Not for the first time, low-key Hollywood power couple Taylor Hackford and Dame Helen Mirren have hoisted their showbiz-pedigreed Hollywood Hills compound up for sale, this time with an asking price just below $17 million. And for those who don’t wish to commit to the hassles and expense of ownership, the two-residence city-view estate is also available as a rental, for a minimum of two years, at just under $40,000 per month.
The couple, who each have an Oscar, he for the 1979 short film “Teenage Father” and she for the 2007 biopic “The Queen,” tried to sell the hillside compound a couple years ago, with an asking price of $18.5 million, and they’ve occasionally made the property available as a rental as far back as 2007.
Built in 1911, the main house was originally owned by Dustin Farnum, the silent film star Dustin Hoffman was named after. The property was later owned by journalist turned movie writer/producer Mark Hellinger and sometime after that by “Perry Mason” producer Gail Patrick, “one of the first and most successful female producers in Hollywood,” according to marketing material. Hackford acquired the two parcels that comprise the more than 6.5-acre spread in the early 1990s, a handful of years before he and Mirren were married.
Nestled up against open, protected lands and set atop a long, serpentine driveway, there are eight bedrooms and 11 bathrooms in about 10,200 square feet divided between the Colonial-tinged Mediterranean main house and the guest house, a two-story California bungalow.
There are five bedrooms in the main house, along with a paneled library (with hidden wet bar) and graciously proportioned formal living and dining rooms that spill out through French doors to a city-view terrace above the pool. Roomy and equipped for a serious cook, the eat-in kitchen is dated by contemporary standards in finishes and fittings. So are at least several of the bathrooms, some of which still feature very 1980s glass-block shower enclosures.
Other notable amenities include the original wood floors, a trio of fireplaces, and a five-car garage topped by a home office and a staff/guest apartment. Strung with swagged strands of overhead lights, faux-grassed terraced gardens surround the swimming pool. Like the banana leaf wallpaper in the dining room of the main house, the pink loungers and green and white striped umbrellas are an obvious chromatic nod to the iconic pool at The Beverly Hills Hotel.
Listing agent Stephen Apelian of Coldwell Banker Realty told Mansion Global, the first to suss out the listing, that Hackford and Mirren have decided to sell because they don’t spend all that much time in California anymore. And indeed, the bi-continental couple have at least four other spectacular homes to live in. As of 2021, their holdings include a four-story townhouse near the river Thames in London, a restored 16th-century farmhouse near Tiggiano, in Italy’s Puglia region, a bungalow in New Orleans’ French Quarter, and a lake-view mountain retreat on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.
