Friday, February 5, 2010

Jeffrey Katzenberg's Big Real Estate Deal

BUYER: Jeffrey Katzenberg
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $35,000,000
SIZE: 8,704 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We can't resist a big-ass real estate deal, partick because they've become so few and far between since the economy went swirling down the terlit largely due to exploding real estate markets and some sort of freaky financial instrument called a credit default swap that even most Wall Streeters can't explain in a manner a lay person let alone a booze house like Your Mama can understand.

Anyhoo, word is starting to slip and slide down the gossip grapevine that Jeffrey Katzenberg, wildly successful film producer and the co-founder and current CEO of DreamWorks Animation, has dumped somewhere in the neighborhood of $35,000,000 for a 6.34-acre hilltop estate in Beverly Hills. The house, located on a promontory above the famed Greystone Mansion, was sold by Simon "Si" Ramo, the 90-something year old physicist/engineer otherwise known as the father of the Intercontinental ballistic missile.

The taxman shows Mister Katzenberg's new crib, a single story contemporary sprawler built in 1965, measures 8,704 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms, 8 poopers, 1 fireplace and a 5-car garage. A massive motor court large enough to park a charity event's worth of luxury whips fronts the house and there are also, natch, a tennis court and a swimming pool and spa where Mister and Missus Katzenberg can paddle about while looking out at the glittery lights of Los Angeles below.

Since the property was not on the open market, that's about all Your Mama knows until we hear from one of our well connected snitches who feeds us a little more 411 about some of the properties details and finer aspects.

Mister Katzenberg, who is believe to be worth about eight or nine hundred million dollars, will be moving from a 5 bedroom and 6 pooper mansion in the Bev Hills flat that records show contains 9,173 square feet not counting the square footage in the two-story structure adjacent to the swimming pool. The house sits directly across from the mansion that television talking head Larry King–who has been married 8 times to 7 women and looks about 30 years older than he is–and his much younger wife Shawn bought in February of 2007 for $11,500,000.

Mister Katzenberg and the Missus also own a uber-modern Gwathmey Siegel designed spread sitting on 150-feet of Carbon Beach, Malee-boos most expensive stretch of sand. The forbidding front facade that faces Pacific Coast Highway peels open to a courtyard flanked and surrounded on one side by the main house and on the other the guest quarters. Together the two structures form an ocean side courtyard with a swimming pool, and a good sized swathe of unnaturally green grass. Property records show the compound contains almost 10,000 square feet of interior space with 5 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. Lo-ward have mercy, that's a lot of damn terlits in a weekend house. Anyhoo, Gwathmey Siegel also designed a Utah wilderness house for Mister Katzenberg, although we're not certain where exactly that house is.

Your Mama wonders if Mister Katzenberg has already sent Mister Siegel a retainer...Hmm. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

33 comments:

WrteStufLA said...

I wonder if Katzenberg will stay w/ Gwathmey Siegel, since Charles Gwathmey died of cancer last Summer...

lil' gay boy said...

Ooops, Mama, but isn't this overlooking Greystone Park?

Methinks you might have mis-timed you nerve pills and G&T's (din-din) and mistook Grayhall Manor, the former home of both Douglas Fairbanks & George Hamilton at some point, with Greystone Mansion, site of the gruesome, sure-he-was-just-his-secretary murder/suicide of the Doheny oil heir and his friend just on the heels of the Teapot Dome scandal?

See kids, stay in school, listen to your Mama, & you'll get yourself a real ed-ju-mah-kay-shun.

N'est-ce pas?

Stewie said...

Beautiful crib. One of the best in LA no doubt. I love the long private drive. This is what an LA mansion should be

siouxsie said...

How nice for Mr. Katzenberg. He can sit out by the pool on his promontory and wave to Ms. Aniston on her lanai.

Kitty St. Cloud said...

I suppose it's every titan's dream to own a hilltop in Beverly Hills but it looks like a teardown from the air. The way the tennis court is crammed up against the driveway it seems that most of the acreage must be of the "sloping" variety.

8 poopers, and not one witty remark!! I love when you talk about the poopers! More pooper talk!

Oh and Mama I'm sorry but that Malibu place looks like a damned water treatment plant.

jake said...

Info that I'm looking at shows a sale for $35,000,000 to Loma Vista Trust on 10/28/09 (recorded 11/4/09). Included two lots totaling 6.96 acres

Billy said...

We are going to loose another gracious mid-century ranch to faux-rococo-_ _ _, aren't we?

Anonymous said...

Kitty St. Cloud -

Tear down? My ass. This place is in great shape, not cosmetically my style (this is what i call goofy contemporary), but it is by no means a tear down.

The location is freaking insane.

Anonymous said...

LGB -
Greystone Mansion is that big pile sittin smack in the middle of Greystone Park.

Karena said...

Will it be a tear down and turn into a modern day McMansion? We shall see!
Karena

Stewie said...

This is most definitely not a tear-down guys! Look at the house! I think it looks awesome. Beautiful contemporary crib, with a long gated drive, tennis court, and vistas over LA. What more could you want?

Anonymous said...

The pedigrees of these places can certainly be interesting.

