Friday, August 30, 2013

Anthony Kiedis Buys Petite Sunset Strip Villa

BUYER: Anthony Kiedis
SELLER: Waldo Fernandez
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,650,000
SIZE: 2,679 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A little birdie we know on the down low that's often in the know about celebrity real estate doings recently chirped in Your Mama's ear that the new owner of A-list decorator Waldo Fernandez's latest property flip above the Sunset Strip is none other than Red Hot Chili Pepper lead singer/lyricist Anthony Kiedis who just shelled out $3.65 million for the petite and pedigreed villa. The walled and gated residence, built in 1940 and nestled into a steep down slope on a curvaceous and narrow street just above the Sunset Strip, was originally designed by architect F. Pierpont Davis and re-worked by Hollywood Regency honcho John Elgin Woolf. The house has popped up in the glossy pages of Architectural Digest "at least thrice" according to the kids at Curbed.

In late June, 2012, after a couple of years on and off the market with a cornucopia of price tags as high as $3.695 million, the property was purchased for $2.4 million by the renown and regularly published Waldo Fernandez, a Cuban-born decorating dervish who's worked over rooms and homes for a panoply of celebrities like Brad Pitt, Darren Starr, and Tobey Maguire.

Mister Kiedis—now fifty, fit, and still sexy in that dangerous, middle aged rock star sort of way—spent his early years in Grand Rapid, Mi with is mother and teen years in Los Angeles with his bit-part actor father, Blackie Dammett. Poppa Kiedis, whose autobiography, Lords of the Sunset Strip, was recently released as an e-book, moonlighted as a drug dealer for rock stars (and others). He famously palled around with high profile peeps like Cher and Sonny Bono, the latter of whom, may he rest in peace, was named young Anthony's godfather. How's that for a whackadoodle Hollywood pedigree?

As Mister Kiedis grew up fast and loose on the gritty streets of Los Angeles he eventually hooked up with his future Red Hot Chili Peppers band mates. In classic rock star fashion, Mister Kiedis dabbled in drugs—okay he more than dabbled he developed a raging addiction, and, along with his band mates, earned a special kind of notoriety in the early 1980s for performing in nothing but a jock strap and boots or, even more suggestively, wearing nothing but boots and a tube sock tied around his junk. Naturally he bedded and dated and hooked up with a beautiful battalion of lithe and lusty young models, musicians, actresses, and other female hangers-on. There was Nina Hagan, Ione Skye, Sinéad O'Connor, supermodels Heidi Klum and Jessica Stam, actress Laura Prepon, and, most recently, a stunning and very young looking brunette usually identified in the tabs and gossip glossies as model Helena Vestergaard. Along the way Mister Kiedis, sober for more than a dozen years, and his Chili Pepper pals won three AMAs, eight VMAs, one BMA and seven Grammys. Last year (2012) the band and all is members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The most recent digital listing details for the Sunset Strip property recently acquired by Mister Kiedis don't indicate the square footage. The L.A. County Tax Man puts it at 2,679 but that may or may not be accurate. Listing do, however, show the sophisticatedly staged, two-story Euro-style villa has three bedrooms, four bathrooms, three fireplaces, and garage parking for two cars.

High walls, locked gates, and a closed circuit t.v.-equipped security system that will record your ass if you so much as slow down in front of the house enhance the privacy and security of the residence that sits below street level down a serpentine, wrought iron-railed brick stairway.

A compact foyer leads into the main living room that isn't particularly large but is undeniably grand and voluminous with a 14-foot hard-carved ceiling imported from a cathedral in Europe, a 10-foot tall solid limestone fireplace that was probably snatched from some old building in Europe, too, and an arched window that extends to the floor and almost reaches the ceiling is flanked by normal-height glass doors that lead out to an awning-shaded and wrought iron-railed dining balcony with a perfectly lovely but hardly overwhelming over-the-tree-top city view.

A archway—it looks to be the exact same height as the arched window in the living room—leads into the groin-vaulted dining room where Mister Fernandez replaced a ticky-tacky wall of mirrors with an aged-looking mural that depicts what appears to Your Mama to be—but is surely not—a Victorian-era Florentine street scene.

The adjoining kitchen is oddly shaped and quite tight given the property's $3.65 million sale price, but it is well-equipped with high-quality stainless steel appliances, rough-edged stone counter tops, and cabinets that appear to be—but may not be—constructed of—or maybe faced with—some sort of rustic, reclaimed barn wood.

