In a clandestine, off-market deal that went down earlier this year, Miley Cyrus sold her Malibu home for $1.7 million, a pocketbook punishing $825,000 less than the slightly more than $2.5 million she paid German-born radio and TV presenter (and longtime Haribo spokesperson) Thomas Gottschalk for the enviably secluded two-plus-acre spread in early 2016.
Tax records show the new owners are songwriter-producer Matthew Wilder and his wife, Tamara Dunn. Curiously, it was Wilder and Dunn who, back in 2014, sold a neighboring estate for more than $6.8 million to Cyrus’ now ex-fiancé Liam Hemsworth. It was that home that burned to the ground in the 2018 Woolsey Fire that swept through Malibu and L.A.’s far western suburbs.
Tucked up into a discreet and exclusive gated enclave, the split-level contemporary is further sequestered down a long, gated and tree-shaded drive that passes over a seasonal stream. Since the transaction was done on the down low, it’s not known what improvements were made by Cyrus (and Hemsworth), who were believed to have used the home as a creative studio space and guesthouse. However, at the time of her purchase, the modestly sized abode was painted a bold shade of turquoise, with four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms.
The playfully provocative pop-country superstar, who started buying and selling multimillion-dollar properties before she was of legal drinking age, maintains a small portfolio of luxury homes. In Los Angeles she’s long owned an extensively fortified mid-century sprawler in Studio City that she picked up in 2011 for $3.9 million, and she keeps a large farmhouse on more than 30 beautifully bucolic acres in the affluent rural outskirts of Nashville that she acquired about three years ago for $5.8 million.
