SELLER: Jason Statham
BUYER: Johnny Galecki
LOCATION: Los Angeles, Calif.
PRICE: $9.2 million
SIZE: 5,334 square feet, 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms.
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: Jason Statham, star of the “Transporter,” “The Expendables” and “Fast and Furious” action film franchises, has sold his celeb-pedigreed house in the historic and historically celeb-friendly Outpost Estates ‘hood in Los Angeles for $9.2 million. The recorded sale price is a notable $201,000 above the official asking price of $8.999 million and a bank account-stuffing $1.875 million more than the $7.325 million the British beau-hunk paid Ben and Christine Stiller for the property in August 2011. Who shells out a couple hundred grand more than the asking price for a celeb-pedigreed house, y’all might ask? Well, children, two plugged-in informants have fingered and a third swears it’s exceptionally well-compensated sitcom star Johnny Galecki, who hauls in a pearl-clutching $1 million per episode for his co-starring role on the crazily popular “Big Bang Theory” and whom we happen to know has been on a fevered search for a celeb-style estate on L.A.’s east side for more than a year.
Set on over a half of an acre of walled, gated and densely landscaped grounds that, according to digital marketing materials, “rival the Bel Air Hotel,” the picturesque Spanish-style casa was originally built in 1929 and stylishly renovated for the Stillers by the accomplished architects and designers at Roman & Williams. Current listing details do not indicate the square footage — the L.A. County Tax Man says it’s 5,334 square feet, but that figure may or may not be accurate — but do show there are six bedrooms, six bathrooms, formal living and dining rooms, a library, office, eat-in kitchen with vaulted and beamed ceiling, and a professionally equipped screening room. There is additional living space atop a detached two-car garage. A variety of tiled terraces and courtyards surround the house, and at the rear of the residence a sheltered outdoor living and dining area with vibrantly tiled fireplace leads down to a pergola-shaded lounge that overlooks the decidedly serene and enviably private resort-style swimming pool.
Since 2001, Mister Galecki has owned a fairly modest if not exactly inexpensive residence privately set down a private drive just about the Sunset Strip that he bought from soon-to-be freshly divorced and recently killed off “Grey’s Anatomy” star Patrick Dempsey for $982,500 and, as even the most nonchalant celebrity real estate watchers surely know, Mister Statham has been on a near constant real estate roll the last half of a dozen years or so. Over the summer of 2009 the former competitive diver, who popped up in the Melissa McCarthy comedy “Spy” this year, shelled out $10.625 million for a beachfront contemporary inside the guarded gates of the prestigious Colony enclave in Malibu. Two years later, in July 2011 — right before he bought the Outpost Estates spread, he dumped a low-slung mid-century modern above the Sunset Strip for $2.7 million only to buy a similar residence almost directly across the street just a few months ago for the exact same price. And, finally, in April of this year, a short month before he bought the abovementioned second Sunset Strip house, he and his criminally attractive catwalker girlfriend, Victoria Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, coughed up $12.995 million for a photogenic and, according to listing details, “globally published” 7,119-square-foot contemporary with five bedrooms and 8 bathrooms in the ever-more popular and pricy Flats of Beverly Hills.
Listing photos: Rodeo Realty
