Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Salma Hayek and Her Baby Daddy Buy in Bel Air

BUYERS: Salma Hayek and Francois-Henri Pinault
SELLERS: Kelsey and Camille Grammer
LOCATION: Bel Air Road, Bel Air, CA
PRICE: $13,500,135
SIZE: 6,811 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: All the tabs and blogs have been reporting on Salma Hayek's purchase of the Bel Air Road mansion of perpetual house movers Kelsey Grammer and his wife Camille. Because of all the coverage, it's not really necessary for Your Mama to weigh in on the subject. But we're going to anyway. We can't help it.

Kelse and Cammy have become well know by real estate gossips for their constant buying, selling, and moving. The chef barely has time to stock the pantry before these two are calling the movers and having their shit schlepped across town. For a full run down on the Grammer's real estate run around, you should head over to Mister Big Time's impressive and long list of properties that have been bought and sold by this peripatetic pair in the last few years.

Your Mama confesses to a bit of anxiety about the Grammer's constant property shuffle. We don't worry so much about Kelse and Cammy, they're grown and know how to read maps. It's the two small children that have Your Mama breaking out in a cold sweat. The Grammer tykes have easily called four Los Angelese estates home in the last few years, and that's not even counting the family properties in Hawaii, the Hamptons or the farm at the Delaware Water Gap. What happens if one of these little Grammer children gets lost? What's the likelihood they're going to remember the address of the estate they're currently living? Poor things.

As far as we can tell, the big ol' house on Bel Air Road was not on the open market. But thanks to our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air, Your Mama was able to get our greedy little hands on a couple of photos. Now children, please note the photos above were taken before Mister Kelsey and his bleached blond wifey with the fake boobs purchased the home.

In early 2006, soon after selling their monstrous $22,000,000, 17,781 square foot house up in fancy-schmancy guard gated Beverly Park at a $4,5000,000 profit, the Grammers bought this house on swanky Bel Air Road from music executive Steve Drath. Property records show Kelse and Cammy paid $10,500,105 in February 2006 for the considerably smaller 6,811 square foot house with 7 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. They must have felt down right cramped in this house compared to the hotel sized house in Bev Park.

Reports are all saying the Grammer's sold the house to Salma Hayek and her baby daddy Francois-Henri Pinault for around $20,000,000. An extraordinary and upsetting profit if true. Can a house in Bel Air really double in value in just one year's time?

It's no wonder preggers Miz Hayek would want a big house in Bel Air nowadays. The Mexican actress has long owned a modestly sized 2,874 square foot house on secluded Chelan Place in the Hollywood Hills that is unlikely to comfortably house a new baby, a nanny, and the super rich baby daddy.

Plus, if your baby daddy is Monsieur Pinault, he had better be buying you some impressively big digs up in Bel Air to house the family. For those of you not well schooled in luxury goods, let Your Mama educate you a wee bit on French bizness man Monsieur Pinault. The man heads up a company called PPR, whose subsidiaries include glitzy fashion houses such as Gucci, Yves St. Laurent, Alexander McQueen and Balenciaga. So you know this expecting behatcha has had some fierce maternity clothes custom made by the French couturiers, and baby Pinault will no doubt grow up with carte blanche expense accounts all up and down Rodeo Drive and the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

The Bel Air Road house is surrounded by some of Bel Airs most expensive and impressive estates including that of Robert Tuttle, car dealership owner and Bush Jr. appointee as Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Also nearby, Sandy Krause, heir to the Pep Boys fortune, the Joregensen's, who made their fortune selling metal tubes and rods, and the unnervingly large estate of Fresno-born billionaire Jerrold Perenchio, the Univision media mogul who was ranked as the 85th richest person in the world on the Forbes 400 list in 2006.

The 1930s era house occupies nearly an acre of plush grounds overlooking Bel Air and Los Angeles. Your Mama always finds it puzzling that a $20,000,000 property would not include a tennis court. Shouldn't all estates over $10 million include every recreational bell and whistle imaginable? For that amount of money we expect a house will not only include a tennis court, but a resident tennis instructor with a deathly difficult to return serve and strong and sensitive hands for our after-match massage in the pool house.

Given that Miz Hayek has owned the Chelan Place house since 1986, when property records reveal she purchased the house for $375,000 (our records somehow, oddly, reflect different specifics than those of Mister Big Time), Your Mama doubts she will sell the place. It just doesn't make sense to sell it. She can house her assistant there and let Monsieur Pinault pick up the landscaping bills.

As for the Grammers? Well, Your Mama hears they're getting ready to close on yet another pricy property. This time it's a 10,567 square foot, 5 bedroom, 6 bathroom estate located on Baroda Drive in the Holmby Hills, which they're buying from baking soda heir Michael Hammer.

Your Mama sincerely hopes one of the nannies thinks to shove a slip of paper with the address of the new house in the pockets of the Grammer children so the poor dears know where to go after school.

Sources: Forbes, Big Time Listings, Us Magazine, NY Post

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Regarding the steep profit Mr. Pinault is lining Mr. Grammar's pockets with, it seems to be a growing trend among those with more money than they know what to do with when it comes to acquiring their dream home. Oprah was the first, and Tom Cruise the most recent before this. I like the older, traditional architecture of the house. The natural wood tone bank of doors across the bottom of the back looks out of place to me though.

Anonymous said...

Us Weekly acutally broke this story several weeks ago. The sale price is $13,000,000 according to someone close to the deal.

Greg said...

i think this house was built new in 2004-ish. i do think the original price was around the 10 million mark. kind of a smallish property and kinda on weird shaped lot.

Anonymous said...

Mama states in her writeup the house is 1930's era.

Anonymous said...

He has multi-BILLIONS ... $20M is pocket change & he resides in Europe anyway so this is just a little L.A Pied a terre .... Mama Mama Mama - where is the Neutra house that Vidal Sassoon is selling? I'm waiting in anticipation!

Anonymous said...

A bright airy house. Not bad. Some work on the yard and inside seems needed. Still, 13 million. Eek!

Anonymous said...

Forgive me for pointing out that Baroda Drive is in Holmby Hills, not Bel-Air.

Your Mama said...

Hunny,you don't have to aplogize for nuthin. You are absolutely correct. Baroda Drive is indeed in the Homlby Hills and we're going to amend the post to reflect.

For those that don't know, the Holmby Hills is a small area North of Sunset (South of Sunset is Little Holmby) that is sandwiched between Beverly Hills and Bel Air. The properties in this area have a Bel Air address and a Bel Air zip code.

Anonymous said...

Also, Michael Hammer is the heir to Occidental Petroleum, not Arm and Hammer Baking Soda. Note pictures of the home at http://barodadrive.com/

Luis Pezzini said...

This is a great home, and was a great buy as well.