Looks to Your Mama like Oscar winning actor Nicholas Cage might be getting real serious about selling his storied estate on Copa de Oro Road in Bel Air, CA. The 11,817 square foot brick behemoth was first listed on the open market way back in September of 2007 with a blistering $35,000,000 asking price.With no takers the price was whittled and chopped until late May of 2009 when it disappeared off the MLS. Well puppies, it's not back on the MLS...yet...but thanks to Juanita Wantsyoutoknow we've learned that Mister Cage has hired himself a swanky new real estate agent who made a fancy new online tour of the idiosyncratically decorated beast and reduced the asking price all the way down to $17,500,000, exactly half of what he originally wanted but still nearly three times the $6,469,000 property records show he paid for the place back in March of 1998.
Mister Cage's supremely located 7 bedroom and 9 pooper real estate white elephant was previously owned by legendary (and allegedly mobbed up) crooner Dean Martin and later by Sex Bomb singer Tom Jones who in his heyday was famous for his package revealing pants and panty pitching fans who could not get enough of him pumping his slim hips during live performances.
Unfortunately for Mister Cage, a good number of his many properties are languishing on the market including (but perhaps not limited to) his Manhattan pied-a-terre which was recently re-listed at $9,750,000, a monster manse Middletown, Rhode Island, two houses in The Big Easy and another in sub-prime torn Las Vegas. And that's just what Your Mama can peel off the top of our early morning mind. Have mercy. Your Mama wishes someone would came and snatch all these properties up so we can leave the hairrific Mister Cage and his real estate woes alone.
The furnishings have to go, but I love the house. That giant Mickey Mouse belongs in a baby's nursery, not the dining room.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, that's not the formal dining room!
ReplyDeleteDon't forget his UK properties...
ReplyDeleteWhere to begin?
ReplyDeleteIs that a geode in the hallway or a portal to hell? The Disney dining salon with the life-size Mickey? The bordello his-and-hers Master Baths? The opium den loft overlooking the games parlour? Movie stars make way too much money!
LOVE the house--the decor not so much. It will be interesting to see what this place finally sells for.
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ReplyDeleteIt appears Mr. Cage is coming to terms with the not-so-new-anymore real estate reality that the bubble has burst and the days of ridiculasly inflated property values is over. That's more than I can say for the majority in his neck of the woods who stubbornly refuse to list or reduce the asking price of their homes to reflect actual market value. It's no skin off my nose, but it's become so boring to peruse the MLS list of west LA houses which for the most part remain so stagnant.
ReplyDeleteI don't care what the stagers say, this place would best be viewed completely empty. The distractions from his existing junk make it really hard to see through to the bones of this wonderful house. It is hard to imagine a fifty percent reduction from his unrealistic asking price.........I'll be that resulted in some significant new hair loss!
ReplyDeleteI too would really like to know more about the UK properties. If he has any smarts, he should keep those gems. The photos I have seen are really tantalizing!
what a greedy cunt cage and the agent is to think they could offload it originally for $35m.
ReplyDeleteI dispise all that ivy (or whatever it is) growing on the house. They need to remove all his junk.....I mean, collectibles from this house. Way to distracting.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't he afford a nicer "Beware of the Dog" sign next to the front gate? It looks like one of those cheap 99-cent jobs you can get at the dollar store.
ReplyDeletePortal to hell - too funny. My first thought was kryptonite.
ReplyDeleteLove the exterior and outdoor cooking area - I bet that pizza oven is nicer than Wolfie Puck's.
I am confused how some people in California come up with pricing on their homes.
ReplyDeleteWhy do they believe that they can buy a property for X amount of dollars and then sell it a few years later for 3 to 10 times that amount?
That is just unrealistic, and greedy.
If I had the money, I would put him out of his misery and buy it. I have always loved this house and the location is amazing too. I love this house... the furniture? Not so much.
ReplyDelete10 MM homes are not selling in LA
ReplyDeleteso 17.5 MM ??????????
I hope that agent got at least 200k upfront from cage to rep that estate
it will take him or her yeeeeeeeeeears to sell it at 17.5, that is unless cage sells it back to himself at that price to save face and puts it back on the market in 10 years
Did anyone else notice that two of the bedrooms have toy trains going around the perimeter of the room at the ceiling? One of them is the master bedroom, I believe... How odd?