At the bottom of a stair well that looks dark and narrow in listing photos, there's a library/den/possible bedroom outfitted with a quaint corner fireplace and a spine-tingling, sky-lit 16-foot ceiling. Elsewhere there's a small guest bedroom and a second, much larger bedroom with a private sitting area, an awning-shaded Juliet balcony, and a full wall of windows—floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall—that overlook the swimming pool. The third bedroom suite is smaller and cozier with a fireplace, private terrace accessible through two sets of French doors, and an en suite abutting facility.

The lower level of the house opens at the tree- and shrubbery-ringed backyard where a series of wrought iron-railed red brick terraces step down the hillside. A corkscrew spiral stair links the dining balcony off the upper level living and dining rooms to the plunge-sized dark-bottomed swimming pool and spa.

As one might expect, often mustachioed and sometimes soul-patched Mister Kiedis maintains a rock-star size property portfolio that in addition to his latest acquisition above the Sunset Strip also includes: a gated mini-estate with a blade-shaped swimming pool in the Point Dume area of Malibu purchased in October 2005 for $4,825,000; An ocean front house near Hanalei Bay on the North Shore of Kaua'i picked up in April 2005 for $2.6 million; A two bedroom and 2.5 bathroom townhouse type residence in a affluent guard-gated development in Las Vegas that he snatched up in December 2005 for $570,000; And a lake-front residence on the outskirts of Grand Rapids, MI bought way back in 1996 for $220,000.

listing photos: Everett Fenton Gidley for Westside Estate Agency

28 comments:

Desert Donna said...

My motto is size provides but when it comes to this place, it is PERFECT. Worth every penny!

Anonymous said...

It sold just over a year ago for 2.4
nice flip...

The Swan said...

Woolf + Fernandez = Architectural HEAVEN! Love this wonderfully maintained bijoux of Hollywood History!

FonHom said...

Looks like a HOME. Nice.

Anonymous said...

Love, love, love (except for the toilet seat thingy hanging over the coffee table in the living room.

Anonymous said...

Fabulous, except for the dinky kitchen.

Anonymous said...

It's hard to tell with the limited number of photos. Personally, not to my taste.

Rosco Mare said...

Beautiful house and gardens. I would only replace the life preserver-looking light fixture in the living room with a classic Mediterranean-style bronze chandelier with rock crystals or large half tear drop crystals.

Anonymous said...

Very nice home.

Anonymous said...

Dear Kinderlach:

Implementing zissele Rosco Mare's bronze and quartz crystal chandelier recommendation would empower the Kiedis living room to achieve its highest potential for Rosh Hashanah and throughout the new year. And of course the Kinderlach remember the Rabbi's Chandelier Golden Rule: Twice the diameter in inches of the width of the room in feet! The Rabbi might also - possibly - drape a valance across the arched window and door wall, obscuring very little glass while covering most of the plaster above each of the doors.

Rabbi Hedda LaCasa

lil' gay boy said...

Overall, it's a lovely, petite little abode that in other hands might, sadly, have been bought as a teardown.

Perhaps the toilet seat on the living room ceiling is meant to be a wry commentary on shit rolling downhill? Not such a serene reminder on such a steep lot -- which it does make the most of.

Personally, I'm more bothered by the unflattering awnings -- no color & too much structure -- i'd opt for a bold stripe with less piping supporting it.

Anonymous said...

I don't want to think how many lovely homes like this have been bladed to put up ego shrines with dry wall by the yard.

Anonymous said...

waldo with some lowpriced finished achieves another celebrity flip. luckily mr. anthony don't feel it. what an amazing kitchen! ha!

Petra's said...

Wish I saw what the rest of you do... not feeling it at all. There's a bunch of Sunset Strip homes in the same price range I'd go in for first.

Anonymous said...

Just bought a new necktie, the kind with the psychedelic fishes on it, for my DUI hearing. The snooty Walmart sales lady called it "paisley." Anthony Kiedis' awnings should be paisley patterned.

Studly H. Tower

Anonymous said...

I suppose most who have written here DO NOT see the resemblance of the Livng Room Chandelier to those of plaster by Giacommetti...Mr. Fernandez has an amazing collection ranging from Lalanne sheep to Joan Mitchell paintings, with of course THOSE Giacometti's...the stylenisnchic, used by top tier designers like Jacque Grange, Saladino and others.

