Friday, March 21, 2008

Get Lost at Harold Perrineau's Place

SELLER: Harold Perrineau
LOCATION: Westbourne Drive, West Hollywood, CA
PRICE: $2,399,000
SIZE: 2,341 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Gated and secluded 2-story Spanish compound with detached 2-story guest house, 3 bedrooms + 3 bath (main home), formal living w/ open beam trusses, formal dining, gourmet kitchen opens to grand family room/media area, numerous serene outdoor entertaining areas with pool & spa.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama was recently corresponding with Mirakle Mike, a proven thoroughbred in our stable of sources and tipsters and a man who knows more than anyone ought to about celebrity real estate. During our exchange, Mirakle Mike casually mentioned that noted television actor Harold Perrineau recently put his West Hollywood house up for sale. The screeching of our brain brakes went off and we cried, "Whaaat!?"

Your Mama adored Mister Perrineau when he well played the wise and wheelchair bound narrator on the heart stopping and libido jumping Oz program, but we did not follow his booty over to Lost where he currently plays a character named Michael Dawson. Although Lost has an almost cult-like following, Your Mama does not tune in to that particular program because it has too many damn characters and too many interweaving plot lines to adequately or simply follow. While we love a big, fat, and wandering novel and we swoon over thoughtful and complex films, we prefer our boob tube programs to be easily absorbed by a brain marinated in a large pitcher of gin and tonics.

Anyhoo, just like Mirakle Mike mentioned, Mister Perrineau and his wifey Brittany have indeed put there Spanish compound on West Hollywood's Westbourne Drive on the market with an asking price of $2,399,000. Property records show the couple only purchased the home in July of 2006 for $2,050,000.

Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter both find the Westbourne Drive location highly desirable. Naturally, Bev Hills Bettys and Hollywood Hills hoes won't care for the not very glitzy flatland location, but it's perfect for a booze imbibing real estate gossip who would like to be able to walk to the Beverly Center food court occasionally, and it also works for the Dr. Cooter who might relish the opportunity to treat all the celebs and starvelets who roll into Cedar Sinai when they're suffering from "exhaustion," "dehydration," and "sleep deprivation."

Property records show the house measures 2,341 and listing information reveals there are three bedrooms and 3 bathrooms in the main house as well as all the normal rooms: living, dining, den/office, eat in kitchen and a good sized family room (with a disturbingly large television and a strangely small juke box). A detached guest house provides an additional bedroom and bathroom which works perfectly for guests who snore too loudly, stay too long and/or for visiting family members who might be too eager to get up in your personal bizness if they were to stay in the main house.

Generally speaking, Your Mama feels quite positively about this house. No puppies, we don't care for the counter tops in the kitchen or the b-grade appliances. We find the dining room day-core is entirely too urban-country for our personal taste, we're not 100% on the stair case but it doesn't hurt our insides, and the master a bathroom is a bit to Russian hotel looking, but we concede it may just be a wacky photo of the room. But day-core aside, this is a house that Your Mam could easily whip into a comfortably stylish home.

Listing information indicates there are numerous and serene outdoor spaces. Your Mama might go a little more contemporary with our patio furniture, but overall we love the semi-tropical courtyard feeling. We're sure some of you with children will say it's disappointing there is any green grass (there is however a patch in the walled and gated front courtyard) and also that the swimming pool is too small to the point of useless. But frankly, Your Mama does not care to have young and loud children swimming in our pool so we're good with the plunge sized pool.

Your Mama hasn't a clue why these Perrineau people would up and leave this house after owning for just two years. Perhaps they want something larger? Maybe they are looking for something more celebrified? Whatever the case we wish them well and look forward to the day that Mister Perrineau once again plies his craft on an easily digestible television program that Your Mama can well understand after tipping a few over.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a nice house. I agree - the kitchen doesn't do it for me. It's so plain, but I like the rest of the house.

pch said...

Looks like a nice place. But that guesthouse would have to go right back to being a garage. And the windows in the master bedroom/bathroom have me concerned that someone stuck an incongruous "modern" addition out back. I know this probably bugs me more than other people, but I'm just not down with mix-and-match architecture in remodels/additions.

Anonymous said...

Bedrooms with balconies always make me a little swooney - love them.

Lots of spouses of Hollywood actors work on finding, sprucing up, staging and selling real estate. It's fun, it's lucrative, and it gives them something solid to do while their Hollywood hubbies are working. "Sure, he made a movie - but I pocketed 500K on our last Hollywood Hills house flip!" Selling after two years helps with the capital gains tax, of course.

Anonymous said...

Amen.

How little would it take to make this a great home? Some prudent kitchen remodeling, and maybe some bathroom work- but overall, settle on in to a comfy house.


I thought the staircase placement was strange, too, and then I decided that every house needs a quirk. It's not a bad place for the stairs, just different. That's charm.

I'd live here.

