Monday, April 9, 2012

Canadian Taylor Kitsch Buys Bare Land in Texas

BUYER: Taylor Kitsch
LOCATION: Austin, TX
PRICE: $1,300,000 (or $1,093,750, depending on where you look)
SIZE: 3.64 acres

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Much to the chagrin, we're sure, of many of Your Mama's pretty and hungry little ponies, the celebrity real estate pickins are a wee bit slim this post-Easter/mid-Passover Monday morning. Since the recent residential acquisitions of Misters Bieber and Kutcher have already been done.to.death. by all the other property gossips, we've opted instead for a deep dive down into our archives to (briefly) discuss the (somewhat recent) real estate doings of up-and-coming (and muscled-up) Canadian-born actor Taylor Kitsch who, we heard from a friendly little Lonestar birdie we'll call Brie O. Shh, has planted some real estate roots in his adopted American city of Austin, TX.

Mister Kitsch, a lantern-jawed former Abercrombie & Fitch model with a tussled Fabio-esque mane and the rippling, all-but-hairless body of a gay porn star, got his big break in 2006 when he landed an inconsequential part in the comedy turkey John Tucker Must Die. That stroke of Showbiz luck led to a small part in the cinematic lemon Snakes On A Plane which quickly led to his up-to-now seminal role as the hard drinking, casual sexing and existentially troubled college football star Tim Riggins in the now-canceled tee-vee program Friday Night Lights (FNL).

During its 5 year run and since FNL went kaput in 2011, the powerful wheels of Tinseltown have largely funneled Mister Kitsch's burgeoning career into the action-drama genre with in-the-bag roles in movies like X-Men Origins: Wolverine and John Carter. This summer Mister Kitsch will be seen on the silver screen in the star-studded Oliver Stone-directed Savages with a slew of other celebs that include Blake Lively, Emile Hirsch, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Salma Hayek and Benicio Del Toro.

Anyhoo, enough about that nonsense. In August, 2007, about a year after FNL first went on the air, a then twenty-something year old Mister Kitsch spent $275,000—or $329,175, depending on where one look on the internets—to acquire a 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom bachelor-pad condo in a small gated complex set smack in the center of a nondescript suburban area just a few minutes car ride southwest of downtown Austin, TX. It might seem to some (or many) like a peculiar place for a hunky actor on the rise to settle down but, of course, Austin is where FNL taped necessitating a crash pad where he could lay his handsome head down at night.

Property records indicate the third floor walk-up unit (shown above) measures 1,196 square feet and listing information we managed to squeeze and tease out of the interweb shows there are wood and tile floors throughout and a gas fireplace in the living/dining room that has soaring 17-foot ceilings fitted with an integrated speaker system. The living/dining room opens over a granite-topped snack bar to a fairly compact but well-equipped kitchen. Mister Kitsch's condo's lone bedroom can be accessed either through a door off the kitchen or by way of a long, double-wide, window-lined corridor plenty big enough to utilize as a home office, Pilates studio, and/or reading nook.

It's not clear if the apparently perennially single Mister Kitsch, now 31, plans to hang on to his suburban Austin bachelor-pad condo after (and if) he completes the build out of a custom residence on the vacant 3.64 acre lake-front parcel (above, at top) about 15 miles northwest of downtown Austin that property records reveal he snatched up way back in February 2011 for $1,300,000 (or $1,093,750, depending on where you look).

The meandering parcel, situated across a crick-spanning concrete bridge and inside the walls and remote-controlled gates of an upscale enclave of four large residential lots along the northern shore of serpent-shaped Lake Austin, has 178 of water frontage, already installed sewer and underground utilities, and convenient access to a nearby public park with 2 tennis courts, party pavilion, grilling stations, children's playground, and access to nature trails. Listing information from the time of the sale of the south-facing property shows annual (2009) taxes of just over $13,000 and monthly home owner's association dues of $878.

Of course, Your Mama don't know a tea kettle from a beer coozy so we really can't say what plans—if any—Mister Kitsch may (or may not) have to erect a bachelor pad mansion on his recently acquired and grown up-sized parcel on Lake Austin. Seems like since FNL was canceled last year there aren't a lot of professional reasons for Mister Kitsch to remain in Austin.

Then again, of course, the Canadian hot body could just as easily, maybe, want to stay (or maintain a real estate foot hold) in the Austin area of Texas just as do a fair number of other high profile peeps and Hollywood types who include Andy Roddick, Sandra Bullock, Lance Armstrong, and Matthew McConaughey and his supermodel baby momma fiancée Camila Alves who recently settled into a 9-acre lake-front spread

Soon-to-be-divorced actor Dennis Quaid and his estranged third wife Kim(berly) purchased an 11,000-plus square foot mansion on Lake Austin in early 2011 for just over $5.3 million dollars. In late 2011 they sued the seller with ugly allegations of "breach of contract, fraud and negligent misrepresentation" and in March of this year it was reported she had filed for divorce from him. We're not sure of the status of the legal imbroglio but suffice to say it's highly likely the Quaid's crib in Austin will wind up back on the market sooner rather than later.

Lowerd how we digress....

listing photos (land): Moreland Properties
listing photos (condo): Capital Cities / Sotheby's International Realty via Redfin

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry Mama..who cares? Next!

Anonymous said...

Amazing how out-of-touch you become with the young crop of Hollywood actors when you really don't watch TV or read the tabloids. It seems fewer and fewer stars choose to reside in Hollywood. In the good old days it was like a community and you just assumed they all lived near each other and gathered for Sunday bar-b-ques...how wonderfully naive we were back then.

Austin Downtown Condos said...

That is one huge land. Maybe Taylor Kitsch will soon build a vacation home. More Hollywood stars right now are getting interested in either settling down in Austin or buying real estate properties for investment. I cannot blame them, as there are many stunning places in Austin whether it is lakefront villas or high-rise luxury condo units. It is quite amazing really that most people still think that celebrities live in just one posh neighborhood in LA. I would not be surprise at all that aside from this multi-million properties, some of them would fly their own planes so they can get in and out of Austin without any problem. Thanks Mama, I love reading celebrity-owned homes.

Anonymous said...

Get real people... Most people in the entertainment industry reside in LA or New York. One or two or three actors buying property in another city/state does not constitute a massive wave of stars leaving those two cities.

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