Candy Spelling famously describes her Los Angeles penthouse condo as a “Manor in the Sky,” and indeed the 19,000-square-foot, two-story residence lords atop The Century, the Robert A.M. Stern-designed skyscraper that has been one of L.A.’s preeminent condo buildings ever since its completion, circa 2010. Standing 42 stories tall, the complex has proven particularly popular with foreign businesspeople, and these days there isn’t a unit in the building that costs less than $3 million.
While Spelling has reigned supreme as proverbial queen bee since she moved in roughly a decade ago, there are a handful of other Hollywood celebrities who have also called The Century home. Rihanna has long lived there, and “Friends” star Matthew Perry recently sold his $20 million apartment. But the building has now scored a particularly mega-famous new resident: Denzel Washington, who with Pauletta Washington — his wife of nearly 40 years — has just paid about $10.9 million for a supersized unit.
Records reveal the condo in question was sold by HRH Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, a granddaughter of the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. A popular figure in her native country and a rare social progressive in the royal family’s uppermost echelons, Her Royal Highness is widely credited with spearheading the push for Saudi women’s right to drive automobiles, and she is likewise outspoken on a range of other gender equality issues.
And in 2019, Princess Reema became the first-ever woman to serve as Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, a position she still holds today.
As for Washington’s new Century City condo, it’s actually a double-wide unit — back in 2013, Princess Reema paid about $8.9 million in two separate transactions to buy two adjacent condos in The Century. She then spent another small fortune to combine the two apartments into one mansion-sized flat, complete with six bedrooms and eight bathrooms in over 8,000 square feet. Victoria Montana is responsible for the condo’s eclectic interiors, which were designed to host a sophisticated owner with a jetset lifestyle and international tastes — naturally.
