Thursday, March 3, 2011

Sandy Gallin Flips Bel Air House With Steep Discount

SELLER: Sandy Gallin
BUYERS: Serge and Florence Azria
LOCATION: Los Angeles (Bel Air), CA
PRICE: $23,000,000 (list)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Since the transaction we're about to discuss has yet to close–or at least online property records do not yet reflect a transfer–what we're about to tell the children is just rumor and gossip. You got that? We'd bet our long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly, plus a year of the only so-so cooking and cleaning services of our sometimes impolite house gurl Svetlana, that our 411 is accurate. However, until prop records spell out the details of deal–or someone close to the transaction goes on the record with the press–it's all just rumor and gossip.

Anyone who follows the tawdry and glamorous high-end real estate scene in Los Angeles knows that Sandy Gallin, a former talent manager to superstars like Dolly Parton, Neil Diamond and Michael Jackson, has developed a lucrative avocation as a flipper of very high-end houses in both Los Angeles and the hoity-toity Hamptons.

In late May 2007 Mister Gallin, allegedly a charter member of Hollywood's so-called Velvet Mafia, paid $7,000,000 to purchase the stately but slightly down on it's heels Paul Williams-designed mansion in Bel Air that for 45 years had been the home of the late Emmy-winning actress Jane Wyatt. It had, in real estate speak, good bones and an excellent Hollywood pedigree.

Mister Gallin's team toiled like dervishes on a full-scale renovation; An entire new wing was added to the rear of the house and the grounds were re-landscaped and dramatically lit. Mister Gallin worked over and beat the interior spaces into decorative submission with his signature style of casually sophisticated if somewhat fussy and clean-lined but soft around the edges contemporary elegance. She'll probably want to scratch out our eyes for saying this but Your Mama sees Mister Gallin's decorative thing as Armani Casa meets Pottery Barn and together they rub up on Frette, frequent blue-chip art galleries and pass regularly through Hermès.

Mister Gallin first flipped the renovated residence back on the open market in June of 2009, just about a year after buying the property, with an astronomical asking price of $32,000,000. The pristine property was de-listed and re-listed and the price tag reduced several times before late September 2010 when it popped back up on the market with the far more realistic asking price of $23,000,000. By the end of January 2011 the property was marked "pending" on Redfin.

We've heard some tittering and scuttlebutt about the pending sale–including that the deal died during inspections but was later revived–but it wasn't until this week that we received a covert communique from a snitch whom we'll call Sister Robert Mary Joseph who tattled that the new owners of Mister Gallin's gut-renovated residence in Bel Air are Beverly Hills fashionistas Serge and Florence Azria.

After a quick contemplation of Sister Robert Mary Joseph's real estate scuttlebutt we snatched up up our worn-out but still bedazzled princess phone and gave our sassy and well-connected informant Kenny Kissintell a ringy-dingy to see if we could get an amen on the matter. Kenny, a fabulously well-to-do bon vivant and bone fide real estate freak who hears plenty of the delicious what's what about all the high-end property in the Platinum Triangle, told us that the deal went down for around $21,000,000 and that Mister and Missus Azria coughed up even more dough-re-me for some of the Mister Gallin's furniture. That number will certainly make any number of Beverly Hills property owners grin with glee but it's still a steep and perilous one-third less than Mister Gallin's bank account blistering original price tag of $32,000,000.

Along with being the brother of L.A.-based French fashion mogul Max Azria, Mister Serge Azria is the owner of various upper end ladies clothing labels including Joie and Equipment. Missus Florence Azria is a well-kept woman about the Beverly Hills charity and social circuit who is justifiably well-known among the fashion crowd as The Shoe Goddess.

Listing information for the .67 acre estate Mister Gallin re-worked and sold shows the renovated compound includes a total of 7 bedrooms, 12 poopers, at least 7 fireplaces and a brand-spanking-new infinity-edged swimming pool that stretches a mind-boggling 110 feet long, about a third of the length of a damn football field.

Mister Gallin retained some of the home's original architectural details such as the parquet floors and sensational and glammy circular staircase in the foyer. Some of the original wood floors were replaced with wide-plank reclaimed hardwood and the walls are hand-trowled with lustrous Venetian plaster. The public rooms include party-sized living and dining rooms, a second living "lounge," library, den and a cavernous kitchen easily capable of feasting forty. The lower-level, a day-light basement sort of set-up, includes a media area, billiards pub, glass-encased wine room and and home fitness facility.

