SELLER: James Caan
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, Calif.
PRICE: $3,995,000
SIZE: 5,146 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: In the 1970s, after a divorce from second wife Sheila Ryan, famously manly actor James Caan briefly bunked at the Playboy mansion. But, for the last decade or so, he’s owned a Beverly Hills house listed this week on the open market for $3,995,000.
Property records show seventysomething-year-old Mister Caan, a self-described political “ultra conservative” who can claim both an Oscar and an Emmy nomination — “The Godfather” and “Brian’s Song,” respectively — along with four Golden Globe nominations (“The Glory Guys,” “The Godfather,” “The Gambler,” “Funny Lady”), acquired the gated, 0.43-acre property above upper Benedict Canyon in March 2003 for $2.225 million from L.A.-based money manager and Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio.
This property gossip is just going to assume without any direct knowledge that the decision to put the property up for sale has something to do with Mister Caan’s recent filing for divorce — for the third time — from his fourth wife of 18 years, Linda Stokes. Whatever the reason(s), current listing details show the clapboard-sided and partially vine encrusted 1940s, two-story traditional has five bedrooms and five bathrooms in 5,146 square feet.
There are medium brown hardwood floors throughout the house, including in the formal living and dining rooms, the former with exposed beam ceiling, stone fireplace, French doors, and a whole bunch of velvet upholstered furniture and the latter with wainscoted walls, beamed and vaulted ceiling, ceiling-height arched window and another set of French doors.
The kitchen has perfectly pedestrian but most certainly custom, hence expensive, white, raised panel cabinets, light beige countertops of unknown but also presumably pricey material and high-grade stainless steel appliances. An adjoining lounge accommodates an informal dining space and a sitting area with built-in entertainment unit and storage cabinets. Just off the kitchen, per listing details, a “secluded den” has more hardwood floors, a second fireplace set at a catty-corner angle to the room, a vaulted ceiling and a few more French doors that open to the backyard.
The wood floors in the public and family spaces switch to decoratively neutral — some might even say banal, sand-colored wall-to-wall carpeting in the four guest/family bedrooms as well as in the master suite that’s complete, according to marketing materials, with a vaulted ceiling, dual walk-in closets and a “five-star” en suite bathroom outfitted with marble-topped vanity, soaking tub and a “sit-in shower.”
The formal living and dining room open to a stone-tiled lanai fitted with retractable canvas sunshades. A thin strip of well-watered lawn divides the house and a slightly raised, lap-length swimming pool and terrace set in to a stacked-stone wall that holds the steep hillside behind the house at bay. At the front of the house there’s a large motor court and two-car garage, and tucked around the end of the house is a tree-shaded putting green.
Listing photos: Keller Williams