This one then would be The Little House That Missiles Built? Little House on the Missile Prairie?

to lgb - I'd forgotten the Doheny story, quite the noir incident, that one.

Anonymous said...

I highly doubt it will be a tear down ... Anyone who has seen his house on Carbon will realize he goes for modern.

Regarding mid-century moderns with huge prices - what's the deal with the Quincy Jones on Airole @ £29M - it's been on the market forever without the price being slashed - who's the owner? ... Anyone?

Anonymous said...

Yet another big number in the trousdale area . Another big sale that flew under the radar last month was Jim Jannard (oakley founder) $19.9 Mill purchase on Trousdale Place . i should have bought up there when i could have afforded it !

Anonymous said...

Anon 10:56 -- what was for sale for that amount on Trousdale Place? You're not talking about 301, are you? That WOULD seem to suit someone with an Oakley sensibility, though.

Anonymous said...

It was not on the OPEN market . 410 trousdale place . Closed on 12/22/2009 $ 19.9 mill

Carla Ridge said...

LOTS of these pocket listings in them thar hills. 410 is one of the best in Trousdale; a true gem by Hal Levitt. *sigh* Thanks for the tip!

Anonymous said...

You know your Trousdale very well.
Yes its a Amazing Hal Levitt , i agree one of the best in the area. lets hope Mr Jannard does the right thing and doesnt ruin this great home.

Anonymous said...

mr. ramo, possibly acknowledging his looong driveway
had placed a street sign just up from the entrance labeled "ramo drive"...

also, for those of us who remember getting our "TRW's"
in the day before fico,
he was the "R" in TRW

e

Carla Ridge said...

Anon 8:55: Thank you! I sure hope so; I'm writing a book about it!

I will say, Mama's wonderful blog has been an important source of information, for which I'm deeply grateful. Not since Blanche duBois has anyone relied on the kindness of strangers more than I, LOL! And anonymous ones at that!

Anonymous said...

Trousdale has so many great homes. i am glad pepole are starting to restore them ,insted of runing them beyond recognition . There is a beautiful william sutherland Beckett home being restored on haynes , and steve Hermann is doing his best craig elwood impersonation on the corner of haynes and carla ridge

Anonymous said...

Moving from a 9,173 square foot, 5 bedroom to a 8,704 square foot, 4 bedroom. Must be what the rich and famous call "Downsizing".

Unknown said...

Looks like the real estate tax will go from just under 20K to 437K...good for the state!

Carla Ridge said...

Anon 6:16 -- I understood the one undergoing reno on Haynes to be the work of William Stephenson, rather than William S. Beckett (whom I also ADORE)...but I could be mistaken and welcome being corrected!

In any event, I am intrigued by your command of Trousdale details -- might I persuade you to contact me in re the book I'm doing on the area?

trousdalebookproject@yahoo.com

I'd be delighted if you did! Total discretion assured. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

The hayenes remodel @ 520 was inded a William Sutherlad Beckett .The Home was know as the Penn-Wald residence . The home was photographed by Julius Shulman and published in quite a few books .Back in the late 50s and early 60s Penn-Wald custom builders were used on many of Becketts projects as a general Contractor , and when i came time for the owner of penn-wald construction to build his personal home 1n 1960 He enlisted none other than William Sutherland Beckett to design the home at 520 Haynes. Lots of great storys in them hills .

Anonymous said...

mr. k's contractors have been taking core samples all around this property leading me to believe he intends to at least add-on if not tear it down.

Carla Ridge said...

FASCINATING, anon 1:28, and many thanks. The home @ 520 Haynes was once held up as the epitome of Trousdale glamour, in its early print ads. I hope it IS being restored...but when I see these places stripped down to the studs, I get all worrisome. So many Becketts have been lost as it is!

Carla Ridge said...

PS: William Sutherland Beckett is not to be confused with Welton Beckett, kids. Same era, maddeningly similar names, but not the same architect. Far as I can tell, not even related. How they must have laughed...that is, if they ever met.

Realtors said...

All I can say is "oh mama, big crib". Nice one!

Unknown said...

At the same time he's buying a new 'home', Mr. Katzenberg and the leaders of the Motion Picture & Television Fund are determined to evict current residents of the Motion Picture Nursing Home and permanently close and bulldoze over the Home and its 70 year history.

Learn more at
savingthelivesofourown.org
a grass-roots coalition of thousands of entertainment industry workers and community members dedicated to keeping the MPTF Nursing Home open, to stopping the eviction of its elderly residents, and to restoring the MPTF's commitment to 'taking care of our own' - now and for future generations.

In the wake of the resignation of the CEO who was earned more than $900,000 in 2008, we want to partner with MPTF to do some heavy fundraising in the industry -- to restore the nursing home and everything else that has fallen by the wayside over the past seven years.

Mr. Katzenberg can afford his new home, and the industry can afford to keep the Motion Picture home open. It's not a matter of money, it's a matter of commitment.

Anonymous said...

Easy way to keep them straight: Welton Becket (one t), William Beckett (two ts)

Anonymous said...

I don't suppose there are any pictures of the inside of the place? Maybe from prior sales or when it was put on the market - if it was ever on MLS. Granted, they've probably redecorated and having pictures of that would be a little too creepy for comfort.


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