The COVID-19 pandemic has altered everyone’s lives, but stars with particularly fat bank accounts have taken social distancing to the next level. Instead of just buying bigger estates with more land, they’re now buying neighboring homes — forking over millions for buffer properties where they might never actually spend a night. Folks like Blake Griffin, Annie Lennox, Jeff Bezos, Diane von Furstenburg, and John Legend have led the charge.
Of course, this trend is nothing new, but the next door pickups have increased over the past year in an unprecedented way. One of the most recent celebs to join the fray is Alexander Grant, the prolific music hitmaker (Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie,” Nicki Minaj’s “Massive Attack,” Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive”) better known as Alex Da Kid.
Way back in 2012, the now 37-year-old London native paid $4.1 million for a Mediterranean-style home set just above L.A.’s bustling Sunset Strip. That structure has since been demolished and a new, much larger mansion is rising in its place. But while that .29-acre property boasts a glamorous view of the greater L.A. basin, it’s simply not large enough for Grant’s purposes; records show he’s dropped another $7.6 million to acquire the mansion that sits directly below his construction site.
Originally completed in 1954 and dramatically rebuilt in 1976, the boxy Sunset Strip house towers above the roadway, clinging to its steep hillside. The notably long and narrow structure boasts six bedrooms and a total of six full bathrooms in 6,500 square feet of living space spread across multiple levels, all of them accessed via a glass elevator. From the street, a long flight of stairs leads past tranquil water features to the glass front door, which spills into an entrance gallery perfect for a modern art collection.
Because this is the hard-partying Hollywood Hills, the house is primarily dedicated to entertaining and impressing guests. By those measures, it succeeds with flying colors — there are multiple bars and lounges scattered throughout the structure, plus a gleaming terrazzo floors, marble fireplaces, and an infinity-edged swimming pool seemingly cantilevered over the city skyline. But the real residential pièce de résistance is the massive rooftop deck, which theoretically has room for an army of mask-wearing merrymakers.
Other features of note include not one but two master suites, the first with an opulent bathroom and boutique-style closet, the second with its own game room, perfect for intimate afterparties. There’s also a three-car attached garage at street level, plus a built-in BBQ and firepit for romantic evenings set against a backdrop of L.A.’s skyscape.
While he awaits the completion of his new $12+ million Hollywood Hills compound, Grant is bunking up in the far more conservative and laidback neighborhood of Sherman Oaks. Records reveal he paid $4.1 million back in 2017 for a 12,000-square-foot 1990s mansion described as “French Country” in archived listing materials. That gated one-acre estate includes a mosaic-tiled swimming pool, koi pond, two-story guesthouse, and even a full-size tennis court.
Vangelis Korasidis of Coldwell Banker held the Hollywood Hills listing; Mary Swanson of Compass repped Grant.