LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $14,000,000
SIZE: (approx.) 3,650 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Earlier this month word slipped down the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine that Oscar-winning American actress Gwyneth Paltrow and her British rock star hubby, Coldplay's Chris Martin, plan to sell their massive, 33-room mansion in the celeb-soaked Belsize Park area of London.* So the scuttlebutt goes, the couple and their two oddly-named off-spring had all but permanently relocated to Los Angeles (CA) where, in the summer of 2012, they paid $9,950,000 for an approximately 8,000 square foot Windsor Smith designed and decorated mansion with six bedrooms and eight bathrooms in the rustically swank Mandeville Canyon area.
Like a lot of titanically rich Angelenos, Mister Martin and Miz Paltrow weren't content with just their their deluxe "city" digs so they went shopping for a beach house in Malibu. According to well-connected celebrity real estate whisperers Crystal D. Canter and Yolanda Yakketyyak, the couple shelled out $14,000,000 for a one-plus acre bluff-top spread in the celebrity-packed Point Dume area where some of their nearest neighbors include fellow A-list actress Julia Roberts, smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G(orelick), octogenarian insult comedian Don Rickles, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith.
Listing details and other available online resources show the Paltrow-Martin's newly acquired ocean-view beach shack was designed by world renown maverick architect John Lautner and built in the early 1970s. However, puppies, no T no shade, this isn't one of Mister Lautner's more lauded commissions as it lacks the verve and dynamic tension of some of his more celebrated creations like, say, the Sheats Goldstein residence in the Beverly Crest area of Beverly Hills or the Segal house on Malibu's Carbon Beach that Courtney Cox sold in July 2007 for $27,250,000 to real estate ballers Frank and Jamie McCourt.**
Your Mama isn't sure of the full ownership history of the so-called Garwood Residence but we do know the seller, real estate developer Donald Sher, purchased the property in 1996 for about $1.4 million. Presumably it was Mister Sher and his wife who are responsible for the semi-tropical, quasi-Bali-esque jungle-style landscaping and the no-doubt outrageously expensive but brutally bland interior renovations. (For what it's worth, Crystal D. Canter snitched to Your Mama that the Paltrow-Martins hired Windsor Smith to do over the interiors and if the self-proclaimed lifestyle architect's impressive portfolio is any indication, we'd guess she added a touch of decadent whimsy and glitzy glamour to the glassy post-and-beam built residence.
Listing details don't indicate the size of the low-slung home but the Los Angeles County Tax Man puts it at just 2,883 square feet while a 2012 article in the Wall Street Journal, when the property was first listed at $15.9 million, puts it at about 3,650 square feet. Listing details show there are four bedrooms and three bathrooms and a meandering, open-concept main living space area that includes: a large, ocean-view living room with paneled walls and angled stone fireplace; a window-wrapped ocean-view dining area; and an angular kitchen with granite counter tops and what appears to be a teardrop-shaped center work island. Other interior features of the gated estate include include heated sandstone floors and long walls of floor to ceiling glass balanced with smooth paneled walls and rugged stone accents.
Outdoor amenities include a 50-foot pebble stone swimming pool, a lighted tennis court shielded by thick shrubbery, a fitness room and yoga studio, an outdoor kitchen and dining area tucked under the house and, by way of a sinuous stairway that snakes it's way down a verdant canyon, highly coveted deeded access to all but private Little Dume Beach.
In addition to their triple-wide London mansion and growing residential real estate holdings in California, Gwynnie and Chris also maintain several homes on the East Coast of the U.S. including a huge house on 3.5 acres in Amagansett, NY, that they picked up in August 2006 for $5,400,000. (Her mother, Blythe Danner, owns an adjoining property). In Manhattan the luxe-living couple own a spacious three bedroom penthouse with two terraces in a swank TriBeCa complex that they scooped up in early 2007 for $5,146,538 as per property records as well as a second apartment on a lower floor in the same complex that the picked up in March of 2009 for $1.925 million.
Finally, because who doesn't love a little six degrees of high end real estate separation, back in 2009 the Paltrow-Martins leased a Monterey Colonial-style mansion on 5.3 acres with guest house and equestrian facilities in L.A.'s Mandeville Canyon.*** The property, located just half a mile up the road from the Paltrow-Martin's current Mandeville Canyon mansion, had been previously listed for sale with an in-hindsight wildly rose-tinted $28.5 million price tag. Last August, after five long years on and off the market, the estate finally sold for $12,900,000 to to hedge fund founder Sean Fahey and his wife Robin Luce who, according to the always in the know real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak, plan to raze the existing residence and replace it with something more to their liking. As it turns out, children, back in 2010 Mister Fahey and Miz Luce paid $6.2 million for a spectacular (if kooky-crazy) Bart Prince-designed residence that's right next door to the Lautner-designed residence that Mister Martin and Miz Paltrow just acquired. Ta-duh!****
*The Paltrow-Martins picked up the main portion of their super-sized London mansion about 10 years ago from fellow Oscar winner Kate Winslet. They subsequently bought up two adjoining homes and, much to the annoyance of some of their neighbors, spent years and millions on an extensive and disruptive renovation to combine the three houses into one befitting an A-list celebrity couple. (And make no mistake, children, no matter what you think of Mister Martin's catching rock 'n' roll ditties and/or Miz Paltrow's constant nattering about how to live a deluxe life on her self-aggrandizing Goop blog, these two are A-list celebrities with the bulging real estate portfolio to prove it.
**Frank and Jamie McCourt moved to Los Angeles from Boston after they bought the Dodgers. They have since divorced—bitterly and expensively—and sold the Dodgers. As far as we know, ex-Missus McCourt retained ownership of the Segal house as well as the small cottage next door that she and her ex-husband bought in early 2008 for $19,000,000.
***There were later reports the house was riddled with vermin but we have no first hand knowledge of such a scandalous thing.
****Some of the children who follow high end real estate doings in The Bu surely recall that Mister Fahey and Miz Luce, incurred the wrath of neighbors and architectural preservationists when it became known they wanted to demolish the house and replace it a much more traditional California Mission-stylel mansion. After a brouhaha ensued and a petition was circulated—and signed by some of the neighborhood's celebrity home owners—the couple opted to quell the fears of their neighbors and remodel the house to better suit the needs of their family.
listing photos: Coldwell Banker
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