After less than two months on the market and some serious interest from at least a couple of deep-pocketed potential buyers, comedian and actress Kristen Wiig has sold her painstakingly updated and restored mid-century modern micro-compound above Los Angeles’s Silver Lake Reservoir for $5.225 million. Lucky for the former “Saturday Night Live” star, set to appear as the Cheetah in the upcoming superhero film “Wonder Woman 1984,” the sale price is not only $100,000 more than the $5.125 million asking price but it’s just over three times the $1.7 million the eight-time Emmy nominated 2012 Oscar nominee paid for the property in 2014. The sale price is also more than twice the amount any single family home has sold for in the 90039 zip code in more than three years not to mention the second highest sale ever recorded in the zip code behind that of a neighboring property, the internationally renown, John Lautner-designed architectural extravaganza known as Silvertop, that sold in 2014 for $8.55 million.
Designed by unsung architect Albert P. Martin, built in 1952 and cleaved to a precipitous hillside with a panoramic, through-the-trees view across Silver Lake Reservoir, the main residence was reworked for Wiig by Taalman Architecture and The Archers who transformed the approximately 2,500-square-foot residence into a three-bedroom and 2.5-bathroom retro-inspired showpiece for a design-savvy and decidedly upscale modern-day lifestyle. Unquestionably at great expense and with considerable hillside engineering derring-do, Wiig additionally added a thrillingly sited swimming pool and spa plus an expansive entertainment deck and an approximately 1,000-square-foot poolside guesthouse with another bedroom and bathroom
It’s a long, zigzagged climb from the detached two-car garage to the tomato red front door that swings opens to a compact entrance hall flanked by a pair of sitting rooms, one furnished as an office with a masonry fireplace and the other featuring a smooth paneled accent wall. A full-height, wood-paneled wall in the office area slides open to a small, plushly appointed state-of-the-art screening room and the lower level additionally contains a couple of guest bedrooms, a snazzily tiled bathroom and an itty-bitty but ultra-chic laundry room with full-height wine fridge.
A slender staircase ascends to the main living and entertaining spaces on the upper floor that feature rhomboid-shaped oyster-colored cement floor tiles and a wood-clad, open-beam vaulted ceiling. A huge raised-hearth masonry fireplace anchors the airy living room that spills out through full-height glass sliders to a broad deck; the dining area opens to a tiled terrace notched into the hillside behind the house; and the sleek kitchen features a couple of stained glass accents, top-end appliances and snow-white countertops on a luxurious mix of glossy white laminate and American Black Walnut wood cabinetry. A cozy den room with a gigantic, built-in sectional sofa upholstered in wine-colored velvet leads to the master suite that comprises a reservoir-view bedroom, a dressing corridor lined with custom shelving and a bathroom sheathed in variegated, watery blue tiles.
Set off to one side and above the main house, a newly installed and thrillingly sited infinity edge swimming pool and spa is joined by a bifurcated glass and concrete pavilion with vast expanses of floor-to-ceiling glass sliders. To one side of an exterior bar area tucked into an open courtyard is a spacious entertainment lounge and a multi-person sauna and on the other is a pool bathroom and a good-sized guest bedroom that opens to a private deck.
As her star has risen and her pocketbook deepened, Wiig has become a property gossip column regular with an impressive portfolio of residential properties on both coasts. Her current holdings include an almost 1,500-square-foot loft apartment in New York City’s Soho neighborhood she bought in 2009 for $1.5 million — it briefly came up for sale in 2014 at nearly $2.6 million, a multi-acre waterfront spread on Martha’s Vineyard she scooped up in late 2015 for nearly $2.5 million and an extensively updated 1940s architectural tucked up into the ruggedly affluent hills above Pasadena’s Rose Bowl she snapped up in late 2017 for close to $3 million.
Listing photos: Maison RE / Deasy Penner
