Monday, October 15, 2012

Your Mama Hears...

...from Anita Tellyousomething—one of our better connected celebrity real estate canaries deep inside the Platinum Triangle real estate game—that Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon and her hot shot talent agent husband Jim Toth have been on a serious hunt for huge, secluded and blended family-friendly new house in Los Angeles.

This isn't such a surprise to celebrity real estate watchers given that the in-demand and exceedingly well compensated movie star recently put her gorgeous ranchette in Ojai, CA on the open market with an asking price of $10,000,000 and quietly made a 2.5-plus acre vacant parcel in L.A.'s rustic and affluent Mandeville Canyon area available off-market with an asking price of $7,995,000.

The children will recall that when Miz Witherspoon purchased the Mandeville Canyon spread in August 2010 for $6,900,000 from eccentric action-flick actor Steven Seagal there was a substantial residence and additional equestrian facilities that she's since razed, presumably to make way for a custom-built compound that—we presume—she and her mister decided against building, after all.

Anyhoo, when we queried our dear tattletale Anita further about the Witherspoon-Toth's near-future real estate plans might be she told us they're looking for something significant and secluded in the $15-20,000,000 range. We mentioned that we'd recently heard through the celebrity gossip grapevine they might already be in escrow on a property ol' Anita snitched that the escrow was cancelled.

Anita went on to reveal that the posh pad they almost but didn't purchase is a very privately situated multi-acre estate tucked into a very swank but bucolic pocket of Pacific Palisades with a "big white traditional" mansion and is owned by Susan Harbert, the the ex-wife of Showbiz bigwig Ted Harbert, the current chairman of NBC Broadcasting. According to Anita, ex-Missus Harbert allows one of L.A.'s more successful real estate brokers to quietly shop the 9,000+ square foot mansion to qualified buyers with an asking price in the neighborhood of $20,000,000.

So, their search continues. Your Mama wonders if the long-time West Siders have considered a move to the east side of town where we heard from another extremely well-connected real estate insider that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie might be willing to part with their extensively and expensively renovated multi-parcel compound in the celebrity-stocked Los Feliz area.

All just some juicy celebrity real estate rumor and gossip, kids, rumor and gossip.

10 comments:

WrteStufLA said...

I'm surprised to hear that Brad Pritt would even consider parting with his Los Feliz compound -- the main house was his 1st major purchase after he started making serious $$ post-Thelma & Louise. And that gated street -- in addition to the gated property itself -- seems necessary for their privacy and security.

Anonymous said...

Brad Pitt lived in Beverly Hills while married to Jeniffer Aniston and after divorcing her, he moved to Malibu. Since then he and Angelina have been hopping around the globe buying and renting houses just about fucking anywhere they set foot. Despite all this you are surprised to hear he would consider parting with one of his homes......? You're not so bright are you?

As for this house being necessary for their "privacy and security," I'd say that is not at all the case. Buy a house anywhere, throw up a fence, or wall, or moat, and a hedge, some evergreens or whatever and you have all the privacy you are going to get. All a gated street does is restrict who can drive or walk by your house, you still have neighbors, and your neighbors still have friends, family, parties, staff. Suddenly it ain't so private. As for security, they have enough money for security regardless of where they live.

Anonymous said...

That real estate insider knows nothing. Even if Pit n Jolie decide to live permanently in France they still need a base in LA where they have business like Pitt's Plan B. It would make more sense for them to sell their Santa Barbara house or New Orleans.

Anonymous said...

Wherever she and Toth go to live they will be a family now of five, parents and three kids, one of them a newborn. It's going to be, I suspect, a tricky business to make sure the older kids don't get jealous of the newcomer. Older birds in a nest will sometime peck a newcomer to death and then push it over the side. Of course we're not dealing with birds here, are we?

Mandeville Canyon Homes - Luis Pezzini said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Desert Donna said...

10:16...as Mama has said too many times to count, the real estate ways of the rich and famous do not make rhyme nor reason. I hate to do the told ya so dance, but I commented immediately that Reece had purchased or had her eye on something when her lot was put up for sale.

Anonymous said...

TO silly Anonymous October 15, 2012 9:54 PM

grow up, calm down and stop swearing and insulting the owner and readers of this site.

how long will it take for any one to find you and call an ambulance after you have your heart attack, stroke or just a plain old infection or the flu... and you were never 'the same' again...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19281923
The association of anger and hostility with future coronary heart disease: a meta-analytic review of prospective evidence.

Anonymous said...

To anonymous 9:54 Everytime Brad and Angelina plus kids are in LA they live in the Los Feliz home. It has been their home base since they got together. It would be interesting if Pitt could see the compound as one property or if he would have to sell them as five separate homes.

Anonymous said...

Seems like something people "in the industry" with insider knowledge would have been able to predict months ago.

Anonymous said...

Pitt and Jolie will not live in France. The new socialist government demand 75 % income tax plus a 30 % annual tax of your combined wealth. In other words, a wealthy person would be almost wiped out in 3-4 years. This type of taxes are coming here to with Obamas ideology. There will be a few very rich and a middle class reduced to poverty.