Eileen’s ‘Dead to Me’ Mansion Is Gorgeous Inside!

Lombard leased the gargantuan property to Hollywood legend Douglas Fairbanks for a time before selling in 1919 to Silsby M. Spalding, who later became Beverly Hills’ first mayor. Upon taking ownership, Spalding and his wife, Caroline, commissioned Hunt and Burns to return to the mansion and expand it by 5,000 square feet, most notably adding an opulent 56- by 71-foot ballroom/music room with a beamed and coffered ceiling and Corinthian columns, all of which were repurposed from a cathedral in Spain.

The house has continued to see its fair share of both famous and infamous occupants in more recent years, including controversial financier Bernie Cornfeld and his one-time girlfriend, notorious “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss, Herbalife founder Mark Hughes, and perenially tan actor George Hamilton, who purchased the dwelling at the wee age of 28. Hamilton later told the Hollywood Reporter, “A property like that brings you friends you don’t want and relatives who come to stay and don’t go. You become a custodian, arriving home at night and seeing 15 people for dinner and thinking, ‘What am I doing?’” Another of the mansion’s claims to fame? Rocker Eddie Van Halen and actress Valerie Bertinelli hosted their 1981 wedding reception in Grayhall’s ballroom, which currently serves as a living room.

With a total of 22,000 square feet, 12 bedrooms, and 20 baths, Grayhall is not short on space. And amenities abound here! Inside, there’s a projection room, a whopping 6 fireplaces, a chef’s office that adjoins the restaurant-equipped kitchen, a Trompe-l’œil ceiling (yeah, I had to look that one up, too), a subterranean garage, and a formal dining room with 24-karat gold leaf walls. It is no wonder Hamilton had an abundance of guests wanting to stay long-term! 

During his tenure in the ‘90s, Mark Hughes extensively renovated the place and bought up three neighboring properties, turning one into a guest house and razing the other two to increase the mansion’s acreage. In the understatement of the year, his spokesperson, Conrad Klein, told the Los Angeles Times, “We bulldozed two of the houses, and that gave him a nice backyard.” On the current 2.5-acre lot, there’s a putting green, a pool, a hot tub, a pool house with a gym, multiple slate patios, a 20-car motor court, and greenery galore. The 4,000-square-foot guest house (above) is made complete with its own pool, pool house, and – wait for it – guest house. Seriously, the guesthouse has a guesthouse! The compound was last put up for sale by Hughes’ estate following his untimely death in 2000 with an asking price of $29 million. While on the market it was featured on HGTV’s “Fantasy Open House.” Despite the publicity, it did not sell until 2004 at a largely reduced $11 million.

Sadly, the entire property sits behind a massive gate and is all-but-invisible from the street.

But the gate, as well as the landscaping leading up to it, are pretty spectacular in and of themselves! The entrance looks straight out of Disneyland!

There are some glimpses of the manor to be had from the 1100 block of Marilyn Drive.

You can also check out interior photos here.

Grayhall first appears in the Season 2 episode of “Dead to Me” titled “It Had to Be You,” when real estate agent Jen tours the property, her new listing, after Ben approaches her to sell it on behalf of his mom. It also pops up briefly in the Season 2 finale, “Where Do We Go From Here.”

One look at the estate’s ornate interior, especially the former ballroom, and I was transfixed.

In all my years of location hunting, I had never seen anything like it! Talk about opulence upon opulence!

Kalish dressed the mansion pretty extensively for the “Dead to Me” shoot. Of the “regal” aesthetic with “mustard, burgundy, and gold” accents, she told Below the Line, “We really had to decorate that place to show these people have money and they have old money.” She did a great job in that respect. The home is so grand that, upon first seeing it, I wondered if filming had taken place at a museum!

Though Ben notes that the supposed Newport Beach pad is worth at least “ten to fifteen mil,” Zillow would beg to differ. The website “zestimates” its value at an incredible $38 million!

Grayhall is actually no stranger to the screen. Long before “Dead to Me,” the mansion appeared as the not-so-happy home of fading rock star John Norman Howard (Kris Kristofferson) in the 1976 version of “A Star Is Born.” Only a portion of the exterior was shown in the film and, minus the dormers that run atop the second level, it looked considerably different.

Though the film doesn’t provide much of a peek of the outside, it does give a great glimpse of what the inside looked like before Hughes’ vast remodel.

Thanks to a plethora of wood-paneling and stonework, Grayhall’s interior was much darker then than it is today, though no less beautiful.

Howard’s girlfriend, Esther Hoffman (Barbra Streisand), declares the place a “million-dollar slum” in the movie, thanks to his lackluster cleaning and decorating skills. Esther must be a bit tough to please because the mansion doesn’t look too shabby to me!

For additional Dirt on Eileen’s mansion, click back to the main page.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Grayhall, aka Eileen’s house from “Dead to Me,” is located at 1100 Carolyn Way in Beverly Hills. Disclaimer: Please remember this is a private home. Do not trespass or bother the residents or the property in any way.