BUYER: Ari Emanuel
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $16.55 million
SIZE: 5,706 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms plus guesthouse
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: High-powered and famously imperious uber-agent Ari Emanuel, co-CEO of William Morris Endeavor — and believed by many to be the real-life model for Jeremy Piven’s tyrannical, tantrum-tossing Ari Gold character on the HBO series “Entourage” — recently upgraded his residential circumstances with the $16.55 million purchase of a striking contemporary residence in the celeb-packed Mandeville Canyon area of Los Angeles. Inspired by celebrated Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta and designed by accomplished L.A. architect Marc Whipple, the single-story residence was built in the late 1990s for a successful commercial director and his sommelier wife who, back in 2010, leased the property to arch comedienne Chelsea Handler for, we were told at the time, somewhere in the neighborhood of $35,000 per month. In 2011 the property was sold for $7.55 million to a corporate concern linked to British writer-producer Peter Griffiths, who gave the house a comprehensive cosmetic makeover before it was put up for sale in the spring of 2015 with an in-hindsight pie-in-the-sky asking price of $22.5 million.
Online marketing materials and other digital resources show the main house, a cubic collection of intersecting volumes completely obscured from the street behind tall trees and a towering stand of bamboo, measures in at 5,703 square feet with four bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. Effortlessly interconnected but clearly defined living spaces unified with matte-finished white oak floorboards and delineated by varying ceiling heights include a showstopper of living room with stark white walls, minimalist fireplace, wide bank of accordion fold glass doors, and a double-height ceiling dynamically perforated by rigorously aligned rows of windows. A more intimately proportioned dining room links the living room to the crisply tailored if decidedly austere grey and white kitchen that opens over a long center work island to a spacious secondary dining area and adjoining family room where a raised hearth fireplace was impressively and dramatically set into a towering wall of frameless glass. There are, by our count, at least five fireplaces on the property, including in the den/media room that’s furnished with a cozy — and costly — cherry red Ligne Roset Togo style modular sectional sofa.
The simply but lushly landscaped rear gardens include both open and shaded patios, a covered dining terrace and nearby grilling station, and an expansive lawn that rings a lake-sized semi-circular swimming pool that runs right up to the edge of the house so, should he want, Mister Emanuel could step out of the family room and directly into the water. A multi-story, concrete walled structure discreetly set behind thick sprays of sea grasses at the rear of the perfectly flat three-quarter acre parcel adds another 1,500 or so square feet with a double-height lounge anchored by a fireplace, complete kitchen, lofted bedroom, glass-walled bathroom, and spine-tingling mini-library accessible by a catwalk suspended over the lounge.
Other high-profile homeowners in the leafy, high-class ‘hood include Oliver Stone, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ryan Murphy, Trey Parker and, coincidentally enough, CAA president Richard Lovett.
Property records and other online resources indicate Mister Emanuel, who represents entertainment industry klieg lights Martin Scorsese, Larry David and Oprah Winfrey, continues to own a mini-estate in the fancy-pants Brentwood Park neighborhood that he snatched up in May 2005 for $9.85 million and includes a 6,859-square-foot main residence — a decidedly traditional, black-shuttered affair — plus a substantial two-story guesthouse and a variety of outdoor recreational amenities that include a sunken basketball court, putting green, sunken trampoline and swimming pool.
Listing photos: The Agency
