Michelle Pfeiffer is officially cashing in that trademark white gold, as Bruno Mars might say. Just days after she and her longtime husband — TV producer David E. Kelley — quietly sold their $22 million Silicon Valley estate to an anonymous tech tycoon, records show the couple also unloaded one of their two L.A. homes in another off-market deal.
The house in question, a spacious but otherwise fairly ordinary structure set on one of Pacific Palisades’ poshest streets, fetched $9.1 million, a sizable jump from the $8.15 million Pfeiffer and Kelley paid just over three years ago. While it’s unclear what interior alterations the pair initiated, recent aerial images indicates few — if any — changes were made to the property’s exterior, suggesting they raked in an easy $950,000 profit (before taxes, maintenance and hefty realtor fees.)
Records also reveal the all-cash buyer happens to be Pfeiffer’s neighbor: Texas-based businessman Jim Crane, owner of the Houston Astros. Since 2010, Crane and his family have owned the .73-acre property immediately next door, upon which they recently completed construction of a Y-shaped custom mansion with a faintly ominous stone-block façade.
Pfeiffer’s just-sold home was built in 1949 in an architecturally ambiguous style, has about 3,200 square feet of interior space and sports an attached converted garage that now functions as a guest studio. There’s a skylit kitchen with high-end stainless appliances, a great room with hardwood floors and floor-to-ceiling windows, and a master suite with a wee private balcony and ocean views. The sloped backyard features a grassy lawn, an irregularly-shaped pool and wide patio with a sunken firepit.
Out front, a wall of enormous hedge plants — they’re taller than most surrounding trees, actually — and a driveway gate shield much of the house and the .45-acre lot from public view.
For whatever reason, Pfeiffer and Kelley seem to be in fire-sale property mode at the moment: their other Palisades house — located immediately next door to the one they just sold — is currently for sale with an $8.35 million ask. And their only other known home, a titanic 340-acre spread up in Canada’s remote British Columbian wilderness, is also available with a $28.8 million pricetag.
As for Crane, he also maintains a small fleet of pricey properties that include a mansion in Houston, naturally, and a just-purchased $18 million estate in Pebble Beach, Calif. He’s also got a second home elsewhere in Pebble Beach that’s currently offered with a $24.9 million asking price.
