Paul Oakenfold Knows When to Fold 'Em

SELLER: Paul Oakenfold
LOCATION: Oporto Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $10,000,000
SIZE: 4,573 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: One of the best sited view homes on its own promontory in LA w/ sweeping vus directly above the Hollywood Bowl to the LA Basin, ocean & beyond. Down road's end is this gracious celebrity owned French Provençal updated several years ago & subsequently added onto by the present owner w/ recording studio, formal DR, offices, gourmet kit w/ loft & huge LR. Sultry master w/ FPL overlooking the city. Expansive patios, grassy lawn, pool, spa & bleachers to watch the Hollywood Bowl. A very rare opportunity.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Let this Hollywood Hills property be a lesson to all you budding mixers, scratchers and spinners out there whose parents snipe and whine about you wanting to pursue a career as a DJ, because this hill topper of a house, for sale with an impressive $10,000,000 asking price, belongs to none other that techno/trance DJ and music mix-master Paul Oakenfold. Your Mama is sure that some of you old farts don't have a clue who Mister Oakenfold is or why he has so much damn money. However, Your Mama likes to stay current with what the young people are listening to, so we know exactly who Mister Oakenfold is and the undeniable impact he's had on the shape and sound of modern music not to mention the night lives of audiophile scensters around the world. Some reports say that Mister Oakenfold is in such demand that he is able to command upwards of $25,000 per gig. Not bad work if you can get it, right?

Property records indicate that Mister Oakenfold and his now dee-vorced wifey, the not so successful ack-tur-us Angela Oakenfold, purchased this house on a private promontory overlooking the twinkling lights of Los Angeles in April of 2003 from Baker Bloodworth who appears to be the producer of several animated films and shorts. We were unable to locate the actual purchase price for the house, but all signs point to the Oakenfolds forking over somewhere between $2,500,000 and $3,000,000 for the Oporto Drive property. Now children, don't quote Your Mama on that price. We have pieced that number together in an ass-backwards sort of way, and we may be very close to correct or we might be wildly off track.

Not long after purchasing the house, the former couple embarked on an extensive renovation that included adding a 1,400 square foot second-story addition and, as you might imagine, squeezing in a sound studio. Assessor records put the square footage at 4,763, but we simply don't know if that includes the 1,400 square foot addition, or not. Listing information for the house indicates there are 4 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms as well as living and dining rooms, and eat in and "gourmet" kitchen with a loft space above, an office, a security system, multiple patios and terraces, a long stretch of grass for the kiddies, and a two car garage.

Your Mama has mixed emotions about this house. We are not digging the over all French Provençal architectural thing, if that's what it's called, and we're more than a little concerned about the somewhat unpleasant view of the house from the street (top left photo). We are very pleased to see that the scale and cascading terraces along the side of the house where the swimming pool is located offer a much more hospitable and friendly countenance, although we're still not certain that we like the exterior of house at all.

What we do like is that it appears that most of the major rooms open up to the outside through a stunning number of French doors. We also appreciate there are two fireplaces in the Oakenfold home (1 gas, 1 wood burning), but if we're being honest, and we always try to be, we hate the fussy and yet, not quite fussy enough fireplace mantels in the living room and the master bedroom. The Oakenfolds clearly did not hire someone with a sense of style and taste to do up the interior spaces, and we find furniture choices and arrangements lackluster at best. But let's be honest kids, the furniture, thankfully, goes with Mister Oakenfold and the new owner will likely hire a team of nice gay decorators to work their fairy magic on the interiors.

But the view. Oh lawhd have mercy on our snarky soul children, that damn view has sent shivers and goose bumps up and down Your Mama's spine. Your Mama can feel in our femurs how dee-luxe and full tilt Los Angeles glammy it would be to sit out on that flagstone pool terrace with a big pitcher of gin and tonics and watch the sun go down over the distant Pacific as pedicure princess Twan-Woo and her assistant Kim Chee work Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's toe nails.

Then we would go inside to the corner master bedroom with all the French doors and the staggering view and snuggle up and settle in our big king sized Tempur-pedic with our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly for a long night of reality television trainwreckery. That's right children, while Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are educated and subscribe to (and read) such high minded journals as The New Yorker and Harper's, we also love us some terrible T.V. We are so beside ourselves with excitement for the upcoming and sure to be upsetting Housewives of New York on the Bravo that we can hardly contain our giddy glee and schadenfruede.

Another quirky and cool element to his property is that it sits just above the world famous Hollywood Bowl. Mister Oakenfold has cleverly installed a small group of terraced bleachers that make it easy to pull out a pair of binocs and watch the show without having to pay for tickets, deal with the traffic, the parking or the inevitable drunk dude one row back who berates his hooker/gurlfriend and vomits on her scuffed and open-toed slingbacks. Of course, if the performer is not one you care for, we can imagine that this very close proximity to The Bowl could easily works one's last nerve. We can only hope that Mister Oakenfold and his architects installed sound proof glass in the row of French doors that line that side of the house.

Anyhoo, Your Mama thought the $10,00,000 asking price seemed a bit, well, surprising. But then again we are no expert and what do we know? So we got on the horn and called up a big name real estate with whom Your Mama is friendly and asked his educated opinion of the price, and we quote, "$10,000,000. Doesn't seem like a real price..." None the less, we can imagine that given the perfectly private location and the jetliner views, that there will be interested parties eager to tour the Oakenfold digs. Only time will tell children. We never would have imagined that the Steve Hermann designed house on Nightingale would fetch more than $10,000,000 and it recently sold for a staggering $12,600,000. So, again, what does anyone really know? A house is worth exactly what someone will pay for it, high or low.