Monday, April 18, 2011

Oracle Heiress and Producer Megan Ellison Expands Bird Street Compound

BUYER: Megan Ellison
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $13,750,000
SIZE: 4 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama first caught wind of this here juicy real estate tidbit about Oracle heiress and budding movie producer Megan Ellison (True Grit) a few weeks ago from on our our Platinum Triangle insiders but forgot all about it until reminded of the matter the other day by The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial.

Miss Ellison, the lucky (and allegedly lesbian) lassie, was born with a proverbial silver real estate spoon in her mouth. Her tech industry tycoon father Larry Ellison–co-founder and CEO of software supernova Oracle–is a notorious trophy property collector with outrageous and sumptuous residences and investment properties all up and down the state of California and beyond. In San Francisco he's got a monumental modern mansion in upper-crust Pacific Heights and down the peninsula, in the sleepy upscale suburban enclave of Woodside, Mister Ellison bunks in a sprawling Japanese-themed compound so meticulously built with traditional and ancient Japanese building practices and materials–it was built, it has been reported, entirely without nails–that it'll make your hair stand right up on end.

Mister Ellison reportedly owns upwards of a dozen properties in Malibu, including five contiguous parcels on Carbon Beach, and the recently dee-vorced big-livin' billionaire recently made real estate waves in the desert where, in early 2011, he dropped a sanity wrecking $42,900,000 for Porcupine Creek, an astonishing 249-acre spread in Rancho Mirage, CA with private 18-hole golf course, an absurdly palatial 18,000-plus square foot main house, four detached guest houses, four more guest casitas and a swimming pool and entertainment complex that looks more like something a person might expect to find at a resort hotel in Scottsdale, AZ rather than in some one's backyard.

Mister Ellison's near-mythic real estate apple apparently did not fall far from the tree because, like him, his daughter has a penchant for pricey properties, particularly, it seems, for compounds. As of Tax Day 2011, young young young Miss Ellison owns three very contemporary cribs on three contiguous lots with unobstructed city views in the very desirable and celebrity-friendly Bird Streets neighborhood high above the Sunset Strip.

The first of Miss Ellison's three Bird Street aeries, a glitzy, glassy, sexy, sassy and quintessentially Steve Hermann-designed house, was acquired amid much fanfare and hoo-ha in early 2008. She, presumably with a financial leg up from her Big Daddy, paid $12,600,000 for the 3 bedroom and 4 pooper party pad.

The following year, in April 2009, she (presumably) used $6,500,000 more of her daddy's dinero to pay media mogul Byron Allen $6,500,000 for the 3,562 square foot house immediately next door. We make no claims as to its veracity, but Your Mama heard through the celebrity real estate grapevine that Mister Allen bought the 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom house for his drop-dead gorgeous but real estate fickle mother who decided–after her son had done signed the deed on the dotted line–she didn't want to live there. Your Mama does not know Miss Ellison nor do we run in the same sorts of social circles as she does, but we also heard from someone in a position to know that the reason Miss Ellison bought Bryon Allen's unwanted property next door to the one she already owned was because she wasn't thrilled with the lack of view from the courtyard swimming pool in the first house. Bam! How y'all like them real estate apples? That's just how the daughters of billionaires roll.

In 2010 Esquire magazine made use of a newly built modern mansion directly next door the second house Miss Ellison had already acquired on the block. They called it The Esquire House, natch. The suave magazine hosted parties and events and all the fabulous people came as well as all the people who just think they're fabulous. They strapped on their booze goggles, mingled to the beat of L.A.'s most in-demand DJs and hooked up in a willy-nilly fashion that many of them probably regretted the next morning when they did that awful early morning drive of shame with smeared lipstick, a dress that smells like vodka and a ratty hair-do that let's ev-er-ee-one know you did not sleep in your own bed or look in a mirror before high-tailing it for home from a stranger's house.

Anyhoo, in September 2010 The Esquire House went up for sale with an asking price of $18,900,000. According to listing information, the mini-compound includes a 4 bedroom and 7 pooper main house plus a detached two-story guest house with music room and recording studio. The over-the-top interior spaces have clean lines, walls of stacked stone, vast expanses of floor to ceiling glass for absorbing the panoramic view of all of L.A. from downtown to–on a clear day–the Pacific Ocean.

The main rooms of the gated mansion include a living room with a fire and water sort of fireplace/fountain sort of thing, a media area that looks far too much like the first class cabin on a damn airliner and a sleek kitchen open to a small dining area. The architects and designers peppered several built-in wet bars throughout the property so that one never need be more than 20-feet from a fresh gin & tonic. One of the wet bars is upholstered in leather and another has a rounded alcove outfitted with not one but three 32-inch flat screen tee-vees. A few of the other swankety-swank amenities of the highly stylized–and arguably over-designed–residence include a home office, high-tech fitness room, a state-of-the-art media room and a massive master suite with sitting area, fireplace, a long bank of floor-to-ceiling glass with city views, a multi-chamber spa-style bathroom, and a pair of custom-designed walk-in closets that look far more like a high-fallutin' boo-teek or haberdashery than they do a damn closet.

A wide, multi-level terrace extends off the back of the house. The expansive party-friendly patio runs along the steep slope that drops off in a vertigo-inducing manner and was–we're afraid to say–fashioned with two contrasting colors of stone pavers laid in a dizzying and unnecessary striped pattern that makes the whole thing feel like a hotel instead of a private residence. Slung around here and there on the terrace and around the house are several seating and dining areas, a built-in barbecue center, a patch of grass for the pooches, an infinity edged swimming pool with spa and a narrow and linear firepit thing that must be 30 feet long and looks it's aching to lick and char the fake-tanned skin of an "actress" in Lucite stilettos or maybe a douche bag in an Ed Hardy t-shirt.

