Insurance tycoon, life coach and reality TV veteran Adriana Gallardo, founder and CEO of Adriana’s Insurance Services, one of the largest insurance providers in California, may be preternaturally talented at selling discount insurance policies but she seems to have less savvy and luck when it comes to making money in the real estate game.
In addition to selling heaps of discount insurance policies, Gallardo has appeared on several reality TV shows including “Despegando,” an online life/business coaching series, and the explosive first season of “Rica, Famosa, Latina,” a Spanish-language series not unlike “The Real Housewives” franchise, during which she was involved in a couple of violent physical altercations with another of her cast mates, Elisa Beristain, the hilariously gossipy and volatile wife of influential Mexican regional music star maker Pepe Garza. Gallardo is also slated as one of the cast members (and an executive producer) of an upcoming reality series called “Life in Heels.”
That the 50-year-old Lamborghini-driving businesswoman, who emigrated to the United States from Mexico at 18, would wish to sell her lavishly appointed homes in Glendora, an affluent if somewhat under-the-radar suburb of L.A., and Big Bear, a scenic resort community in the mountains that form the eastern edge of the San Gabriel Valley, may have something to do with her 2018 divorce from Leon Fregoso and her subsequent marriage to Richard Martinez, the executive coach ex-husband of billionaire In-N-Out Burger heiress Lynsi Snyder. Out with the old and in with the new…
Gallardo’s primary home for the last dozen years has been a slightly more than 8,500-square-foot mansion of no particular architectural style tucked away on just over 4.5 acres in a swank gated enclave in the foothills above Glendora with stunning mountain, canyon and city lights views. Unfortunately for the insurance powerhouse, the not quite $6 million asking price is nearly a million bucks below the $6.9 million she paid for five-bedroom and nine-bath manse in 2008.
A grand double-height foyer dominated by a curved staircase and conspicuously opulent formal living and dining rooms are complemented by a paneled office/library. Less formal though no less grandly proportioned family spaces include a gourmet kitchen, a cavernous double-height family room and a partially paneled billiard lounge with wet bar and backyard access. The mansion also includes a movie theater that easily seats ten in chocolate brown leather theater recliners as well as a well-equipped fitness room that spills out to a stone balcony with open views.
The estate’s extensively landscaped grounds surely cost a fortune and are quite like a private resort with multilevel terraces, rolling lawns, elaborate parterre gardens and an outdoor kitchen complete with pizza oven. The infinity-edge swimming pool is spanned by a bridge that connects to a spa, a deck cantilevers over the steep and rugged hillside behind the house with an open-air cabana and a man-made creek tumbles down the hillside.
Late last year, around Thanksgiving, Gallardo listed her getaway in Big Bear at almost $1.6 million and the property was quickly put into escrow at an unknown price. Unfortunately for Gallardo, the asking price is $125,000 below the $1.72 million she paid for the almost 3,500-square-foot faux-rustic log-style home set among towering pines with lovely if tree-obstructed views over Big Bear Lake and Baker Pond.
Offered as a fully furnished turnkey residence, the four-bedroom and three-bath mountain and ski chalet offers knotty pine tongue-and-groove cathedral ceilings and three massive fireplaces that showcase locally sourced rock. In addition to a light-filled living room with a moose head hanging over the fireplace there’s a separate dining room with sponge painted walls and a gourmet kitchen with elaborately carved cabinets painted jet black. The hillside home also includes a games/family room with wet bar, an arcade/home theater that seats a dozen in black leather theater recliners, and, most unexpectedly, a nightclub with a stainless steel bar. A huge wrap around deck off the main level offers plenty of space to take in the scenery and soak in a molded plastic spa tub.
Gallardo has a third home that’s closer to the coast, in affluent Corona Del Mar, that tax records indicate was scooped up in 2013 for $3.85 million. It is not listed for sale. Hidden behind a high wall and fortified behind gates on the corner of a heavily trafficked intersection, the 1.3-acre spread comprises a 6,000-square-foot contemporary home plus a huge swimming pool and spa, a poolside pavilion and a separate guesthouse with extensive decking and a sunken spa of its own.
As it turns out, Gallardo’s younger sister, Verónica Gallardo, is also swimming in dough thanks to the discount insurance conglomerate she founded, Veronica’s Insurance Services, and just about a year ago she shelled out $6.5 million for a contemporary mansion in a plum pocket of L.A.’s posh Encino community that she bought from veteran NFL star Antonio Gates.
The Glendora estate is listed with Sean Stanfield and Alexandra Dominguez of Pacific Sotheby’s Int’l Realty, while the Big Bear home is also listed with Stanfield and Dominguez as well as with Steve Hirschler of Keller Williams Big Bear Lake Arrowhead.