Monday, June 13, 2011

Candy Spelling Finally Unloads 'The Manor?'




Buckle up your safety belts, children, and pour yourselves a tall and stiff gin & tonic because according to the hard-working celebrity real estate gals over at The Wall Street Journal, showbiz widow Candy Spelling is finally, at long last, about to unload The Manor, her 56,500 square foot limestone-clad beast of a mansion in the hoity-toity Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles that's been on the market for-fookin-evuh with a sanity defying asking price of $150,000,000.

The Wall Street Journal reports the soon-to-be new owner of preposterously gargantuan Manor to be the 22-year old Petra Ecclestone, the exceedingly pampered daughter of Formula One racing mogul Bernie Ecclestone. Apparently, Miss Ecclestone plans to split her time between London and Los Angeles after her upcoming nuptials to an international gadabout and entrepreneur named James Stunt. A sale price has yet–as far as we know–to be released, revealed or snitched.

Followers of the international real estate scene recall that it was only in December of 2010 that Miss Ecclestone, presumably with a financial leg up from her generous father, paid a mind melting £56,000,000 for Sloane House, a redonkulously large mansion near London's swank Sloane Square. That's $91,151,800 at today's rates according to Your Mama's currency conversion contraption so it's not like these Ecclestone's are afraid of or strangers to coughing up more than a hundred million clams for a private residence.

Far be it for little ol' Your Mama to question the mighty Wall Street Journal lion but, interestingly, when we queried one of our better-connected sources inside the Platinum Triangle real estate beltway–one who has typically has frighteningly accurate information–we were rather cryptically told the buyer is, in fact, not young and dewy Miss Ecclestone but rather, "Someone else more wealthy...one of the richest in the world!" Make of that what you will, children.

According to listing information, Miz Spelling's multi-winged faux-French mega-mansion sits on 5 manicured acres that butt up against the uppity Los Angles Country Club and features 14 bedrooms and 27 bathrooms, a hotel-lobby sized formal living room that doubles as a projection room, a banquet hall-sized formal dining room, oak-paneled library, office, billiard room–breathe, breathe, breathe–a game room, two-lane bowling alley, wine cellar with tasting room, not one but several gift wrapping rooms, china and silver storage, a beauty salon and barber shop, doll museum, art studio and fitness room.

The vast house also includes extensive staff and service quarters and covered parking spaces for 16 cars plus room for 100 more along the double drive and in the prairie-sized motor court. The grounds, which we can assure the children cost more to water and maintain each year than most teacher's earn in an entire year, include party-tent friendly lawns, savannah-sized terraces, a swimming pool complex and a tennis court that we can't imagine Miz Spelling has ever even stepped foot on let alone used.

Miz Spelling will downsize into an approximately 16,000 square foot duplex penthouse at the recently completed Century tower in Century City. Early reports suggested she paid $47,000,000 for the penthouse but more recent later reports indicated that a tanked real estate market brought the actual sale price down to $35,000,000.

UPDATE: Gossip juggernaut TMZ now reports that young and brassy Miss Ecclestone settled for Miz Spelling's south of Sunset Boulevard mega-mansion as a second choice since what she really wanted was wealthy divorcée Suzanne Saperstein's $125,000,000 Fleur de Lys,north of Sunset Boulevard just a few blocks away. It's not clear, according to TMZ, why Miss Ecclestone was unable to secure Miz Sap's Frenchified mega-mansion but when she–or, more likely, her father's people–were unable to put a big deal together she shifted gears and bought Miz Spelling's even larger and more expensive but less authentically "French" house.

Stay tuned, puppies, this real estate tale continues to unfold...



aerial photo (top): Pacific Coast News
listing photos: Coldwell Banker / Hilton & Hyland

28 comments:

tovangar2 said...

"The Manor" is built on the site of the old Bing Crosby estate (and a few other houses). I thought it was slightly odd, back when they were building it, that it sits across the street from the restrooms in a public park. I remember being quite impressed though that fully mature landscaping (trees, climbing shrubs, hedges, etc) was installed around the newly built pile within about a week. One day when we were at the park my nanny asked (I'm not rich, I had four kids & needed help) what the new building was, and when I told her, she replied, "So that's where that stuck-up Donna lives!".

Anonymous said...

Eccelstone, uggh.
He is one of the most vile and revolting people on the planet.

angie said...

Wow Mama, I'm stunned. Just contemplating having 56,500 sqft of house to manage tires me, so more power to whomever bought it, I guess. I honestly thought Suzanne Saperstein's pile would sell before Candy's. I guess you just never know. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Mama, is this the Bev Hills house that's built on roller skates or something to stay steady during earthquakes? It's either this one or one very similar to it.

Babe Parish said...

Since i was reminded that katy and russell cannot afford the aniston zen den, petra needs to snap up jen's property and spend the savings on some DECENT WIGS AND HAIR EXTENSIONS! please!

Trixie von Trott said...

This is the house that new money built and in new money's hands it will stay.

I wonder if Bernie is distributing his ill gotten gains before he croaks by snapping up insane properties for his daughters? Probably a nice way to avoid death duty.

