SELLER: Billy Corgan
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, Calif.
PRICE: $4.95 million
SIZE: (approx.) 3,267-square-feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: Several celebrity real estate snitches have now let us know that Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has his home deep in a Beverly Hills canyon up for sale on the open market with an asking price of $4.95 million. The iconic and somewhat eccentric 1990s rock star turned professional wrestling entrepreneur and contemplative suburban Chicago teashop owner purchased the property via trust in August 2009 for $3.85 million.
Some of the children may recall that Mister Corgan and his across-the-street neighbors, married Tinseltowners Rebecca Gayheart and Eric Dane, got into a big ol’ legal kerfuffle after a giant eucalyptus tree on the rocker’s property fell in a 2012 windstorm onto the Gayheart-Dane’s property. Insurance companies reportedly settled for the actual damages, but the couple was annoyed by Mister Corgan’s (alleged) lack of remorse and pursued additional legal action to force the removal of a number of trees on Corgan’s property they felt were not properly maintained and continued to threaten the walled and gated residence they bought in July 2010 for $2.4 million. The two parties settled out of court last October, just before a trial was to begin, after Mister Corgan agreed to remove the trees in question. Whether this nasty neighborly feud has anything to do with Mister Corgan’s decision to dump the property is unknown, at least to this property gossip.
The gated 1940s residence — listing details describe it as “Reminiscent of a Great East Coast Traditional” on “a private road surrounded by high profile neighbors” — is nestled up to a steep mountain slope on a densely treed, 0.78-acre parcel that includes a wood-bridge spanned brook. According to the L.A. County Tax Man, the two-story residence measures in at 3,267 square feet — a figure that may or may not be accurate — and includes three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms plus a detached two-room guesthouse with another bathroom. Main floor spaces include a spacious living room with vaulted ceiling, wood flooring, fireplace and multiple sets of French doors; a sunroom-style dining room with ebony tile floors, glitzy crystal chandelier, floor-to-ceiling windows and more French doors; and a library/den with bay window, paneled walls painted dove grey and marble-faced fireplace. Next to the dining room there’s a reasonably roomy and well-equipped eat-in kitchen with built-in dining banquette, white Shaker-style cabinetry, high-quality commercial-style stainless steel appliances, and a combination of marble and wood countertops. There are two large bedrooms on the main floor that share a marble bathroom with two-sink vanity and — as best as we can tell, anyways — the upper floor is given over entirely to a multiroom master suite with fireplace, marble bathroom and private veranda that overlooks the tree-shaded yard and swimming pool.
The house next door to Mister Corgan’s was long owned by Hank Azaria, who sold it in April of this year for $3 million and, in addition to the Gayheart-Danes, some of the other high-profile peeps who currently own homes in that specific neck of the BevHills Post Office include pop-country superstar Taylor Swift and Oscar-winning movie producer Lili Zanuck, who owns a gated compound she scooped up in late 2012 for $6.75 million from Her Hollywood Highness Sharon Stone.
Just over two years ago, after more than four years on and off the market at a variety of increasingly lower asking prices, Mister Corgan finally unloaded a downright dignified 3,700-square-foot condominium in the historic, turn of the 20th-century Patterson McCormick Mansion in Chicago’s posh Gold Coast area but he remains residentially rooted in the area as he continues to own a substantial lakefront spread in the northern Chicago suburb of Highland Park. He purchased the bulk of the almost eight-acre estate with its 9,606-square-foot Normandy chateau-style mansion in August 2003 for $6.8 million and the adjoining property with its 4,646-square-foot carriage house in September 2013 for $1.25 million.
Listing photos: Rodeo Realty
