After just two weeks on the open market with a price tag just shy of $5.3 million, Austrian filmmaker Francis Lawrence’s fully restored 1930s traditional in the Westwood area of L.A. is, lickety-split, in escrow to be sold for an unknown amount to an unknown buyer. Property records show the “Hunger Games” film franchise director and accomplished music video director — he took home a Grammy in 2011 for Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” video — acquired the property in June 2005 for $3.85 million from high-powered William Morris Endeavor co-CEO Ari Emanuel.
The 5,700-plus-square-foot residence, set above the street on a triangular-shaped parcel of more than one-third of an acre in the Westwood ‘hood just west of UCLA, has five bedrooms and five bathrooms that include a sizable master suite with fireplace, sitting area beneath circular skylight, covered terrace, bathroom with second fireplace, private office and adjoining gym. Living and entertaining spaces include a step-down living room with fireplace, formal dining room and a separate den/family room with built-in entertainment center. The modern-minded and expensively outfitted kitchen opens to an informal dining space that spills out through French doors to a trellis-shaded terrace with built-in grilling station and a swimming pool surrounded by faux grass and dense, privacy-ensuring foliage.
Lawrence once owned a home directly behind the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood that was sold in 2006 for $2.35 million to James Franco, who has since sold the property; property records show that just last summer, Lawrence coughed up $8.75 million for a brand-spanking new, 7,100-square-foot house in Brentwood that’s across the street from a snazzy, mid-century modern once owned by pint-sized media and fashion moguls Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen.
listing photos: Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices
