Friday, May 13, 2011

Recent Divorcée Avril Lavigne Lists Bel Air McMansion

SELLER: Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley
LOCATION: Los Angeles (Bel Air), CA
PRICE: $9,500,000
SIZE: 12,184 square feet, 8 bedrooms, 10 full and 1 half bathroom

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Truth be told, puppies, Your Mama wouldn't know an Avril Lavigne song if it sidled up and scratched us on the arm. We do know, however, from a lot of years in the celebrity real estate game, that soon after high-profile couples return from the court of dee-vorce their once convivial conjugal crib often goes up for sale.

Canadian pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne hitched her angsty wild-child wagon to Sum 41 front man Deryck Whibley in July of 2006 in a surprisingly and disappointingly traditional wedding where the blushing bride wore a big white Vera Wang-designed wedding dress. Her trés trad trousseau was a far cry from the tutu-wearing and bird-flipping gal known to spit on a pap or two like an angry llama.

Not long after the young and shockingly rich rockers said their I dos they splashed out a very grown-up $9,500,000 to purchase a beefy mcmansion in the Bel Air Crest, an upscale guard-gated community in Los Angeles perched above the traffic-choked 405 freeway between Bel Air and Sherman Oaks. Mister and Missus Lavigne–she was without a doubt the pants wearing part of the pair–bought their marital mcmansion from rocker Travis Barker and his then wife, volatile beauty queen turned reality tee-vee star/hostess Shanna Moakler who currently hosts the dreadful and depressing Bridalplasty program. All the MTV watching children will recall that Mister Barker and Miz Moakler filmed their reality program Meet the Barkers at this very house.

Anyhoo, wedded bliss proved elusive to Mister Whibley and Miz Lavigne who separated about three years after getting married and finalized their dee-vorce in the last months of 2010. We have no idea what happened to Mister Whibley but Miss Lavigne quickly moved on to reality tee-vee star Brody Jenner. Think about this for a moment, pets. Brody Jenner is the step-brother of the shameless publicity-seeking Kardashian clan. That means, of course, that pouty and foul-mouthed Miz Lavigne spends family time with giant-assed famous person Kim Kardashian. What do the children think those two talk about? Make-up? The weather? Current geopolitical power dynamics?

Your Mama knew deep in our snarky gut that it was only a matter of post-divorce time before Mister Whibley and Miss Lavigne put their Bel Air mcmansion on the market and, sho enuf, the hulking 12,184 square foot beast popped up on the open market yesterday with an asking price of $9,500,000, the exact same amount they paid almost four years earlier.

Listing information shows the bulky mock-Med mcmansion was built in 2003, sits high and tight on a squeezy .59 acre lot and includes a total of 8 bedrooms and 10.5 poopers, big numbers that ensures Miz Lavigne and Mister Whibley had a part-time minimum wage gurl whose only responsibility was to iron bed linens and scrub terlits.

Glass and scrolled iron front doors open into a cavernous double-height entry that spills into the formal living room, furnished with black leather club and hood chairs, a gilded rococo coffee table–which we kind of j'adore in a drag-queen-goes-to-the-Salvation-Army sort of way–and a blood red velvety sofa thing with over-scaled tassels. It looks to Your Mama like Miz Lavigne–or her nice gay decorators or perhaps a team of stagersaspired for the day-core to look like the louche lobby a Goth-inspired boo-teek hotel. However, as the children can plainly see, it's difficult to make that particular look work in a large and luxurious but architecturally ordinary mock-Med mcmansion. Velvet drapes that pool on the ground like blood, clearly, do not a Gothic castle make.

The main floor of the Whibley-Lavigne mcmansion includes dual offices, a guest suite with private pooper and a formal dining room where an unfortunate faux paint treatment on the walls and ceiling was probably meant to give some Old World patina to the Venetian plaster walls. The large and well-equipped center island kitchen opens across a breakfast bar to a breakfast/family room. The family room has a carved stone fireplace and is furnished with more black leather wing-back chairs and another velvety and tasseled sofa in another half-hearted attempt at decorative darkness. Hunnies, not even that black glass chandelier over the super high-shine breakfast table can turn this faux-Tuscan mcmansion into a Gothic princess's palace or a celeb-friendly Hollywood nightclub. It looks to Your Mama like Miz Lavigne might have been angling for but fell far short of the moody and multi-dimensional interior day-core similar to what recently divorced pop music superstar Christina Aguilera's decoratin' demons did for the Beverly Hills mansion she has on the market with a $13,500,000 price tag.

Upstairs four family bedrooms each have a private pooper. One of the bedrooms was all done up and did over in an incongruous peach and pink accented Shabby Chic style with floral print curtains, child-sized vanity table and a Barbie-pink trunk placed at the foot of the bed. It looks like the bedroom of a little girl but as far as we know neither Miz Lavigne nor Mister Whibley have children. Also upstairs a massive master suite features a fireplace, kitchenette, terrace, custom-fitted walk-in closets and dual bathrooms.

The lower level, a vast basement-like space has a wine cellar and tasting room with built-in booze cabinets, a large gym with wet bar and sauna, a heated and cooled 10-car garage, laundry facilities and staff quarters.