Five months after appearing on the open market, the now de-consecrated Esquire House was sold for far less than the asking price and to the same corporate entity that owns the first house on the block that Miss Ellison acquired back in early 2008. The sale price, according to property records was $13,750,000, more than five million clams less than the asking price.

According to the steaming beads of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus, Miss Ellison has now forked over an unimaginable $32,850,000 for her dee-luxe compound of three very contemporary houses all in a row. According to Your Mama's rudimentary calculations based on the property records we accessed, the property taxes alone for Miss Ellison's three homes in The Bird Streets are well in excess of $250,000 per year. How do them real estate apples grab ya? Anyone else besides Your Mama flat on the floor in a puddle of flabbergast and disbelief? We don't begrudge Miss Ellison her nearly 33 million dollars in contiguous real estate. We just can't imagine what she could want or need with three luxe and louche homes all in a row? But, then again, if Your Mama has said it once we've said it 111,111 times before: Who are we to question or comprehend the capricious ways of the rich and famous?

listing photos: Luxury Style Photography for Hilton & Hyland

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

not my taste or style.

nursedeb said...

don't like ANYTHING about this house.
soo modern it makes my teeth hurt.
pass the gin and tonics!!!!!!!
and a big FAT nerve pill, PLEEZE

Anonymous said...

Miss Ellison certainly hit paydirt in, as Warren Buffet would say, the gene pool lotto. LA was lacking trustfundarian producers so her commitment to Bird Streets is welcome.

Speaking of douche bags in Ed Hardy t-shirts, did Christian Audigier sell his Hancock Park house? Is it a pocket listing?

Lady J

Anonymous said...

Love all three of her houses, but please, what does bitch need with 3 multi-million dollar homes next door to each other? Daddy needs to grow a sack and say no.

Anonymous said...

I never understood from the get-go in 2008 why Miss E bought a house with a swimming pool in a courtyard with no view out to "the world" but instead a view of the neighboring house's privacy wall! And, for more than $12.5M to boot! The whole point of the house on that side of the street is the miles-long view, yet you have to be IN the house for the views. The pool was in a courtyard for that staggering price (three walls of your own and the neighbor's wall)!
Although I'm not overly enamored by this 2-houses-down the street house, Miss E may be interested in its greater spaces, its higher height/levels, and, at last, a much better view from the outdoors spaces.
Maybe she'll combine the properties somehow and someday into quite the "compound"; for now, it's certainly piece-meal (or begin to market the first 2 properties).
GREAT updates, Mama!
Always grateful,
MLP

Anonymous said...

Cold as ice. Does it match her personality I wonder. Her papa can obviously afford, unlike Cage, to collect a ridiculous number of houses but I would think he and those like him might well be used to help fund the deficit with a wealth tax. I'd advocate at least a 1% levy each year on net worth. Would be financially very satisfying. Maybe a 5% yearly levy on houses valued at over 5 million. I think most sensible people would not need more than a 5 million dollar house.

Anonymous said...

nice to see that someone did something with all that "global crossing money"....

Babe Parish said...

Go on, Ms. Ellison, wich yo bad ass self! The views from the Bird Streets are sublime, so if she (er Pop) can afford a closet, pooper or whatevs, with a view of the Beverly Center then I say, do it. Buy the whole damn block.

Anonymous said...

Been to the Esquire House. It is SIMPLY Stunning. Views are Dead on! Only problem is the ceilings are LOW but the house is devine!! I am way jealous!

Anonymous said...

That closet just gave me an orgasm.

Anonymous said...

I will bet my bototm billion dollars that there will be a legendary estate built on those three lots in the not too far future. 10 years?

Anonymous said...

I think you'd have a pretty hard time getting the city to approve a sprawling mult-lot mansion in this area. Just doesn't happen like up in the hills over Beverly.

Anonymous said...

"Legendary estates" in my opinion should be taxed out of existence and the money used for better ends. America should belong to more than just the top 1%.

Anonymous said...

This house was better before Esquire got their hands on it. They completely spoiled the exterior.

As for Miss Ellison ... she's still trailing the Ecclestone's by a considerable margin!

Steve Mawson said...

Erk. How many shades of taupe, beige, brown and grey can one need ? Yawn...snooze. Great for someone with ZERO personality - or sensational art work ! I see none of the latter. Does Ellison, Ms, have an abundancy of the former ?

Michael said...

Completely lesbonic in it's dulled taupey interiors and frightening whaheena-inspired entry court facade. It's perfectly boring.

Anonymous said...

Does she still own the Topanga estate she bought back in 2008? 21901 Saddle Peak Rd?

No recession blues for the Ellisons!

lil' gay boy said...

It appears it can indeed get ice cold in sunny SoCal.

Lovely set pieces but none of them a real home.

greg said...

oh snap, you peeps aren't on the level.

she's bought the 3 joints to make sure that she can choose who lives near her.

I bet that after the esquire party craziness, all she wanted to do was throw more money at it, and make sure that shit never happens again.

When your daddy has a penchant for high end real estate and pockets deeper than 's throat, it would be easier to buy the problem away.

Anonymous said...

She's making a production headquarters in the compound. At 25, she's a budding producer thanks to her daddy's endless funds.