The master suite has two private baths and each of the four guest bedrooms has en-suite facilities. Many of the posh poopers showcase one of Mister Gallin's favorite and oft-recurring decorative motifs: enough meticulously folded white towels stacked snugly in open shelves to adequately supply a busy bathhouse.

Mister and Missus Azria, who Your Mama heard have already or will very soon to move into their deluxe new digs in Bel Air, currently own a 5,977 square foot mansard-roofed mansion on a good street in an excellent section of the flats of Beverly Hills. Property records show they bought the gated property in November of 2003 for $5,500,000. Clearly the financially fortunate Azrias are trading up even as the fashion and retail economies were down the last few years. Bully for them.

In addition to his flip in Bel Air, Mister Gallin has also had a luscious 14-acre spread in the Hamptons on the market. Like the Bel Air residence, the Bridgehampton property was first listed in 2009 with the astronomical asking price of $32,000,000, a number that subsequently sank to $20,000,000. The Wall Street Journal reported in late January 2011 that the 3-parcel estate went to contract for "close to its asking price." Unfortunately we know nada about the details of that deal.

Here's a little extra, sort of related, Platinum Triangle real estate morsel for the children to savor:

If the children will put on their thinking caps they may recall that Hollywood honcho Mister Katzenberg set the Platinum Triangle real estate community on fire last year when he paid a truly shocking $35,000,000 to purchase the 6.34 acre hilltop estate of big-time defense contractor Si Ramo, the man often credited as the "father of the intercontinental ballistic missile."

What's most betwixting and bewildering to common folks like Your Mama is not that Mister K. shelled out thirty-five million bigguns for the estate but that he proceeded to immediately raze Mister Ramo's 8,705 square foot contemporary to make way for his own behemoth Beverly Hills Barbie Dream House. That's right, chickadoodles, Mister K. bought a $35,000,000 tear down. That, children, is how people with money to burn and cash to flush down the terlit do it.

Now here's the juicey-juice, lemon drops, our sassy informant Kenny Kissintell recently confided to Your Mama that word on House Flipper Street is that it's Mister Gallin who has been engaged to oversee the design and day-core of Mister Katzenberg's new crib.

It's just rumor and gossip, hunnies, rumor and gossip.

photos: Everett Fenton Gidley for Teles Properties and Westside Estate Agency

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Mister Gallin worked over and beat the interior spaces into decorative submission"
He doesn't strike me as a top!

Anonymous said...

So many white towels!!

The Aussie

lil' gay boy said...

Typical type A personality that, when applied to any real estate endeavor, walks the thin line between genius & an Asperger's-like anality.

In the case of this Bel Air gem, he done fell flat off the line & into the void. How else can one explain how, working with the raw material of a legendary Paul Williams symphony of brick & mortar, that the end result could be something like that master bedroom, which resembles nothing so much as a high school basketball court? Perhaps he was indulging himself in a little sweaty-teenaged-athlete fantasy? That would account for the locker-room-ready towel supply.

;-)

On the other hand, he did exhibit pure genius in the pool in Bridgehampton, built out into the private pond ––– an inspired way to increase the value of a house so far from the ocean.

As for Mr. Katzenwhatever, I'd insist he be strung up by his family jewels for demolishing such a lovely MCM if it wasn't for the fact he is responsible for that Carbon Beach Gwathmey Siegel tour-de-force, as well as a second one in Utah ––– all is forgiven.

Perhaps we're to be treated to another G+S design, overseen by Mr. Gallin? Let the fur fly, kitties; as they say, "...oh, to be a fly on the wall.."

angie said...

If the Azria's have the money to throw around good for them, but I think they over paid even at the reduced price.

btw, I'm noticing a recurring theme of abundant, and I do mean abundant, natural color wood in Sandy's rehabs and it's getting kind of old at this point imo.

Anonymous said...

Miss Gallin also has 1031 SUMMIT Drive I do believe. On the market for 16 mil. since Jesus was a baby.

Housey said...

Why do they have so many towels? There's like 70 towels in each freakin bathroom! Are they expecting a flood?

Anonymous said...

lovely home, it says definitively "hey I poop money but I am still down to earth!" and you can never get too many white towels!!.

Anonymous said...

LOVE that kitchen! - (pot rack and all - sorry mama!)

