House flipping reality TV dynamo and designer Jeff Lewis, the persnickety, detail-oriented star of Bravo’s “Flipping Out,” has put a secluded, freshly rehabbed home in the Beverly Hills Post Office area* of Los Angeles on the block at just under $3.5 million. The sometimes imperious and pathologically itchy-footed real estate investor and entrepreneur, engaged in a difficult split and custody negotiation with ex-boyfriend and former employee Gage Edwards, acquired the property in 2017 for $1.37 million.
As is his wont, Lewis and his hardworking band of decorative elves quickly waved a renovation and decoration wand over the entire property, a sometimes-chaotic process captured for “Flipping Out.” The original residence, a musty-fusty, split-level wart of house built in the mid-1950s with three bedrooms and two bathrooms in not quite 2,000 square feet, was gutted, expanded and transformed into an warmly contemporary modern-farmhouse-style residence fitted and kitted for a well-to-do family. Listed with Carrie Berkman Lewis at Douglas Elliman and completely hidden down a shared private driveway at the leafy end of a sleepy cul-de-sac in the mansion-strewn upper reaches of Coldwater Canyon, the now almost 2,900-square-foot home contains four bedrooms — two master suites and two en suite guest bedrooms — and 4.5 bathrooms. There are distressed, wide-plank oak floorboards and brand-new heating, cooling and central vacuum systems plus a comprehensive, camera-equipped security network and custom sound and lighting systems throughout.
The brick-accented, board-and-batten exterior was painted a trendy, modern-minded jet-black and, drenched in daylight through several skylights in the high, vaulted ceiling, the spacious, combination living/dining and kitchen area features a muscular, exposed wood ceiling beam and a reclaimed brick fireplace. The room spills easily out to the backyard and swimming pool through a bank of full-height accordion-fold glass doors and the open-plan kitchen sports bespoke, rift-cut oak cabinets, an expensive array of designer appliances and a herringbone pattern black-and-white marble tile backsplash that goes all the way up to the ceiling.
There are two en suite guest or family bedrooms on the main floor, along with one of the two master suites, this one replete with a wall of windows that open to the backyard, a walk-in closet and an clean-lined bathroom sumptuously sheathed in premium-grade marble. Half of a flight up from the main living area, the second master suite offers a Juliet balcony, a walk-in closet and a bathroom with glass-enclosed shower/tub wet-room.
Snuggled up against a rugged hillside, the simply but verdantly landscaped, sunbathe-naked-private backyard includes a flat, low maintenance and evergreen faux-grassed area for kids and pets and a plunge-sized swimming pool and spa set into a grid of faux-grass-bordered concrete pavers.
Lewis, whose primary business is flipping increasingly more expensive homes in and around Los Angeles with an alacrity that gives even experienced property gossips whiplash, has owned more houses than anyone could be bothered to tally and recount. So, suffice to say that back in August, he took in $5.85 million sale of an expensively renovated, ultra-luxe contemporary just above the Sunset Strip he picked up in 2015 for almost $2.5 million and first listed in 2018 with a pie-in-the-sky price of $7.95 million. And, since late 2015 when it was acquired for exactly $2 million, he’s owned, lived and worked at a rambling, 1940s traditional in Sherman Oaks that’s undergone a series of extensive renovations featured, of course, on “Flipping Out.”
*The “Post Office” area of Beverly Hills lies outside the city’s border and therefore makes use of Los Angeles city services yet still carries a coveted, world-renown 90210 zip code.)