Thursday, February 17, 2011

Your Mama Hears...

...That rom-com queen Jennifer Aniston (Just Go With It, Marley & Me, Friends) isn't the only Hollywood hotshot female to quietly float her home on to the market with with a teeth chattering price tag.

We first heard whispers several days ago from a friend and informant and now two impeccably placed real estate tattle-tales confirm that comedienne and talk show titan Ellen Degeneres has quietly floated her multi-residence Beverly Hills, CA compound on the market with a scorching asking price of around $50,000,000.
Miz Degeneres and her actress wife Portia de Rossi laid out $29,000,000 for the nearly 9,000 square foot crown jewel of their hillside compound above Coldwater Canyon (above), which they purchased in December 2007 from Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick and his unfortunately named entertainment attorney huzband Erik Hyman.

The property-mad pair quickly snatched up two adjacent residences for another $13,500,000. One house they kept and the other they razed to make way for an expanded motor court and private park. In July of 2008 they shelled out another $5,500,000 to acquire the final piece of their real estate puzzle, a hillside house with oblique views into their backyard.

A few quick flicks of the well-worn beads of our bejeweled abacus shows that Miz Degeneres shelled out a staggering total of $48,000,000 to put her compound together. Sit back and think about that for a moment, cupcakes. Forty-eight million clams not counting the ten or so million buckaroos she coughed up for a 26+-acre equestrian paradise in the rustic hills outside Westlake Village, CA in late 2009. Hoo-wee, babies, after publicly coming out of the closet this Sapphic sister became Tinseltown pariah who managed turn her professional lemons into wildly wealthy Hollywood power-player lemonade. Brava beehawtcha!

Anyhoo, we really can't fathom why the Missus Degeneres's might want to unload their superstar-style compound after so much scratch and effort was spent to cobble it together and customize it to their exacting and specific standards. If we've said it once, puppina-weenuhs, we've said it a thousand times, who are we to question or comprehend the capricious real estate ways of the rich and famous? Especially the mercurial ways of someone like Ellen Degeneres who has a long history of buying and flipping high-priced properties from Los Angeles to Montecito to the Santa Ynez Valley.

photo: Pacific Coast News

14 comments:

StPaulSnowman said...

This woman has one of the most appealing personalities of any public person. She is clearly very intelligent and must know what she is doing with this venture. She may simply love property and houses and the process of creating something..........she certainly has the money to do it. I would bet she has a new project in mind and it will be fun to see what it is. All she has to do is sell this.......and the buyer pool has to be very small.

Jeannified said...

Wow, nice place. Usually these huge compounds are not attractive at all, but I like the layout of this place.

Anonymous said...

Wow, not a huge suprise. Hopefully its listed not so privately and we get to see some pictures, if her previous properties are anything to go buy it will be stunning.

Anonymous said...

Keep spending Ellen...buy something...lose money and buy something else. That will help drive the economy.

Anonymous said...

Forbes put her Net Worth at 65 Million in 2007, so that is a pretty large part of her wealth wrapped up in two slices of real estate...unless Forbes is totally worng (which could be, I would have thought he would be worth a couple hundred million with TV synd).

lil' gay boy said...

I remember when Ms Degeneres posted a video of herself tearing down that house which, if memory serves, cost $8.5MM ––– what fun! Pricey, but in actuality it was a skinny, nasty, ugly thing & the compound is better off without it.

Clearly she not only knows what she is doing professionally, personally, and real estate-wise, but seems to be genuinely enjoying it too.

Nice hobby if you can afford it. Who knew coming out could be so lucrative?

;-)

I for one cannot wait to see what she does next...

stolidog said...

sadly, this just screams of divorce.

Bev Mo said...

The BIG syndication money comes from scripted shows, dramas and sitcoms, that can be distributed over, and over, and over again if the demand exists. Talk shows, on the other hand, have short repeat lives because of their topical nature.

Anonymous said...

This lady has the most annoying voice I have ever heard.
I certainly admire the success she has achieved and very good luck to her but her show is extremely boring and her voice makes it unwatchable for me.

The Aussie

Carla Ridge said...

that, coming from an Aussie? Inserting my "Dr Bombay" laugh here.

Anonymous said...

She is the next Nicolas Cage.
She is obsessed with buying expensive properties.
Tyler Perry will be there also.

Anonymous said...

I also don't get how she has managed to make so much money. Her property portfolio is at an Oprah level. But she can't be making anywhere near what the O is pulling in annually. Or can she? I know nothing.

Jesse said...

A few years ago it was reported she was making $15 million a year. One could argue she is much more successful today.

She has had lots of endorsement deals in the last few years; Cover Girl pays very well.

Portia isn't exactly broke, having been on Ally McBeal, a very successful show.

Ellen wasn't on American Idol long, but I bet she got a huge signing bonus.

I doubt she'll be going broke soon, but who knows. I'd like to think she has great business managers and accountants. Maybe she made a ton of money on the market when it was flying high, or shorted stocks at just the right time.

luke220 said...

Let's see- $48,000,000 before a shovel went into the ground? At a sale price of only $50,000,000 she stands to lose at least $10,000,000. I wouldn't call that genius.

After a few real estate successes, she made some bad decisions here.