ReplyDeleteOuch, does all that furniture look uncomfortable.
ReplyDeleteIn the backyard views, the house looks very pretty. From the front, it seems forbidding. I would have guessed it was a cloistered convent or something. Must be all the wrought iron and ivy.
I am hoping that one of the more knowledgeable commenters here or mama herself could give more history of this house. Like when was it built and who the architect was. There are so many details that make one think of Gordon Kaufmann's Greystone built for the younger Doheny's. As lovely as it looks, the ivy does need to be removed to save the brickwork. As for inside, there are some truly lovely pieces, such as the barrel chairs. As for the 'portal to hell' geode, what a truly fantastic specimen of an amethyst geode, that would be so much more suited to a museum or at the very least an outdoor venue.
ReplyDeleteWho the heck decorated this place "The Wicked Witch of the East" on Crack? Serious, the furnishings as someone mentioned previous takes away from the true classic nature of this home. Those chairs in the front hall, the Mickey Mouse life size statue and train tracks running through the bedrooms? WTF Nic did your plugs effect your brain? I say clear it out all the furnishing and call it a day.
ReplyDeletethe exterior looks very Millionaire Bruce Wayne, while the interior reminds me of themed hotel or some such thing.
ReplyDeleteit feels like a place one visits, not in which one lives.
I would rather live in Bel-Air then Los Feliz. The Cecil B. DeMille house is also for sale at 17.5 mil. Good luck....I think Mr. Cage can get 10 mil and that would be a nice profit.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard for me to imagine living in that home. It has a hard edge to it, like its owner, I guess.
ReplyDeleteI like the staircase, well sorta. other then that. This house will not sell with his furnishings and tinkets still there. What horriable taste, he must have been poor as a child.
ReplyDeleteinterior daycor is u-g-l-y you ain't got no alibi - as bad as what the RI house was like.
ReplyDeleteI need one of Mama's damn nerve pills after perusing through that cacophony of debatable interior decorating choices. The house needs to be emptied of that $5 hooker with an unlimited budget hot mess of crap otherwise it's just too, ummm, distracting to even enjoy the beauty that you know is hiding under there somewhere. I feel violated!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it was quite the estate in 1985. For some reason though, it just doesn't do it for me and certainly not with that price tag. It just doesn't look like you get very much.
ReplyDeleteThe $6.5M seems more dead-on.
Oh, Snowman, don't you wish we could have a bevy of grand estates to individually express every disjointed dimension we possess? I'd kill for some of his casegoods and the frames of anything purple in his softgoods ... and repurpose in a less extracting color -- maybe a neutral nubby raw silk -- like I have a say (LOL). I'm sure you too have another dimension that I'd love to (intellectually, with respect) learn about. So spill already, S-Guy.
ReplyDeleteAs for (drum roll) Ms. Juanita Wantsyoutoknow, major kudos and rock on, sista.
And of course, The Mama, priceless as always and sayin' our stuff before we even know what we're lookin' at in such astute vision. Only she rolls that way. <3
Hey - at least it's not as boring as the last few houses mama has posted. Some of the pieces are indeed odd, but I did see a few 'roses among the thorns' that I'd love to posess.
ReplyDeleteOK my esteemed Sandpiper..........I would gladly give up my much loved day job to be an Edwardian butler in one of the great houses of England. I wouldn't want the stress of having to come up with the dosh to run one of these places but I would be completely happy to make the decisions about the gardens and the interior design. I would be more Adam than floral chintz and the raw silk sounds excellent. I would favor boring neutral backgrounds as the background for bronzes and colorful paintings, (google the paintings of Milt Kobayashi to get the idea) It is hard to believe that any of the celebs who can afford these places would love and obsess over them as much as we would. I am a sucker for herbaceous borders, old, non concrete or fiberglass garden urns.......and, of course, moss and old stone in unexpected places.....and ornate tin ceilings sans pot racks. There, consider me spilled. I really enjoy learning from those commenting with a love for the contemporary but wouldn't want to live with it. I hope the other chillun don't suggest we "get a room". Respectfully, Snowman.
