A classic California ranch-style residence in the well-to-do La Cañada Flintridge community, about 15 miles north of Downtown Los Angeles, has been sold by money-minting filmmaker Gore Verbinski for $2.75 million. Verbinski, one of the highest grossing directors in Hollywood — with worldwide box office receipts that total more than $3.7 billion — turned a tidy profit on the property that was acquired in 1999 for a bit less than $1.14 million. Property records show the buyer is a high-level creative and marketing executive at the Walt Disney Co.
The sprawling, multi-wing residence, built in the late 1940s and set on a trio of thickly wooded parcels that together come to nearly 1.2 acres, measures in at just under 4,600 square feet. Two roomy master suites — one with a fireplace — are joined by three more guest/family bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms that some might generously describe as “vintage,” while others “preposterously outdated.”
The living room features a vaulted exposed-wood ceiling and massive brick fireplace opposite a bank of accordion-fold art-glass doors that lead to the backyard. There are both formal and informal dining rooms, an updated kitchen with black soapstone counter tops and white subway tile backsplashes, and a small study that connects to a family room with a vaulted ceiling and built-in bookshelves. The back of the house angles around a brick terrace shaded by mature oak trees, and gives way to a rock-lined path that winds through the sylvan idyll to a secluded, pergola-shaded stone terrace.
Verbinski, who directed the horror film “The Ring” and the first three installments of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise — and took home an Oscar in 2012 for the animated action-comedy western “Rango” — likely hasn’t lived in the house for quite some time, given that in 2004 he shelled out $4.2 million for a 1.5-acre estate, also in La Cañada Flintridge, anchored by a 7,200-square-foot Mediterranean mansion with seven bedrooms and six bathrooms.
listing photos: Dilbeck Real Estate