Many of the rooms on the main floor open to the backyard. An outdoor living room tucked into the blocky residence is outfitted with a fireplace and flat screen television and connects the interior to the exterior, a mostly flat area that stretches back to a steep ravine behind the house and has an unobstructed view of surrounding mountains and canyons. The back yard has all the necessary accoutrement for indoor/outdoor California living including a swimming pool and raised spa, outdoor kitchen and built-in barbecue center and a flat lawn for naked croquet. A couple of canopied sun beds at one end of the pool coupled with the dearth of personal effects makes Your Mama think that either Miz Lavigne's decorating skills are only as finely honed as her fashion sense or that the mcmansion was given the once over by Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota.

We don't know to where Miz Lavigne will (or has already) moved but iffin we were the betting type–and we are decidedly not–we'd wager she's fixin' to move in with boyfriend Brody Jenner and make babies. But then again, what does Your Mama really know about anything?

listing photos: Coldwell Banker / Beverly Hills South

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

J'adored this post, Mama. The house, obviously, is hideous.

Steve Mawson said...

While she may be able to belt out a wailing moaning screech and earn good money evidently from doing do, Ms Avril's architectural carbuncle and interior design grotesquery is beyond words. We can't even comment about the interior. WHAT are those hideous handicapped banister rails that lead up the front steps - a skateboarders rail ???? Tear down that house, maybe, but only maybe keep the pool.

Anonymous said...

Is that a conference room or supposed to be an eat-in kitchen? Again, two tubs so placed that you can't look out the window while soaking. Stare at the wall instead? I second the "hideous" remark as a general assessment. BTW who ARE these people? I am astounded at how such nobodies get the money to buy a multi-million dollar house. An eternal mystery.

Anonymous said...

"Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota"

A truly memorable phrase. Deelish.

Anonymous said...

It's pretty awful, but since you expect worse it doesn't seem that bad.

Anonymous said...

So. Punk. Rock. Sorry, I've just always hugely disliked Avril Lavigne's contrived mall-punk persona, and she seems like a pretty unpleasant, shallow person all around. Lol, living in Bel Air like Joan Collins and consorting with Kardashians- what a rebel! And here she and her ex were, living in this beast- because every young couple needs a heated 10 car garage, right?- it's just obscenely tacky. I hope they take a loss on this. It was probably mortgaged to the hilt anyway.

Carla In California said...

Thank you Steve Mawson for noticing the banister rails as well! I had a flashback to the stairwell at my old high school and decided whatever made these people put those things in front of the house and expected "curb appeal" was snorting somethin' funny.

Ugly, boring and so not rebellious... and then, there's the house. ;)

Mama'sBoy said...

"...a gilded rococo coffee table–which we kind of j'adore in a drag-queen-goes-to-the-Salvation-Army sort of way"
Oh wow this is the best thing since the Sharon Stone in Sly's backyard imagination! I never say "LOL" but my God! LOL!!
"Velvet drapes that pool on the ground like blood, clearly, do not a Gothic castle make."
This is just hi-larious!!

On another note, I just love (er, loathe) how these mock-med mcmansions try to cover every imaginable base on half a damn acre..."canopied sun beds" vaguely hope to suggest a proper cabana, and that outdoor kitchen and TVs everywhere are just ridiculous.

Love You Mama,
Checks in every day, hope you know!
Mama'sBoy

Anonymous said...

Wanna buy it, i love her so much

Uncle Bob said...

Her last album just surpassed a million in sales. Not bad for someone that "threw it all away".

Jesse said...

I've never liked Avril, but I do like her latest song. Of course, I only liked it when I thought it was someone like Selena Gomez singing it and not actually Avril. I couldn't suddenly stop hating it.

Poor girl made her fortune on teenage angst, swearing she'd never sell out and then she did. Expected.

I feel like I've seen that house a billion times. I believe the world currently contains about 900 million mansions that look EXACTLY like that one. So predictably ugly. I guess in the midst of all of her teenage angst she never found a time to befriend a nice gay decorator. Or maybe the place is supposed to be cold like her soul?

Anonymous said...

"am astounded at how such nobodies get the money to buy a multi-million dollar house"

hahaha i'm laughing so hard. her news wouldn't be here if she were nobody.

you are nobody, dumb doesn't think with its brain and logic. maybe it thinks with its arse. bloody nora! that words suit you!

Anonymous said...

this will go closer to 6.5-7. 600/sq foot max in Bel Air Crest. She'll take a bit of a loss

MH Critic said...

I'm always fascinated by how much money singers make and what houses they buy. I like Avril very much but Brody Jenner seems like he isn't good enough for her. Did you see what a jerk he (and his brother) was on his reality show The Princes of Malibu? Poor David Foster, who was married to Linda Jenner at the time. Brody was very disrespectful. I hope he has grown up.

midTN said...

Are you absolutely certain this isn't a renovated old school building?

Anonymous said...

The Naked Croquet lawn is the best part.
The Aussie

Anonymous said...

Wonderful as always, Mama.
Outdoor television...ugh.

Lady J

Bandish, India said...

I love her and her house is beautiful.

Anonymous said...

А по русски можно?

Anonymous said...

Excellent journalism... huge error..

Avril Lavigne said...

thanks for sharing... Avril is an extraordinary singer, with great talent and musical quality

Anonymous said...

Kim K wants to buy it according to her Sept 3 Reality show episode. She called it her dream home. Her Guy Kris said not until she pays off the home she is in. (BTW ,which she bought for 3.5 million and is just a smaller tacky version of a fake Tuscon McMansion)
I was surprised she has a mortgage.

I can't imagine that monstoer house on 1/2 acre

CindyOwiJ said...

Wanna buy it, i love her so much