ReplyDeleteA maroon tub in 'his' bathroom. What a courageous stand.
ReplyDeleteThe exterior reminds me of Eastland Academy on the Facts of Life.
ReplyDeleteTom Jones, poolside: http://shoeblogs.com/wordpress/images/tomjones.jpg
ReplyDeletePlace looks like the setting for a Stephen King novel.
ReplyDeleteCreepy!
Weird train wreck of styles. It doesn't feel like it flows at all. And the decor feels like someone out of their head on coke went on a global spending spree and picked up every single shiny bauble that caught their bloodshot eye.
ReplyDeleteOutside, the ivy looks nice but will kill the brickwork and be a bitch to maintain.
I can't imagine who on earth would buy this.
I'm just guessing here, not having experienced unlimited wealth, but when you have that many huge houses you might begin to leave the conventional decorating ideas behind. That many houses might just become repositories for more and more sparkly things, think warehouse. After all that is 6 houses just here in the US, how much time would be spent in any one place? Warehouse or adult sized toy boxes.... I once visited a stately home in the UK as a boy. One huge room was filled with lord who-ever's butterfly collection. One glass case after another complete with hundred year old rotting butterflies. I would guess Nicky's houses are just the 21st century version of that butterfly room.
ReplyDeleteNYQ.........if you want to have your theory validated, check out Snowshill, (pronounced snozzle) for a great house jammed with countless collections spilling out of the rooms into the hallways. The gardens are amazing though, and the place is well worth a visit if you ever get back to the Motherland.
ReplyDeleteI really like this kooky house, the decor not so much. But it is interesting.I'm a sucker for chandeliers as it Mr. Cage. Light fixtures alone won me over.I get it.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't like is the ivy-rats love that climbing ivy! And for the kitchen, I expected better. Bathroom can use updating as well.
Wow -- more than I can afford. Haha
ReplyDeleteLove the blog.
debi
http://www.personalityispreferred.blogspot.com
Jebus that's a lot of brick. Did someone rape the state of Georgia or something? Ivy=rats and that roof is a fire trap. Other than that it's a loverly house but pick it up and move it back East or to the UK.
ReplyDeleteSnowman, exactly! And about those bronzes -- Italian influenced French 15th and 16th century, ok? Thanks for the intro to Kobayashi. Interesting. I'll scoot now before the tomato pelting commences in retaliation for our little aside :)
ReplyDeleteSo for that price is the National Treasure buried under it?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wonder if Hef is going to knock 10 mil off the price for his smaller Mansion?
So where does he call home?
ReplyDeleteWhat time is it Nic?
ReplyDeleteIt's bath time!
I wonder how it was furnished in Dean Martins day!?!
ReplyDeleteI've been there and it is truly AMAZING! I wonder why he is selling!
ReplyDeletemy my my
ReplyDeleteit seems that you just can't have anything nice sometimes
doesn't it
I'm only guessing here but "This is your brain on meth"
BTW the legend was that Queen Victoria felt ivy was a danger to a well made structure and carried clippers to begin the removal process her very own royal self. (legend also says that Albert had a very well made structure himself, no clipping there.)
Amazing home. Does he own a huge parcel in Malibu?
ReplyDeletesorry but this pile is nothing like Greystone Mansion. Greystone has elegance and proportion. This place is heavy. Don't be fooled by just the bad decorating- the lines of the house are lousy too. only thing I like about it is the pantry- I'd kill for a pantry like that.
ReplyDeleteI also think it's crammed onto the lot it's built on.
And, while on the subject of Greystone, Greystone is nothing compared to The Elms.
ReplyDeleteProof that money can't buy taste or style. The interiors are nauseating and lackluster - I can see why no one was interested at the original asking price of $35m.
ReplyDeleteWhat's with the giant red glass dildo on the table under the stairs?
"what a greedy cunt cage and the agent is to think they could offload it originally for $35m."
ReplyDeleteno kidding. it would be fun to see real estate flippers (part time "artists") like cage fill for bankruptcy. no wonder prices go to the roof for the average american when anybody with a coin is plain the RE game.
Wow. Just...wow. Clearly money does not equal taste. Here and there are some very lovely items, and the dining room is beautiful if you take all the Disney crap out. Boy is not okay in the cabasa.
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