Dodgers icon and all-around MLB legend Vin Scully died yesterday at his longtime home, leaving behind a nearly 70-year career and legions of fans nationwide. The Hall of Fame broadcaster’s popularity was so great that it transcended the sport of baseball, making him one of the most recognizable sports figures of all time — particularly in Los Angeles, where his voice arguably defined the summer season for decades.
Before his death at age 94, Scully spent his final years living in Hidden Hills, a guard-gated community in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley. Free from sidewalks and equestrian-oriented, Hidden Hills remains a ritzy but bucolic slice of Kentucky on the outskirts of Los Angeles; while the area has recently become known for its numerous famous residents, including some of the world’s most photographed people, Scully arguably defined the enclave’s laidback and casually friendly nature better than any other celebrity.
Scully reportedly loved his Hidden Hills neighborhood despite its geographic challenges — until his retirement at the end of 2016, he would happily drive a 60-mile roundtrip commute from his home to the announcer’s booth at Dodger Stadium.
While the New York native and his late wife Sandi didn’t get out as much in recent years, the couple once were often spotted walking along Ashley Ridge, the neighborhood pocket of Hidden Hills where they lived since 2009. Though his net worth was well into the tens of millions, Scully would sometimes hand out candy to the trick-or-treating children of neighbors, who knew him as Vinny.
Of course, Scully’s Hidden Hills home itself wasn’t exactly modest — the two-acre spread is a bonafide estate, with seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms in an 11,000-square-foot, chateau-inspired mansion. There’s also a detached guesthouse, plus a large swimming pool and outdoor spa. Multiple fountains, grassy lawns, a putting green and full-size tennis court are also on the premises, and the vast motorcourt(s) have room for well over a dozen cars.
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Image Credit: Google Built in 2003 by film producer Alan Bursteen, the compound was sold to Scully in March 2009, during the height of the last economic recession. The property had never even been listed for sale before Scully paid $12.4 million in cash, well over the market value at the time.
That sale price may have been a testament to the brooadcaster’s generosity — he wanted to pay a fair amount “that considered the time and money the seller spent building a house like that,” according to one of Scully’s longtime neighbors — despite any recession.
(And the property wasn’t a bad investment; Hidden Hills home values have soared in recent years, even compared to Los Angeles real estate as a whole. Redfin estimates the mansion could be worth more than $19 million today.)
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Image Credit: James McClain In Hidden Hills, which has three guard-gated entrances, there are folksy signs everywhere — many of them notating the “horses and children at play.”
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04/13/2006.Calabasas.A sign shows the folksy spirit of the community. Hidden Hills is a green and g
Image Credit: Anne Cusack/Getty Scully was named the Ford C. Frick Award winner by the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
Much-beloved but now defunct real estate blog Curbed LA once wrote that Scully was “a [Los Angeles] titan, a walking civic landmark on par with the Hollywood sign and L.A.’s scattered, smoggy skyline.” They’ve also got a great map guide to Scully’s L.A., including his very first apartment and his former home in Westlake Village.