Young professional basketball player Trey Lyles, now dribbling and shooting for the San Antonio Spurs on a soon-to-be-expiring-two-year contract with a guaranteed annual base salary of $5.5 million, has never played for a California team. However, that didn’t stop the 6’9” power forward from shelling out $4.55 million for a snazzy, brand-new residence in L.A.’s increasingly popular and ever-more expensive Encino neighborhood.
Set at the head of a double-gated horseshoe drive, and described in marketing materials as a “modern farmhouse” with five bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms, the bulky exterior of the roughly 6,000-square-foot home is clad in greenish-grey board-and-batten siding accented with buff-colored stone exposed wood planks around the smoked glass door of the two-car garage.
Spacious living and entertaining spaces, which feature a forest’s worth of custom wood trim work and built-ins, flow easily into one another. Just inside the front door, a cavernous double-height foyer is flooded with natural light thanks to giant windows, and a black marble fireplace is set into a dark-painted paneled wall in the combination living and dining room where a slatted wood ceiling defines the dining area. Finished with a mix of strongly veined black and white marble-like quartz countertops, the kitchen shares a large space with the family room. A fireplace set into a wood-paneled wall is accented with floating shelves and a bank of glass sliders disappear into the wall for a seamless transition to the backyard. The main floor is rounded out with a library/home office and a fairly petite, wood-paneled screening room.
Guest bedrooms include boldly tiled bathrooms, while the homeowner’s retreat is complete with a fireplace, a private terrace that overlooks the backyard, a walk-in closet lined with lighted cabinetry, and a spacious bathroom decked out with an over-sized multi-person steam shower.
A veritable private resort with lots of easy maintenance, drought tolerant and effortlessly evergreen faux grassing, the backyard offers myriad recreation and leisure options. A spa spills over into an infinity edge swimming pool alongside a sun-splashed terrace with built-in fire pit, while an outdoor kitchen/grilling area and bar stands between a pair of poolside pavilions, one open-air and the other with a bathroom that makes it suitable as a guest suite or yoga studio. Beyond the pool, and somewhat hidden behind one of the poolside pavilions, the professional hoopster can practice free throws and layups on the lighted sport court.
The property was listed with Avi Barazani at Coldwell Banker Realty, and Lyles was repped in the transaction by Kathryn Newton of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties.
Though just 25 years old, this is not the first foray into luxury real estate for Lyles. In late 2017, the year he was traded from the Utah Jazz to the Denver Nuggets, he shelled out $1.185 million for a nearly 10,000-square-foot mansion in affluent Fishers, Ind., on the northeastern suburban outskirts of Lyles’ hometown of Indianapolis. Last September, shortly after he signed with the Spurs, the sprawling mansion, with five bedrooms, a home theater and an indoor basketball court, came up for sale at $1.4 million, but the price has since dropped to $1.3 million.