BUYER: Jason Segel
SELLER: Joel Stein and Cassandra Barry
LOCATION: Los Angeles, Calif.
PRICE: $1.4 million
SIZE: 1,816 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: Though Jason Segel already owns two adjacent properties just above the Sunset Strip, Yolanda Yakketyyak swears and property records reveal that the actor and Los Angeles native has quietly and via trust splashed out $1.4 million for a third house a few miles to the east.
Mister Segel, now 35, was featured in the short-lived but beloved “Freaks and Geeks” before he went on to silver-screen roles in quirky comedies like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “I Love Your, Man” and “Jeff, Who Lives at Home.” He shook his 6’4” money maker for nearly a decade on the recently ended sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” wrote, produced and starred opposite Cameron Diaz in last year’s downright dismal “Sex Tape” movie and will appear this year as the immensely talented but tortured writer David Foster Wallace in the upcoming feature film “The End of the Tour.”
Property records show the seller of the Hollywood Hills house was occasionally controversial Time magazine humor columnist Joel Stein and his rather fetching wife Cassandra Barry who acquired the property in late 2005 for $1.13 million. Listing details describe the property, set behind antique carved wood Indian gates near the tail end of a narrow, hook-shaped cul-de-sac above Bronson Canyon, as “a lush bohemian hideaway” and show the two-plus-story, late 1930s bungalow has four bedrooms and three renovated bathrooms in 1,816 square feet.
The mostly wood-floored upper level living spaces include a living room with fireplace and vaulted, exposed wood ceiling; an adjacent dining room with access to a sunny terrace with over-the-treetop canyon and sky view; and a galley-style kitchen that was not represented in any marketing materials we peeped, so maybe it’s no great shakes? As best as Your Mama can tell, the street-level two-car garage was converted to a concrete-floored office/art studio complete with stainless steel utility sink and a full wall of closets. Not that what we think that matters a whit but, in this case, on a narrow street clogged with parked cars, we’d much rather have off-street parking for two small cars.
Two upper-level guest/family bedrooms share a renovated hall bathroom while a third guest/family bedroom on the lower level has deck access through French doors and shares a second, vintage-style renovated bathroom with a flexible use space set up in the most half-assed manner by the Stein-Barrys as a sort of theater/media room, but without the necessary equipment to show movies or even watch television. The master suite, also on the lower level, has French doors to a semi-shady deck, a walk-in closet and another vintage style bathroom with classic honeybee floor tiles, twin pedestal sinks, a claw-footed tub and separate subway tiled shower.
The deck outside the lower level bedrooms spans the full width of the house with a staircase that leads down to another house-wide red brick veranda that, in turn, steps down to a squat stone balustrade-lined terrace shaded by a dense thicket of banana trees, bamboo and other mature flora and foliage.
As we mentioned above, the multi-dimensional comedian, actor and writer’s property portfolio already includes neighboring houses just above the Sunset Strip — up behind the ever-chic Chateau Marmont, purchased in two separate transactions, the first in March 2007 and the second in May 2010, for a combined $4,089,000.
Listing photos: Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices
