Thursday, December 26, 2013

Howie Mandel Sells to Billionaire Producer Ryan Kavanaugh

BUYER: Ryan Kavanaugh
SELLER: Howie Mandel
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $7,000,000
SIZE: 5,865 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In October 2009 venture capitalist turned prolific and highly successful movie producer Ryan Kavanaugh (Don Jon, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Little Fockers, Salt) paid class action attorney Thomas W. Girardi* $7,000,000 for an four bedroom and two bathroom ocean front house on Malibu's La Costa Beach. The newly minted billionaire (and his ballet dancer wife, Britta Lazenga) pushed the 2,880 square foot beach house back on the open market not quite two years later with a much increased $10,500,000 price tag. By the time the house was taken off the (open) market in May 2012 the price had dropped to $8,500,000.

About a month and a half ago, at least according to Your Mama's research on the internets, Mister and Missus Kavanaugh's beach house (above) popped up as a rental at a rate of $40,000 per month in the off season and $70,000 per month for summer months. (Listing details Your Mama turned up from 2011 state the "beach front haven" had been "recently renovated and updated" and current listing details show it was "renovated in 2013 with remarkable detail.") Mister and Missus Kavanaugh's beach house is also available for sale with an unnecessarily complicated asking price of $12,130,130.

According to the always reliable real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak the Kavanaugh couple's decision to put their La Costa crib up for lease may (or may not) have something to do with his November (2013) acquisition of a mysophobic comedian/game show host Howie Mandel's land-locked mini-compound in the much-coveted and celeb-studded Point Dume area of Malibu.

Mister Mandel first hoisted the 1.04 acre property with its Doug Burdge-designed residence on the open market in late 2011 with an asking price of $7,250,000. The property was taken off the market in the second week of 2013 only to pop back up two days later with a curiously increased price tag of $7,750,000. Property records and other digital resources show Mister Kavanaugh—through the same opaquely named trust that owns his La Costa Beach house—shelled out exactly $7,000,000 for the gated property that listing details rather generously describes as "One of the finest homes ever conceived in this exclusive seaside community."Certainly the house is luxurious and well-equipped and finished with high-quality materials to exacting standards but one of the finest homes in Malibu? Well, we'll let the children duke that hyperbole out in the comments.

The 5,865 square foot main house—a Cape Cod/Nantucket-y sort of thing—has five bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms, formal living and dining rooms, an open concept kitchen/family room, an office and a petite screening room. Additional living quarters are contained in a separate one bedroom and 1.5 bathroom guest/pool house. Lower level rooms open out to large, ocean view terraces, a stacked stone outdoor fireplace and a built-in barbecue. Beyond the heated swimming pool and slightly raised spa (with adjacent built-in fire pit) there's a lawn large enough to a children's soccer match or a more adult-oriented round of strip croquet.

Mister Mandel, according to Your Mama's brief perusal of property record, still owns a nearly 13,000 square foot mansion in the affluent guard-gated equestrian-oriented suburban enclave of Hidden Hills in the far western reaches of L.A.'s San Fernando Valley.

As for Mister Kavanaugh, well, we're not sure what—if any—other properties he holds in his personal portfolio but we do know—thanks again to good ol' Yolanda and again confirmed with property records—that in December 2011 he paid actor Dennis Quaid and his estranged wife Kimberly Buffington Quaid $9.5 million for a 1.96-acre, horse-friendly compound in the Mandeville Canyon area of Pacific Palisades that he was lucky enough to flip in September 2012 for $11.2 to former beauty queen turned actress/fit model turned designer denim queen Paige Adams-Geller and her apparel industry veteran husband, Michael Geller.

*Mister Girardi, in case his name does not ring a bell, is the fella who litigated the trial that inspired the Oscar-winning Erin Brockovich movie.

listing photos (Malibu): Pritchett-Rapf & Associates
listing photos (Pacific Palisades): Sotheby's International Realty 

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is what a Billionaire can buy? No wonder Rob Lowe is selling in Montecito. Howie translate to NO talent in Yiddish.

lil' gay boy said...

I'm not sure what to make of this incoherent mess; with a lot of editing pre-construction, it might have made sense.

As it stands, it's entirely too busy, too much conflicting geometry -- there is just no place in any room to rest the eye.

Someone needs to take Doug's ruler away -- before he gets smacked with it.

Anonymous said...

I loved the 'conflicting geometry' until it was pointed out. . Now, much less so. Sometimes, especially in this case, ignorance was bliss. Alas, being schooled is always beneficial in the end. I still love the great room. Although, it now seems a little visually unnerving.

Anonymous said...

Confidential to Anonymous 3:58 p.m.:

You're baiting the Rabbi, nu? And, takeh, the Rabbi will most reluctantly bite:

Vos hert zich? Tsi ir lernen Yiddish a bisl oon a bisl? Vos toot ir trachtn vegn di beys? Di Rebbe toot nit vi es. Avi gezunt!

Rabbi Hedda LaCasa

Anonymous said...

I think both homes are gorgeous.

Lucky, lucky people - I can only dream to live in something so beautiful!

lil' gay boy said...

I too was originally attracted to the great room -- but then I was viewing it on an iPad; once I zoomed it, my eyeballs started bouncing around like a ping pong ball in a wind tunnel.

But the outside was just too much; a seemingly failed attempt to reference the type of East Coast dwelling that organically grows over generations turned into a disappointing pastiche of architectural mise en place.

Anonymous said...

rabbi please stfu

Sandpiper said...

I agree that this one's getting a little complicated, but there are parts I like.

The world can't have too many Dutch colonials for my liking. I guess being Dutch makes me partial. I've never driven by a revival when I don't think, ah, there's another one.

This place borrows heavily and is certainly not spot-on to those originals I love in the Dutch countryside, or even here, natuurlijk.

The core elements are there: gambrel roof, shutters, dry-stacked stone; but agree with LGB/LB and others, it's fussy and way overworked.

(My book says style came over in the 1600s, rallied a decade or two on either side of 1900, and fizzled.)

That is until Hamptons McNew-builds came in and bastardized the style down to drywall, studs, a ton of factory shake, and huge footprint.

This one reminds me of a Top Chefs deconstruction at risk. I especially don't get the conflicting roof spans.

I'm zooming my vote in on the contemporized exposed upstairs ceilings (swoon). Not authentic, but a tricky engineering accomplishment all the same. How the dormer bones play into that math facinates me.

Sandpiper said...

What's stfu?

Anonymous said...

STFU. is a mean, disrespectful thing to say to a person. Unacceptable when spoken to a person of God. Most often employed by intellectual ding dongs, that haven't the smarts to process opposing points of view.
Shut The Fudge Up.

Thank you. Someone swooning over all the complex construction employed in creating the great room. Not sure if that qualifies the home for being, "One of the finest homes ever conceived in this exclusive seaside community." It does however, make for a great impress the guests interior.

Anonymous said...

I hate this house even tho its obviously luxurious and well done and way more expensive than I could ever afford but it seems like an ersatz east coast wannabe.

as for all the nastiness...i'm sensing a stupid and annoying streak of anti-semitism and I'm not even Jewish. why can't we all just get along?

Anonymous said...

I have trouble believing that a so-called billionaire would live in a house like this by choice. It does not seem nearly grand enough, special enough, or located well enough for someone of that financial standing. Especially someone like Kavanaugh, who obviously loves to show off and seems distinctly douchey (commutes to work by helicopter, drives a new Ferrari on the weekends).

My guess is that his "real" net worth is not anywhere close to a billion dollars. His company, Relativity Media, is notable only for its prolific output of mostly low-brow films and has had just as many hardcore box office bombs as successes. Whether the company has actually made any significant profit ever has long been the subject of debate in the industry.

Forbes seems to think that just because Ron Burkle invested a fat check in his company, they can pull the billionaire title out of their a$$es. Sorry, I disagree. It's how well he and his partners invest that money and what sort of return they make that will determine if his "billionaire" standing is legitimate.

Based on his current track record, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Sandpiper said...

Gosh, that's a pretty harsh acronym.

Anonymous said...

Gosh yourself sandpiper, did you just fall off a turnip truck? 11:52 AM's got his/her panties in a wad over nothing. Stfu is hardly the worst from among many, many overused text expressions. There's even a TV commercial that gives a passing nod to it's commonplace usage in which a woman says, "Shut the front door" so suddenly and fast, you expect to hear the F word. Stfu is most often used to express an emotion somewhere between surprise and disbelief, like " Oh get out of here" or "You've got to be kidding".

Anonymous said...

methinks a talk with ms. brokovichs attorney would be be a good financial move....although its hard telling how much medical malpractice claims pay out these days

Anonymous said...

Unremarkable. Also Mr. Kavanaugh whose overinflated bubble will burst, hopefully soon as he is infinitely tiring