Thursday, December 6, 2012

Conan O'Brien Buys High and Sells at a Loss

It recently came to Your Mama's attention that Emmy- and People's Choice Award-winning comedian cum late night chat show host Conan "Coco" O'Brien lost a bundle on the luxurious Los Angeles, CA mansion he bought in January 2008 for $10,750,000 and very quietly sold off-market in June 2012 to a non-celebrity couple for $9,250,000.

It doesn't take a mathematics genius or even a bejeweled abacus to see that Mister and Missus O'Brien took a substantial $1,500,000 gut punch to their pocketbook, not counting carrying costs, expenses related to any improvements and renovations they may have undertaken and the significant real estate fees associated with with selling a property of this magnitude.

Avid celebrity real estate watchers will recall that Mister O'Brien and his missus Liza acquired the walled, double-gated and high-hedged mini-estate—located on a leafy and low-key but star-lined street in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles—in January 2008, not long before he began his tumultuous and short-lived but very lucrative stint as the host of The Tonight Show.

Alas, due to crap ratings and tense negotiations over time slot shuffling, Coco's heyday as the host of The Tonight Show went south in eight short months, albeit with a gasp-worthy $32,500,000 payout that surely cushioned and palliated the putrid sting of the $1.5-plus million dollar loss.

The recent transfer of ownership came as a surprise to Your Mama since we did not even know the house was for sale. Some research suggests the house was never on the open market and, of course, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of pocket listings in the pricier zip codes of Los Angeles that Your Mama does not know a damn thing about.

We can't be sure what—if any—changes the O'Briens may have made to the residence since 2008 but listing information from the time of their purchase shows the newly built mansion had six bedrooms, a total of 8.5 bathrooms, six fireplaces and 10 foot ceilings, no doubt a real plus for the statuesque ginger. Listing information also indicated the house was designed with a state-of-the-art screening room, a temperature controlled 1,500 bottle wine room, indoor and outdoor kitchens and a 60-foot long veranda at the back of the house. Beyond the swimming pool, spa and poolside pavilion there are multi-million dollar views that stretch to the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.

The house was purchased by a non-celebrity couple.

So where, oh where has the O'Brien clan gone, you might ask? Your Mama queried Freddie Finefellow, one of our better clued in celebrity real estate canaries, who quickly shot back a detailed communique that revealed Mister and Missus O'Brien have decamped Brentwood for the Pacific Palisades where—way back in June 2011—they surreptitiously shelled out somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty million clams for a remarkably similar walled, gated and high-hedged East Coast traditional, this one situated on more than an acre in the leafy, low-key but very ritzy Riviera 'hood.

The interweb has been scrubbed clean of most references to the O'Brien's new estate but a little elbow grease and a leg up from Our Fairy Godmother in Pacific Palisades turned up a few details about the clapboard side and black shuttered center hall neo-Colonial including is sale price of $19,475,694.

The 11,600-plus square foot residence, according to listing information, was originally built in 2005, sits on more than an acre of landscaped grounds and includes 5-6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms, a double-height foyer, formal living and dining rooms, a capacious kitchen/breakfast room/family room complex that opens to a broad red brick terrace, his and her offices, a home theater, a home gym, a chef-friendly kitchen with walk-in pantry, and a children's playroom.

The expansive, pancake flat and grassy grounds are well suited to outdoor entertainments and include an outdoor living room with massive river rock fireplace, a sports court, loopy bike path, an in-ground trampoline, and heirloom vegetable garden, fenced in swimming pool with inset spa and a patch of grass plenty big enough to add a soccer pitch or pitch a super-sized bridal tent.

The neighborhood is rife with high maintenance homes owned by a long list of Showbiz luminaries like Steven Spielberg, Whoopie Goldberg, Bill Cosby, Sugar Ray Leonard, Dan Castellaneta, Adam Sandler and Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.

The sellers of the Pac Pal estate, according to property records, were the philanthropically-minded Edward and Shari Glazer who have moved on to a recently completed, custom constructed and far more grand, 19,000-plus square foot mansion in the guard-gated Beverly Park community.

We're not sure if Mister and Missus O'Brien currently maintain a residence in Manhattan where they lived before schlepping west but they previously owned a massive, park view duplex at the magical Majestic building located on a particularly swank stretch of Central Park West.

At some point, no doubt in response to their relocation to Tinseltown, the O'Briens discreetly made their New York apartment available for purchase. It never, as far as Your Mama knows, appeared on the open market. There were rumors floating 'round the property gossip sphere that the titanic duplex was saddled with a hefty $35,000,000 asking price. The Wall Street Journal pegged the price at $29,500,000 and the New York Times revealed the apartment was sold, fully furnished, in July 2010 for $25,000,000 to David David M. Zaslav, the chief executive of Discovery Communications.

The Majestic is the same building where Susan Soros, the much younger second ex-wife of the newly engaged octogenarian macdaddy super-tycoon George Soros, recently listed her spectacularly sited 19th floor spread—once owned by boo-teek hotelier Ian Schrager—on the open market with a eye opening and publicity ensuring $50,000,000 price tag.

aerial photo (Brentwood): Pacific Coast News
listing photo: Sotheby's International Realty (via Haute Living)

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Speaking of the Glazers new Beverly Park digs, what's the inside like?

Anonymous said...

Traditional.

l'il gay boy said...

I wonder if there's a word for swapping one ho-hum behemoth for another...?

Anonymous said...

It's quite WASP-y, ain't it?

Desert Donna said...

Its as pale as he is.

Anonymous said...

The Glazers bought the beautiful Spanish hacienda-style mansion right next door to their Palisades house and razed it to add a tennis court and more lawn for their very boring house. Sad to see.

Anonymous said...

I never cease to marvel at how lucrative it can be not be funny at all. Just the attempt can apparently net you millions.

Anonymous said...

Poor Conan is a terrible host- I never understood how he held onto his late night show as long as he did!
The switch to 11:30 was especially stupid on his part, as well as the execs at NBC.

Kaye Yu said...
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Anonymous said...

Looks like the Palisades Riviera is the place to be.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of funny, here is something that really IS funny:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/videos/2012/12/05/mr-burns-loves-the-fiscal-cliff.html

I excuse myself by saying the Mr. Burns lives in a big house so this should be allowed on this blog.

Anonymous said...

Never understood the appeal of this street in Brentwood. Houses are unappealing jammed together, old traditional ranches mixed in with newer behemoths. All just waiting for the next La Ninja Pinto or El Nino to wash them down the canyon. I'm not Dallas Raines and don't give a sh*t about weather terms, please forgive. Plus, coming down the hill, one - or one's driver/nanny/manny/assistant - must make an unprotected left. Also, due to lack of driveway space at most homes, there are lots of 'employees' (who rich like to call 'family' until they can their ass or impregnate them and can their ass) parking on the street. The horror! Am familiar with Conan's old house. Large, very white. Too close to the street for my liking.

Anonymous said...

For someone who seems to like his privacy, it's a bit ironic that Conan now lives right next door to the owner of X17.

Anonymous said...

that street, btw, was the western edge of the great bel air fire of 61; still the the most most costly natural disaster in la county history.
before the fire stopped there, my mom drove us from the safety of oc to my gp's home just a couple of blocks away!
never asked what she was thinking...
e

Apartments in Chandigarh said...
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KMK Real Estates said...
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