Larry David Picks Up Quaint French Normandy Cottage in Montecito

Larry David spent much of the COVID 19 pandemic “holed up at home,” in Pacific Palisades, he told People, with his newish second wife Ashley Underwood, a producer on a couple of Sacha Baron Cohen projects, and his 26-year-old writer/actress daughter Cazzie. (David has a second daughter, Romy, with his first wife, environmental activist Laurie David.) There was, he said, “…not a moment in the day when there isn’t friction between at least two of us,” with lots of complaining about who’s done (or not done) the dishes.

Well, the “Seinfeld” and “Curbed Your Enthusiasm” mastermind and his quarantine mates have a little more room to roam (and another kitchen to keep clean); as first sniffed out by the eagle-eyed property gossips at The Daily Mail, David dropped $5.7 million on a preeminently charming and modestly sized if frightfully costly vintage home in Montecito’s charming Hedgerow neighborhood. As the British publication also noted, the aristocratic beach town, just east of Santa Barbara and about 90 minutes by car out of downtown L.A., is crawling with moguls and mega-celebs who include Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Oprah Winfrey, Rob Lowe, Ariana Grande, Gwyneth Paltrow, and “Seinfeld” star Julia Louis Dreyfus.

Completed in 1929, David’s new faux-timbered and vine-encrusted French Normandy cottage was originally designed by high society architect George Washington Smith, who was then, and still is best known for his mastery of the Spanish Colonial Revival style of architecture that can be found throughout the hoity-toity seaside community. (The stunning Montecito mansion Ellen DeGeneres sold in 2007 for $20 million to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is a classic example of Smith’s deft handiwork in his signature style.)

With four bedrooms and four baths, plus an office and a powder room, what the not quite 2,900-square-foot home lacks in scale it more than makes up for in carefully preserved vintage panache skillfully integrated with modern-day comforts and conveniences.

Rough-cut stone surrounds the fireplace in the voluminous living room, where slender wood beams on the vaulted ceilings are stained the same dark, ashy brown as the oak floorboards that run throughout the house. The dining room sports an antique wrought-iron chandelier; the kitchen is fully up to date with sage-green cabinets, honed-marble counters, patterned-tile backsplash, and designer appliances; the primary suite’s bathroom includes a marble-sheathed shower and an extra-deep claw-footed soaking tub.

Set on about one-fifth an acre, the handsomely unassuming residence is enshrouded in mature shade trees and ensconced in verdant gardens of clipped hedges, lush lawns and citrus trees.

The listing was held by Cristal Clarke of Berkshire Hathaway; David was repped in the transaction by Patty Waltcher at LIV Sotheby’s Int’l Realty.

David, who by some estimates is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars, much of it thanks to money-minting syndication deals for both “Seinfeld” and “Curbed Your Enthusiasm,” maintains a small portfolio of homes on both coasts. In addition to his new digs in Montecito and his primary home in Pacific Palisades, a Mediterranean mansion on a low bluff overlooking the manicured greens of the Riviera Country Club, bought almost 15 years ago for $10.35 million, he’s long owned two other substantially smaller homes in Pacific Palisades. And, since at least 2004, he’s maintained a low-key getaway on the East Coast’s Martha’s Vineyard.