BUYER: Dita Von Teese
LOCATION: Los Angeles, Calif.
PRICE: $2.83 million
SIZE: 3,200 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: Cinch-waisted burlesque queen Dita Von Teese has shimmied loose with $2.83 million for a 1920s, castle-like Tudor Revival residence nestled into a private, sylvan setting in the foothills above L.A.’s celeb-favored Los Feliz neighborhood. Listing details show the three-story, stucco-sided and faux-timbered abode, originally listed at $2,999,999, has four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in about 3,200 square feet under a steeply pitched roof with Gothic arches, period light fixtures, and modern bathrooms worked over in vintage style.
A stone path cuts through a walled and tree-shaded courtyard to a turreted entrance with high ceilings, original magnesite floor tiles and a discreet powder room. It’s a few steps down to a remarkably voluminous living room with hardwood floors, stone-quoined fireplace, and a wood-beamed cathedral ceiling and a few more steps back up to the adjoining dining room where a bank of French doors lead to a small covered terrace that peers out over the thickly treed grounds. At first glance the fairly compact, eat-in kitchen appears depressingly dated, with dark raised panel cabinetry and — by our utterly meaningless decorative assessment— unfortunate terra-cotta colored ceramic tile countertops, but it does appear to be spotlessly maintained and updated with newer stainless steel appliances. The unusually large and well-equipped laundry room next door opens to a service porch that accesses the attached two-car garage and connects through to an office/staff bedroom with walk-in closet and private bathroom.
Both guest/family bedrooms on the upper floor have unexpectedly roomy walk-in closets — one of them has two — and share a vintage-tiled hall bathroom while the master suite has three walk-in closets — two of them with windows — plus a private covered balcony and vintage-inspired bathroom with tiled walls, pedestal sink, stall shower and separate soaking tub unnecessarily set at a wacky catty-wompus angle. An English basement, accessed by way of a staircase behind a door in the dining room, has a terra-cotta tiled family room with fireplace and super-sized storage room perfect for Miz Von Teese’s feather fans and bespangled costumes. The multi-terraced hillside backyard includes a pergola-shaded dining terrace that overlooks a spacious flagstone lounge terrace that, in turn, overlooks, a dark-bottom swimming pool privately tucked into a wooded glade. A shed-like pool cabana offers a convenient half bathroom, wet bar, and dry sauna.
The lucratively curvaceous and flawlessly alabaster-skinned fan dancer, whose somewhat ironically saccharine real name is Heather Sweet and who was briefly married in the mid-Aughts to shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, previously lived in a 1940s Colonial Cape-style residence in the gated and celeb-stocked Laughlin Park neighborhood in Los Feliz that was featured on HGTV not too long ago. The televised segment shows the five bedroom and 4.5 bathroom house decked out with acres of velvet brocade wall coverings, an über-girlish baby doll pink kitchen, and a glammy boutique-style dressing room and jam-packed with a trove of vintage curiosities and an extensive collection of taxidermy that includes a bunch of bell-jarred birds, a couple of white swans, and a diamante choker wearing ostrich.
Listing photos: Keller Williams