If Petra doesn't "buy" it then I'm guessing it will be a stinking rich Russian. No one with class would be seen dead in this oversized tract home.

Anonymous said...

It sold for $65,000,000 and not a dime over.

Cheap for its size, but then again, it's an ugly and tacky property.

Anonymous said...

LA? Is she trying to be an actress now??? I don't understand, although I haven't read anything about her in ages.

Also, Petra's wigs are a polyester mess. She's too rich to be walking around looking like that.

Her "entrepreneur" fiancé is sooo lucky though, ugh. Cha Ching$$$!

Anonymous said...

This is a spoiled brat finding another way to spend daddy's money what a joke this place is tacky tacky ..

Langtry said...

Honestly. People like Candy Spelling should be prevented from building houses that qualify as hotel and conference centers. That house is just plain ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

So 56,000 square feet, several? gift wrapping rooms and a "doll museum" and she has to use the living room to screen films? Does anyone else wonder why they couldn't find room in this pile for a proper theater room?

Anonymous said...

I'm guessing the joint DID NOT sell for anywhere near the asking price.(I'd say UNDER 100m) Certainly it will not sell for anything close to the asking price when it's back on the market in under 5yrs.

Anonymous said...

Ifn I wanted a "palace", I'd buy a real one in the English countryside with a 1000+ acre deer park and peasant cottages and a lake, etc;., and do it right.

Anonymous said...

What this house and the other high priced sales lately have shown is that Americans can no longer afford to buy these homes, well not many of them anyway.

Anonymous said...

Not buying it. She's lived in London her entire life, if she wanted to live in LA or own a home in LA she would have purchased one years ago. If you've been used to London then NYC is a walk in the park, LA is completely different culturally & socially ... I just can't see it. Though in fairness, she already looks like she's from LA so maybe there is some truth to it!

Ernesto said...

TMZ is reporting that Petra's first choice was Suzanne Saperstein's Fleur de Lys, but that somehow fell through and poor Petra had to make due with her second choice, the Manor.

Robert said...

To all the commentators above:
she can afford this house and we cannot.
Stop your jealous tirades. Do you all live
in Frank Lloyd Wright homes?

Anonymous said...

I can see it now: Tori heavy with child, waddling through the manor one last time to relive her (not so) happy childhood memories. "C'mon Dean let's go, there's nothing left for me here"

Anonymous said...

The house was NOT purchased by Petra but instead by an Indian Steel Tycoon worth more than $30,000,000,000 Billion. Petra was actually looking in Malibu and Laguna Beach at homes between $15-30M.
:)

Anonymous said...

$30,000,000,000 Billion?? What is that, 30 Octillion?

StPaulSnowman said...

30 octillion is a number reached only by punctures done by LA plastic surgeons wielding botox syringes. It could never refer to a house price, of that I am quite sure.

StPaulSnowman said...

If anyone wants to see what this "manor" should have looked like, then google Edwin Lutyens "Papillon Hall"

Anonymous said...

Robert: attacks on the greedy rich who bolster their egos with houses big enough to be hotels are not necessarily the result of envy. Good sense and the feeling that greed and excess are sins and not virtues are often the reasons. You don't know much about moral and intellectual history if you think philosophers have always praised or accepted selfish greed and excess. But I doubt you know much about history or philosophers, etc., in any case. Most ordinary, uneducated Americans don't.

Anonymous said...

Robert is the consummate asslicker to the ultra-wealthy. He is not rich, not even wealthy by any means and is probably actually quite poor.

He would like to be one of them one day so he feels the need to defend them no matter how absurd they are or the things they do.

People who actually come from money or have had a reasonably upper class to wealthy upbringing know how ridiculous this house and the people buying it are.

It is a vulgar monstrosity and the price for it is vulgar, which is why almost everyone has stayed far far away from it.
That is the same reason Updown Court in the U.K. remains unsold to this day.

Anonymous said...

Floor plan, Mama, please, that is all the chillin' really want of this place...simple floor plans. Can the long bodied ladies get them for us or at least reveal the architect/engineer behind this place.

Anonymous said...

I thought of Anna Anisimova when reading this post. Here I was thinking Ms. Anna was spoiled and this Petra girl buys the most expensive property in America! Can't believe she also has an ultra expensive crib in London. I can't even imaging living like that. I'm wondering what Petra will do with all the rooms in the manor. Doubt she will need the doll room or the gift wrapping room. Maybe she will turn one of them into an ironing room like she has at her London residence. Good post.

Oh and I wonder where Anisimova has been lately. Haven't heard much of her lately. Maybe she had too much attention too soon and is now hiding out somewhere. Her rumored 25,000 sq. ft. mansion in the hamptons ought to be finished soon. Can't wait to see photos of it. Can't wait!

Anonymous said...

OMG a floorplan of the manor I've wanted for years!!!! Yes please a floorplan!!

Laura said...

The house was NOT purchased by Petra but instead by an Indian Steel Tycoon worth more than $30,000,000,000 Billion. Petra was actually looking in Malibu and Laguna Beach at homes between $15-30M. :)