SELLER: Dolly Martin
LOCATION: Malibu, Calif.
PRICE: $9,995,000
SIZE: 2,551 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: The longtime Malibu residence of late, great comedian and television icon Dick Martin, still owned by his Britain-born former Playboy Playmate and actress widow Dolly (Read) Martin, was relisted this week at an asking price of $9.995 million.
Just in case any of the Gen Y whippersnappers amongst us don’t know who he is, Mister Martin, who passed at 86 in 2008, rose to showbiz fame and glory as the co-host of the zany, saucy and groundbreaking sketch comedy program “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He went on to direct a long list of celebrated sitcoms like “Newhart” and “Archie Bunker’s Place” and, in the 1980s, become a staple on a number of classic televised game shows such as “Match Game” and “Password Plus.”
The Widda Martin, whose professional credits include the high-camp “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” movie and a couple of turns on “Fantasy Island,” first put the Cape Cod micro-compound up for sale in early 2014 with an asking price of $11.5 million. The price was reduced to $10.25 million and then to $9.995 million before it was de- and then immediately relisted this week with the familiar price of $9.995 million.
Originally built in 1946, the beach-facing main house has a combination living and dining with wood floors, used brick fireplace and ocean views; a picture-lined library/office that appears in listing photographs to be little if at all changed from when Mister Martin was alive; and a generously sized if outdated kitchen with a commercial-grade 10-burner range, temperature-controlled wine storage, open pantry and something listing descriptions describe as a “stainless steel pot wall.” The living and dining room opens to a partly covered brick terrace that gives way to a quintessentially beachy boardwalk over the vegetated dunes to the sand and surf. The entire second floor of the main house is given over to an ample master suite with vaulted ceilings, a fireplace set in to floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, glass sliders to an ocean facing deck and two bathrooms with dressing rooms. A central courtyard with fruit trees, roses bushes and fountain separates the main house from a fully detached and self-contained studio-style guesthouse that sits atop a two-car garage with open beam vaulted ceiling, corner fireplace and private deck that overlooks the courtyard.
Other homes along beautiful if rapidly eroding Broad Beach are owned by a slew of Tinseltown luminaries who include but are far from limited to Steven Spielberg, Pierce Brosnan, Dustin Hoffman, Ray Romano, Steve Levitan, Steve Zaillian, Marc Platt, and Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman.
Listing photos: Coldwell Banker
