SELLER: J.K. Simmons
LOCATION: Del Mar, CA
PRICE: $4,495,000
SIZE: 6,681-square-feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms plus two guesthouses
YOUR MAMA’S NOTE: Though he only purchased the compound-like estate in the affluent seaside community of Del Mar, CA, in December 2015 for $3.94 million and appears to have made few if any alterations or improvements, in-demand actor and Farmers Insurance pitchman J.K. Simmons has flipped the property back up for sale, as was first revealed by the vigilant celebrity property gossip at the L.A. Times, with an asking price of $4.495 million. Coincidentally enough, the asking price is exactly the same as the property was listed at the time of Mister Simmons’s purchase. Online marketing materials show the tropically landscaped 1.63-acre spread, about 25 miles north of downtown San Diego and 1.5 miles inland from the beach, includes a 6,681-square-foot main residence with five bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms plus a 476-square-foot poolside casita with bathroom and an also-poolside guesthouse of 1,387-square-feet with living/dining room, bedroom, bathroom, and Art Deco-inspired kitchen.
The main house, a 1980s contemporary that listing details indicate was rebuilt in 2004 but still looks to this property gossip like an unquestionably luxurious and decadently finished but still quintessentially 1980s contemporary, opens to double-height foyer with shimmery polished granite floor, an open-tread curved staircase with custom-crafted etched glass railing, and a gigantic fiber optics chandelier. The foyer steps down to a combination living/dining room with beige limestone flooring, dramatically curved walls, a brushed nickel fireplace and a domed ceiling with hand-painted mural and multi-colored fiber optic lighting. It’s a couple more steps down from the dining room to the kitchen that features a frameless wall of glass that opens out to the backyard and is lavishly outfitted with lacquered English sycamore cabinetry, beige slab granite counter tops and backsplashes that extend expensively all the way to the ceiling, and a plethora of high-end appliances that include two fridge/freezers plus several additional refrigerated drawers, a dual-compartment wine fridge, two dishwashers, and two convection ovens. Also on the lower level are a family room/media, an office with built-in desk and cabinets set in to a curved wall, a large laundry room, and garage parking for four cars.
Front and back staircases ascend to the private family quarters on the second floor where three well-separated guest/family bedrooms — all en suite, two with fitted walk-in closets and private balconies — are joined by a master suite decked out with maple hardwood floors, fireplace and French doors to a curvaceous balcony that overlooks the backyard. The master bathroom has several skylights and a glassed-in shower/tub space as well as a cedar-lined walk-in closet that includes a 100-pair shoe area with built-in organizers. The fifth bedroom in the main house, accessed by a separate and private staircase that makes it perfect for a live-in domestic worker, offers a small sitting area and private bathroom.
A flagstone-paved bridge arches over a boulder-lined seasonal creek and links the main house and the various terraces that surround it to the sprawling, desirably private and lushly landscaped grounds that incorporate extensive flag stone terracing, thick carpets of well-watered lawn, a saltwater swimming pool and spa with something described in listing details as a “color-wheel waterfall,” a Zen garden, small fruit orchard, organic garden, lighted tennis court, and a jogging trail that encircles the property.
Mister Simmons, who took deservedly took home a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and an Oscar in 2015 for the critically lauded 2014 film “Whiplash” and has almost a dozen projects in some form of production including “Patriots Day” about the 2013 Boston Marathon terrorist bombings and the Ben Affleck written, directed and starred-in superhero extravaganza “The Batman,” previously owned a 4,190-square-foot contemporary in tiny gated enclave in the Hollywood Hills that was sold in May 2011 for $1.585 million and he and his wife, actress/writer/director/producer Michelle Schumacher, currently maintain a spacious but otherwise relatively unassuming 6,480-square-foot residence near then end of a dead-end street in a pleasantly leafy and upscale neighborhood in Studio City that was acquired in July 2009 for $2.5 million
Listing photos: AARE
