With a new baby almost no one knew was coming until after she was born last fall, and plans to move into the Beverly Hills home of her late and, at least in the entertainment industry, legendary mother, Carrie Fisher, Hollywood scion and actress Billie Lourd has sold a home just off L.A.’s famed and perennially hip Melrose Boulevard for a dash over $2.8 million.
The 28-year-old “Scream Queens, “American Horror Story” and “Star Wars” sequel trilogy actress, whose father is high-powered talent agent Bryan Lourd and who wore Chanel for her 2008 debutante ball in Paris, did not turn much if any profit on the not quite $2.7 million paid for the property coming up on three years ago.
Unassuming and comfortable with attractively simple landscaping and high-end amenities — marketing materials call it a “pristine luxury Cape Cod home” set behind gates and hedges on a petite .13-acre mid-block parcel — the pushing-up-on-3,600-square-foot two-story family-sized abode offers five ensuite bedrooms, a total of 5.5 bathrooms, three fireplaces and both formal and informal living spaces.
The front door opens directly and casually into a double-height sitting room with fireplace, and the adjoining dining room sits below a second-floor lounge that overlooks the living room. At the back of the house, where it opens to the yard, a great room comprises a family room, informal dining area and up-to-date kitchen configured around a doublewide island snack bar. Guest bedrooms are ample with fitted walk-in closets, while the roomy main suite has a marble fireplace and an office/reading nook along with a covered balcony, walk-in closet and marble bath.
Encircled in dense and tall hedgerows that screen out neighboring homes and provide skinny-dip-safe privacy, the backyard includes a decked loggia with fireplace, a big concrete patio with built-in fire pit and a small swimming pool with inset spa.
The property was listed with Alexis Valentin Ramos of Sotheby’s Int’l Realty, and the buyer was represented by Kevin Stewart and Jon Grauman of The Agency.
Details about the ongoing renovations for the Beverly Hills homes Lourd took possession of after the all-but-concurrent late-2016 deaths of Fisher and Reynolds are slim, but aerial images from late last year suggest they are extensive, with tarps covering the roof and much of the landscaping torn up. Reynolds and Fisher lived in the neighboring homes the last 15 or so years of their lives, and both homes are widely featured in “Bright Lights,” the poignant 2016 documentary about their lives together, which made its premiere just weeks after they passed away.
The former Reynolds residence is a modestly sized Spanish bungalow that dates to the 1930s, while Fisher’s home, a somewhat larger and, during her residency, magnificently quirky hacienda-style affair, was originally owned by Robert Armstrong, the ship’s captain in original “King Kong” movie in 1993. Bette Davis shacked up there for a bit before it was acquired in 1933 by vaunted costume designer Edith Head, and Fisher bought it in 1993 for about $2.5 million, according to reports from the time.
Lourd, who will appear on the silver screen opposite Julia Roberts and George Clooney in the upcoming romcom “Ticket to Paradise,” previously owned a striking bright blue house in Santa Monica that was sold in 2017 for $2.38 million.