If one notices, all the ceiling fixtures are somewhat sculptural in an Ancient Roman manner...but then there are those who still find ignorance allows petty remarks, notwithstanding the standard toilet jokes.

As for the awning over the balcony, that's signature John Elgin Woolf...it's style is called Hollywood Regency, which manner from Garbo to Haines have admired for the nod to Neoclassical Moderne...I think the solid light canvas seduces ones pallor much better than a dark striped.

Anonymous said...

@ anon 6:07

What on earth are you trying to say?

Madam Pince said...

A good house for Anthony and his son.

Glad to see my friends Lil' Gay Boy and Rabbi Hedda have weighed in. It's not a Real Estalker post without their comments :-)

Anonymous said...

I think 6:07 has been smoking that gooood kush!

Billy Haines said...

Since so many of you are commenting on John Woolf, and his wonderful Hollywood Regency design, I am sad to report that the beautiful Ira Gershwin home, at 1021 N. Roxbury - a great, classic example of Woolf, has just been leveled (9 /1 /2013). Drove by it last week, and they had begun dismantling it. I thought maybe there was a chance it was being restored. Today, I drove by again, and its an empty lot. Its also especially upsetting because the home next door, at 1019, was where the Gershwin bros. lived originally, and where George died, in 1937.It was later owned by Rosemary Clooney, for over 50 years, then uncermoniously torn down, in 2005. Ira & Lee Gershwin, had bought the home at 1021, and later hired Woolf to remodel it, in one of his first commissions in L.A. 20 years later, he was hired again to remodel the house again. Now it's gone

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Mr. Haines, for your very sad and timely news. Do all of the Kinderlach know you were among the first within the last century to proudly live outside the closet, and that Miss Joan Crawford referred to you and Mr. Shields as Hollywood's most happily married couple? On another topic, after reading beyond the typos of Anonymous 6:07 p.m., the Rabbi has gained a new appreciation for the work of Mr. Waldo Fernandez. Nevertheless, Mr. 6:07 p.m., in the photograph above, the living room ceiling light fixture appears more similar to Bubbe's 1940s neon kitchen light than to a plaster Giacometti.

Rabbi Hedda LaTess

Anonymous said...

I don't like it ... dull, dowdy and over-priced are words that spring to mind for me. I do like the first picture (street shot) though, which holds promise ...

Keidis also owned a sizeable parcel of beautiful rural New Zealand until the early 00s ... shame he sold it as it would be worth at least double now.

lil' gay boy said...

Thanks for the kind nod, Mme. Pince; and to our dear Rebbe, for the timely reminder of our dear Billy Haines.

Number One box office draw in 1930, he resisted the Hollywood studio system pressure and lived openly with Jimmy Shields; and when Hollywood no longer had a use for him, he made himself useful to Hollywood, becoming the ne plus ultra of designers in the Regency style, working for Hollywood royalty, and Jimmy even worked on the White House.

An important couple in our history; those interested can read more about them in Wisecracker: The Life and Times of Williams Haines, Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star.

Anonymous said...

Those who cannot tell typos, are puzzled by STYLE IS CHIC and MANY as the intended words? iPad and lack of proofing...insert at whim after your Bong is thrown out the window ala Bynes!

Thank you Dear Rabbi...and to all who still can READ! Mr. Haines did introduce Garbo to Woolf at the seminal Pendleton House on Coldwater Canyon.

MS. ANON 6:07

Kari said...

A house with soul.
I could never imagine Mr. Kiedis as the McMansion type, whatever the size.

Kristopher Washington said...

It might be petite, but the design and overall look of the place definitely makes up for it, and then some! The whole thing looks quite cozy, and the outdoor pool area looks fantastic! I wonder what kind of personal touch will he add to it. Or would he keep it as is?

Rosco Mare said...

@ Billy Haines 9:14

So sad to see the Ira Gershwin house destroyed. I'm in front of the demolition site right now. Also sad to see a demolition permit posted in front of 1010 N Roxbury (big, 1920s Mediterranean) across the street.

Demolitions usually increase when expensive real estate is hot, like the present market.

Marian Sparks said...

@Billy Haines: It’s a shame that they tore it down. It’s too bad that they didn’t work around it rather than starting from scratch. Any ideas as to what they’re planning with it?

Going back to the article, I really love that they didn’t go for just one tone of white for the walls and such. That’d be pretty bland and boring. And that painting at the dining area is just superb!