SELLERS: Jerry and Linda Bruckheimer
LOCATION: Los Angeles, Calif.
PRICE: $14.5 million
SIZE: 9,030 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: We first heard it late last night from an informant we’ll call Will Tell, but those tireless kids at Curbed beat Your Mama to the punch with the news that prolific television and movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer and former editor-bestselling novelist Linda Sue (Cobb) Balahoutis Bruckheimer have put their slickly updated International Style mansion in L.A.’s swanky Brentwood Park ‘hood up for sale with an asking price of $14.5 million.
Mister Bruckheimer, now in his early 70s and still working like a demon with almost a dozen projects in various stages of production, has long been one of Hollywood’s wealthiest and most powerful men who has well earned his sobriquet “Mister Blockbuster.” On the smallscreen he exec produces the phenomenally successful “CSI” franchise as well as the long-running reality television competition “The Amazing Race.” His money-minting silver screen movies have raked in nearly $11 billion in worldwide box office revenue and include, to name a scant few, “Top Gun,” “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Beverly Hills Cop II,” “Armageddon,” “Pearl Harbor” and the ongoing, almost preposterously lucrative, “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise. Five years ago Forbes estimated Mister Bruckheimer’s net worth to be in the neighborhood of $850 million, with a staggering average annual income between 2004 and 2011 of $105 million.
As far as we can tell from a careful cross analysis of various property record databases, the so-called Siskin House, designed by accomplished Case Study architect Thronton Abell and built in 1965, was acquired by the Bruckheimers in 1985 for $1.865 million. Current listing details show the flat-roofed, single-story residence, behind gates and fashioned from a rigorous interplay of steel, glass and wood, spans 9,030 square feet and includes a voluminous, glass-walled living room, formal dining room, eat-in kitchen, large library/study and a media room. Half-a-dozen guest/family bedrooms share four bathrooms, according to digital marketing materials, and are in addition to a privately situated master suite comprised of dual bathrooms, numerous closets, an adjoining gym and a private garden. Beyond a broad expanse of flat green lawn and adjacent to the estate’s swimming pool at the rear of the 0.87-acre property, there’s a detached studio/guesthouse with an additional bathroom and what listing details describe as “cooking facilities.”
The Bruckheimers’ Brentwood spread is surrounded by similarly sized and equally impressive estates owned by a bevy of bigwig businessman, political power players and Tinseltown types who include communications tycoon and former L.A. Kings co-owner Jeffrey Sudikoff; CAA partner and managing director David O’Connor; and former L.A. mayor Richard Riordan.
When the Bruckheimers sell their longtime L.A. home base, they’ll still preside over a sprawling, baller-style portfolio of high-maintenance residential properties. In Los Angeles the couple owns a townhouse condo just off Abbot Kinney they picked up in August 2004 for $1.475 million as well as the old Harry Cohn estate in Beverly Hills, which they acquired in early 2013 for $23 million. (The Hollywood-historic two-acre estate has been under renovation and, as posited by the Curbed kids, the listing of their Brentwood estate suggests the no-doubt eye-poppingly pricey overhaul could be close to completion.) Up the 101 Freeway a bit, the Bruckheimers have a 400-ish acre ranch bought in 2006 for an unknown amount in the scenic, sophisticated and celeb-approved community of Ojai where, some of the more avid celebrity real estate watchers my recall, the property-collecting pair pissed off some of their Ojai neighbors a few years ago when they planted a dense row of fast-growing and view-obstructing trees on the perimeter of the property. Our research reveals the couple keeps a roomy penthouse atop a luxury highrise complex in Miami Beach, Fla., that they bought in 2005 for $6 million and, outside of Missus Bruckheimer’s native Louisville, Ky., near the itty-bitty community of Bloomfield, the dedicated stewards of historic and/or architecturally significant properties maintain an approximately 1,600-acre spread that includes a fully restored 1820s Greek Revival mansion. They also own at least eight buildings in picturesque downtown Bloomfield that they’ve also painstakingly restored.
Listing photos: Deasy/Penner & Partners
