BUYER: Jeff Dunham
LOCATION: Hidden Hills, CA
PRICE: $4,033,000
SIZE: 7,204 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: We heard it from real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak before we heard it from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial that wildly successful, dummy-wielding comedian Jeff Dunham recently dropped $4.033 million on a big new house in the prosperous, guard-gated and celebrity-approved Hidden Hills enclave in L.A.’s affluent far western suburbs.
Just because Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter find dexterous Mister Dunham’s ventriloquist dummy shtick a spectacularly unfunny comedic conceit — not to mention a little creepy — doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy a pole position as one of the most successful comedians on the planet; In 2009 Slate called Mister Dunham “the country’s most popular stand-up comedian” and the Forbes folk slotted him in as the 4th highest earning comedian in 2013 with an estimated haul of about $19 million.
Mister Dunham’s new digs in Hidden Hills, which occupies an essentially triangular-shaped 2.3 acre hillside parcel, is unquestionably spacious and luxuriously appointed if — in Your Mama’s humble and utterly meaningless opinion — grimly quotidian in a quintessentially suburban macmansion sort of way. Online marketing materials show the two-story, mock-Med/faux-Tuscan mini-mansion has a total of six bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms in 7,204 square feet.
A wrought iron accented wood and glass front door opens in a small vestibule that links through to a double-height center hall entry with a gray-ish beige tiled floor and wrought iron railed staircase. The tile floors switch to run-of-the-mill medium brown hardwood in the formal living room where the vaulted ceiling has exposed wood beams and stained glass windows flank a carved stone or possibly poured concrete fireplace. To one side of the living room is a compact office/library with French doors and a full wall of built-in bookshelves and on the other a crystal chandelier-lit formal dining room that comfortably seats ten or twelve.
The kitchen has hickory or hickory-like wood cabinetry, thick slab marble counter tops and back splashes — the latter a thickly veined bluish-green hue — and high-grade commercial-style stainless steel appliances that include side-by-side fridge and freezer, a warming drawer and a griddle-equipped six-burner range. Over the boxcar-sized center island hangs a particularly peevish example of a pot rack rendered in curlicuing wrought iron. Due to their wild and unpredictable predilection for snatching weaves and banging noggins Rule No. 12 in “Your Mama’s Big Book of Decoratin’ Do’s and Don’ts” is adamant that overhead pot racks are, generally speaking, strictly verboten or, at the very least, robustly discouraged. Anyhoo…
The kitchen’s French-doored breakfast area adjoins the family room where listing photos show another carved stone or possibly poured concrete fireplace, this one surmounted by a large flat screen television. Liquor lovers (like Your Mama) may have already noted that a hefty percentage of the family room’s floor space is given over to a built-in three- or four-seat wet bar.
Listing details state there are two en suite guest/family bedrooms on the main floor and three more on the second floor along with a sizable master suite complete with fireplace and French doors to private balcony. There are roomy his and her bathrooms, hers a vigorous (if banal) study in beige marble with garden tub and glass-enclosed shower stall and his dressed in a more “masculine” manner with green slab marble counters on medium brown cabinetry and downright dizzying vertically striped wallpaper.
Verdant, landscaped areas surround the house and include quiet terraces, a partly trellis-shaded outdoor kitchen, and an east-facing stone tile terrace that butts up against a swimming pool and spa. The elevated site and grassy slope beyond the swimming pool allows for wide and distant views over the trees and lights of the San Fernando Valley all the way on a clear day to the Verdugo Mountains.
Any body who knows any thing about the real estate proclivities of the rich and famous in Los Angeles knows that Hidden Hills is popular with famous folk. A few of the other high-profile homeowners in the equestrian-friendly enclave include Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson and her baby daddy/fiancée Eric Johnson, LeeAnn Rimes and actor Eddie Cibrian, and Kris Jenner and whichever of her slew of publicity hungry children still live with her. About two years ago uni-named rapper Drake dropped $7.7 million on a three-acre compound he (rather unfortunately) dubbed “The YOLO Estate” and that the sharp-tongued kids at Curbed described as an “absurdly cheeseball mash-up party property.”
Mister Dunham and/or his second wife, Audrey Murdick — Don’tcha know she was his nutritionist and personal trainer before she wads his wife? — appear to have a bit of a real estate thing for mock-Med/faux-Tuscan mini-mansions because property records and other online resources show Mister Dunham continues to own a turreted mock-Med/faux-Tuscan Encino, CA, mini-mansion he picked in July 2009 for $4,250,000. We don’t have an iota what Mister and second-Missus Dunhams’ plans are for the double-gated micro-compound in Encino but as far as we can tell it’s not currently listed on the (open) market. Public records show the existing residence was built in 2008 with six bedrooms and seven bathrooms in 6,522 square feet and the not exactly tiny but hardly huge.42 acre, fully landscaped spread has at a detached outbuilding of unknown utility located opposite the rear of the residence, on the other side of a lagoon-style swimming pool.
Listing photos: Sotheby’s International Realty
