Designer Windsor Smith Gets $16 Million for Longtime Mandeville Canyon Home

Windsor Smith, the celebrity interior designer perhaps best known for designing homes for her close friend Gwyneth Paltrow, among many other famous clients, has sold her own blacked-out Brentwood mansion for north of $16 million. At that lofty price point, tax records show the deal works out to more than $2,500 per square foot.

Because the transaction was inked off-market, and the house never publicly offered for sale, some details remain hazy. But over the years, Smith and her very personal creation have popped up numerous times in lofty publications, including in the Frederic lifestyle magazine. And while the house isn’t actually painted a true black — its exterior is technically a very dark, extra-saturated navy blue — the interiors are a mix of white and black paint, along with pops of just about every other color in between.

The buyer remains a bit mysterious, but records certainly suggest it is Rob Isackson, president of San Francisco-based Village Investment Partners, a successful property development firm with an array of commercial real estate holdings. Isackson also owns a $6 million house in Santa Monica, which is believed to be occupied by two of his adult sons.

As for Smith, who is friendly and surprisingly candid for a high-end designer, she noted to Frederic that her longtime residence was a “spec-house built in the 1990s” and “the least attractive house in the neighborhood.” The successful creative and her husband originally acquired the property — in 2007 for $5.2 million, per tax records — because of its prime location near the mouth of Brentwood’s Mandeville Canyon and for its north/south tennis court, which Smith eventually painted a striking gray-on-black.

Over the last 16 years, the property has been renovated multiple times. Ceilings have been raised, floors replaced, walls removed and finishes and decor have been routinely added and subtracted. But the half-acre lot remains the same lush oasis it has been since the house was first built, hugged tightly by elegant sycamores and other mature trees.

Inside, double front doors open into a skylit foyer. Checkerboard-pattern stone floors are underfoot and lead into a light-filled living room filled with numerous pieces of framed artwork and pricey knick-knacks. There’s also a dine-in kitchen with a deft mix of vintage and contemporary appliances, an intimate family room and a library/study.

The L-shaped, two-story house offers five bedrooms and six bathrooms in 6,300 square feet, per records. Out back, behind the tennis court, there’s a verdant lawn surrounding a rectangular swimming pool/spa combo; out front, a gated motor court has space for six or more cars.

It all makes for a house that is tough to let go, but there’s one thing that likely makes this homeowner’s bittersweet goodbye a little easier: this deal closed just days before L.A.’s new mansion tax went into effect, saving Smith some $900,000.