi-million dollar Sunset Strip house Miss Ellison has up for sale. A bit higher up in The Birds, at the tail end of an L-shaped cul-de-sac, Miss Ellison owns a low-profile ranch-style residence she quietly acquired in December for $1,800,000. This was, it would seem to the innocent bystander like Your Mama, a short term investment that Miss Ellison subjected to a contemporarizing gut renovation and flipped back on the market in November 2012 for $3,750,000. The price was later reduced—twice, actually—down to its current $2,990,000 price tag. The property, as per public listings, is currently in escrow—and has been since early April 2013—for an unknown price with an unknown buyer.

Listing details show the gated 2,404 square foot single story residence (above) has four bedrooms and four bathrooms plus additional flexi-use space atop the detached two car garage. Sliding glass doors slide open to connect the open plan living spaces (living, dining, kitchen) with the backyard entertainment area that includes a built-in barbecue station, a plunge-size swimming pool and a slightly elevated, party-sized spa in to which several ribbons of water cascade from a stacked stone retaining wall.

*All the streets in The Birds are named after birds. Get it? Robin, Thrasher, Warbler, and so on and so forth.

listing photos (Nightingale): Westside Estate Agency
listing photos (Swallow): Keller Williams Beverly Hills

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ms. Ellison is caught in a legal war taking two offers(2nd at higher price) on the smaller Swallow Drive House that is 2.9M She got greedy but didn't back out of first before taking the 2nd offer is what is alleged from Beverly Hills Realtors. In the meantime her friend, assistant, house manager is living in this house! He has a smelly dog and lots of Prada Shoes in the house Oh la la the dramas!

Anonymous said...

I hear she like the taco.

Anonymous said...

Oh these high end floors of polished wood and marble on which normal shoes would skid and slide until finally a neck is broken. I also adore the lonely banjo pretending to be a cello and sitting there disconsolate hoping somebody will come along and bring it to life.

Fancy Nancy said...



Welcome back, Mama!! I have missed you sooo much! Hope your vacay was filled with fireworks!!!

Your faithful follower,

Fancy Nancy

Anonymous said...

@ anon 3:57

Who doesn't like tacos in LA?

Anonymous said...

yes realtors are definitely suing each other over the buying of her flipped out home

Anonymous said...

What is wrong with the Ellisons? Billions upon billions of dollars and always buying and selling homes. Just build one or two dream homes and be done with it. WTF? Gates build his amazing dream home, has lived there forever and seems pretty damn happy with it.

Restless a$$ people.

Anonymous said...

Mama--

It is widely noted that after Herman's renovation the house on Nightingale is now about 4,900 sq.ft. Also, she is selling it completely furnished for $15.5m.

lil' gay boy said...

Umm, banjo?

I must say I do like her MCM sensibilities; as for building one or two dream houses, well...

...I cannot think of a nicer hobby that buying, remodeling & flipping such homes a la the DeGeneres/de Rossi couple.

Anonymous said...

The asking price on the Nightingale house is ridic.

Steve Hermann overpriced it to start (like he does all his houses) at $12.6 million. No takers so he slashed it down to $10 million or so. Still, no takers. So he removes it from the market.

Along comes Megan and gets shown the house and is told that it "was asking $12.6 million". She takes the bait and buys, full price.

Now she wants $3 million more?

Not to mention this house, while sexy, has some serious drawbacks. For one, the living room area is like half the entire square footage. Great for parties - not so great when it comes to living.

For another, the only view outside comes from standing on that narrow and vertigo-inducing rear terrace/balcony. The pool area has basically no view and is tucked around on the side of the house instead of behind it. Poor planning/design.

She will be quite lucky to break even on this one.

Anonymous said...

Oh yes...and Kevin James is NOT selling.

http://gossipextra.com/2013/07/02/kevin-james-house-delray-beach-not-for-sale-2735/

Anonymous said...

I knew a rare book dealer in Portugal who didn't know nuttin' about rare books. But he had a foolproof way of getting the best price. He had a kind of staircase of book containers and he always put a book he had acquired (or usually gotten by buying a whole library of some ignorant rich family) in the top container marked 25000 escudos; if it didn't sell there he would move it down a step to a container with books for 22500 escudos. No sale? Then down the next step. And so on until it finally found a buyer. He always found a buyer and got close to the best price possible.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Weston MA real estate said...

Unbelievable asking price. Perhaps if this was the real estate market of the past, but it's a bit unrealistic for the period we're in.