Anonymous said...

This place is bunk. Shitty floor plan and a very insecure feel.

Anonymous said...

I'm guessing he's putting the house up for sale because his character is going to die on LOST. Too bad because he plays a great character.

so_chic_darling said...

Knowing this part of LA very well I would love to live there if I was ever to relocate to the West Coast,but there are much more attractive homes in that neighborhood than this one.

Anonymous said...

Nice House, if he's selling because his character is going to die he doesn't have his finances straight but you never know.

Since we're talking about TV show stars. I'm wondering if that little miss Hayden Panettierre already bought a crib to shack up with that creepy guy who could be her father. Momma, what's the word?

Alessandra said...

I do not like the kitchen at all. The layout is not conducive to easy cooking and the counter tops and cabinets are totally 1995. They don't suit the house and they aren't even up to current tastes. I'd prefer that the kitchen suited the house, had a better flow and beautiful tile work.

As for the master suite, the soaking spa tub is a divine concept, but that damned half step would kill me every time. Once I'm no longer "in training", I fully intend to go back to my bath habit, which includes a stiff drink, a murder mystery or trashy gossip rags, some soothing trumpet concertos and handmade bath salts. If I tried to get out of that tub, I'd kill myself.

All the other rooms appear to be quite lovely and I agree that the rather oddly placed staircase lends the house a certain charm.

It is not a house that I would buy, but I can see how it would work well for a Hollywood couple or a small family.

Anonymous said...

I viewed the panoramas and I think this home is really special.

Love the established landscape. The staircase seems to be where it should be, and its iron work is verr-a sexy. The floors are beautiful and the outdoor living area is so intimate and cozy. Unless you're into laps in the pool -- which I can easily pass on -- this one works for me; a dip, cool down and back to the shade for some brie and grapes.

I adore it. Few trade offs here from what I see.

And Alessandra, the kitchen layout is much nicer than the few stills here.

I always defer to PCH for the serious size up and respect his "nose to the ground." Faithfully dig his perspectives.

Anonymous said...

Here's another view.

lil' gay boy said...

PCH may be right.

If you look closely at the photos, my guess would be that the master bedroom is the second floor extension overlooking the pool (the one with the uglee posts supporting it).

Those windows do not match the rest of the house; I'll bet you could hop into that itty bitty pool from the balcony . . .

. . . and break you neck Hollywood-style.

Anonymous said...

what about the Cecil B. DeMille estate in laughlin par, mama?

pch said...

I took a little field trip over to West Hollywood. So here's the deal. This block of Westbourne dead-ends behind the Sofitel on Beverly Boulevard -- in spite of a central location where people love to find shortcuts, it's a quiet little street. By and large, the houses are original-but-updated one-story bungalows well-scaled to the small lots. Not oozing with charm, exactly, but not ugly or interspersed with 60s apartment houses.

The Perrineau house, which looks better in person, is one of the best-presented, and easily one of the largest. Which is, ironically, what I consider it's biggest drawback since I don't like to buy the nicest house in a neighborhood. I'm not a West Hollywood expert by any stretch, but dropping $2.4 million -- or even $2 million -- in this neighborhood seems like insanity to me. Or maybe I'm smoking crack and it's a good WeHo deal.

If you'll forgive some self-indulgent nostalgia...I also swung by Roxbury Drive to see the new house at 1019. Completely demoralized. It's horrible. No particular style except lots-of-everything. And there's a porte-cochere. Just shoot me.

It was sad to see the old house torn down (I know Sandpiper has mentioned its loss) but not a surprise. Though it had that great Gershwin/Ferrer/Clooney provenance, it wasn't particularly great architecture and it was in rough shape. A foregone conclusion for at least a few family members that selling would doom the house to the bulldozer...I braced myself for the inevitable, and an ugly new house, but honestly thought it would be better than this.

My first memory there was when I was four or five. I'm not sure why we were standing next to the pool, which was empty because of earthquake damage, but we were. And Rosie, sounding completely serious, asks me if I want to go swimming. I look at the pool, at her, then to my parents for help because I'm not sure how to tell her there's no water without sounding rude. They all get a good laugh out of my earnest bewilderment, and I get an introduction to Rosie's playful sense of humor. I'm glad I can remember her throaty laugh.

Anonymous said...

The only street in west hlly worth spending over 2million is orlando.for the gays, it means you have made it...to live on orlando its called "high gay", its a great street, huge lots. one house i owned there, i remember the old woman telling me as she was moving out, yup,my friend sold her big house on kings road to developers for an apartment building and she just could not tell me , one day she had just moved, and they knew each other for 15 years... great houses on orlando. values will always be strong there

Anonymous said...

Hi PCH,
I'm backstroking in to the "previous posts."

Glad I read yours. Always a perspective I could not have anticipated.

:)

Anonymous said...

The Perrineau home is not for sale. In fact, these pics are from the previous sale.