Hopefully I'll be invited to Ms. Azria's pool boy audition party - it will take an army of topless bronze & buffed boys to keep that thing clean.

Rosco Mare said...

If the story is true, the house was remodeled ONLY because approval was denied for it to be demolished to make way for a ultra-modern structure! The estate is complimented by the colonial house across the street, which looks as if it could have been designed by Paul Williams.

Gallin's remodel is beautiful, but I agree with Lil Gay Boy, why fiddle too much with Paul William's design? A dramatic glass front door was installed, and it's wrong for the colonial architecture.

When I am disappointed hear that LA has lost another architectural gem, even when it is replaced with another architecturel gem, I think I should just get over it. But it still hurts, doesn't it? The MCM Ramo house in Trousdale was not visible from the street, but LA suffers a loss, just the same in my meaningless opinion.

los angeles maids said...

That's why its expensive. It comes with a lot of amenities like the outdoor pool which I love by the way and the billiards room.

The spiral staircase is great too!

commentator8 said...

This house seems to have low ceilings in the public rooms for a home of this magnitude. Would be a deal killer for me, I love a high ceiling.

LGB, I agree on the pool in Bridgehampton. It looks much better from the ground than in the sky, however.

Jeannified said...

My Lord...that man certainly works overtime, doesn't he?! Wow! Well, this house IS beautiful. He did a great job of renovating it. LOVE the floor beneath that beautiful staircase! The whole place is luciously opulent! Fantastic!

Moving Mansions said...

Pool, Kitchen and driveway: These are the only things about this residence that really interest me. I think the wood paneling inside went a little too 80s Scandinavian and leaves me flat because of it. I love your site and am a huge fan, come check out my blog about adventures in LA Open Houses here:

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Anonymous said...

god I am so sick of this moving mansions guy-LOSER! he is all over curbed LA trying to drive traffic to his site.

Anonymous said...

How many staffers does it take to keep up with all of the towels?

Mama, the next time your cleaning girl gives you a fight, show her how bad her life could be!

Anonymous said...

Isn't the 1600 Summit listing that WEA has also a Gallin project (telltale towel stacks)? Is he living there until it sells? Seems like It's been on the market forever as in since it was completed in 2007, as btw, have many of the most expensive properties on their site -- the one on Sunset, the one on Foothill. Forever.
Is the Dennis Quaid place on Evans a new thing? Would assume so since there are only two pictures. Think I remember that he has bought a place in Austin. Apparently, he didn't have to sell this first.

StPaulSnowman said...

Why would you waste a whole photo on that lackluster picnic table and then follow up with a close-up of the old people steps down into the swimming pool? If I were a skilled photoshopper, it would be tempting to add a container of metamucil in the first shot and some dingleberries in the pool.

E.J. said...

This isn't very intelligent, but what's the deal with the towels?

Anonymous said...

I'm not a fan of the pool jutting into the pond in Bridgehampton. In August that pond will be swarming with mosquitoes and crawling with hairy spiders in the pondgrass. Ponds are nice to look at on the East End, but in the heat of summer you don't spend a lot of time right near or in this case practically IN them. They're stagnant and brackish and an insect paradise.

StPaulSnowman said...

I must say I am with Anon 3:11......a pool jutting into a pond which looks like a marsh isn't very smart. I know it would have our Minnesota State Birds slapping their little knees and shaking their probosci.

lil' gay boy said...

Left a link to the Bridgehampton listing with Charlie...

...those of us familiar with the "bug" issue will be happy to note the pricey solution ––– there's a number of water jets installed in what is most likely a man-made pond. These not only aerate the water, they help to keep the bugs in check ––– and they can look pretty too, when done right.

Otherwise it can be like camping out on the sidewalk in front of the Bellagio.

StPaulSnowman said...

Thanks LGB for the link to those great photos. The water jets for bug control are an interesting idea. Anyone who could afford this place could afford a daily flyover spray...............and scoff at the fines for using DDT.

Anonymous said...

Sandy ALWAYS way over-prices his houses - that is his sales strategy -I'm sure he is thrilled w/his price. Wait a year and watch for the law suits, he is an expert on cutting corners (just as Mark Burnett in Malibu). :)

Anonymous said...

Mama!
Are you payin attention? Christina Aguleria is
puttin the Ozzie Manse on the block, bought for
$11mil, selling for $13 mil... Or somethin along
those lines

Erica Montoya said...

This isn't very intelligent, but what's the deal with the towels?