Jesse Tyler Ferguson, an accomplished stage-trained actor and five-time Emmy nominated star of the acclaimed mockumentary sitcom “Modern Family,” which ran for 11 seasons, from 2009 to 2020, and his husband, Justin Mikita, welcomed a son last year. And, as new parents sometimes do, especially those with big bank accounts that give them the freedom to do so, they’ve decided their current house, a fabulously quirky, showbiz-pedigreed pad in a famously celeb-y area of L.A.’s star-favored Los Feliz Neighborhood, is no longer the right fit for their growing family; It’s now on the market with Jennifer Akbari of Compass at just under $7 million, a hefty chunk over the not quite $4.5 million they paid about 7.5 years ago.
All but invisible behind a verdant wall of foliage, the half-acre hillside property was acquired by pop star Gwen Stefani and her then husband, musician Gavin Rossdale, in 1998 for $1.375 million. After they spent a fortune to add a swimming pool, among other costly improvements, they sold it in 2007 for $4.8 million to TV writer/producer Mark Brazill (“The 70s Show,” “3rd Rock From the Sun”), who quickly flipped it in the fall of 2009 for close to $4 million — a heart-stopping $800,000 loss!— to artist Bill Nelson and Lärabar snack bar creator Lara Merriken. It was Nelson and Merriken who sold the house to the Ferguson-Mikitas who soon engaged to the services of “Will & Grace” set decorator and interior designer Peter Gurski to do up the house in a manner described in Architectural Digest in 2018 as “highly personal” with a prudently balanced mix of historical architectural details, classic Old Hollywood glamour, cheeky masculinity, and carefully curated kitch.
Decorative iron gates swing open between lantern-topped white stucco pillars, and the slender driveway makes a great sweep up to the motor court and three-car garage that’s tucked up underneath the gorgeously restored, thoughtfully updated and elegantly eclectic late 1920s Spanish Colonial eye-catcher that measures in at a tad more than 4,900 square feet with three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. (An additional poolside powder room is wrapped in saucy wallpaper that depicts drunk monkeys behaving badly.)
