SELLER: Johnny Galecki
LOCATION: Los Angeles
PRICE: $1,995,000
SIZE: 1,707 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: It was only two weeks ago, amid much brouhaha in the property gossip columns, that “Big Bang Theory” star Johnny Galecki hoisted his starter house behind the ever-chic Chateau Marmont Hotel at the eastern end of L.A.’s always bustling Sunset Strip onto the market with an asking price of $1.995 million, and online listings now show the modestly sized if not exactly inexpensive property is already in escrow to be sold to an unknown buyer at an unknown price. Mister Galecki, who got his big break in the early 1990s on “Roseanne” and is currently one of the highest paid actors on the boob-toob with a 2015 haul estimated by the fine folk at Forbes at more than $27 million, purchased the property in October 2001 for $982,500 from fellow television veteran Patrick Dempsey.
Current listing details show the architecturally unremarkable yet stylishly updated 1950s ranch-type bungalow has but two bedrooms and two bathrooms in 1,707 square feet. Completely invisible from the street, the house is privately and desirably situated up a long, gated and bamboo-shielded driveway that climbs to a foliage-surrounded motor court and glass-doored two-car garage/studio. A brief but proper entrance hall spills in to a spacious combination living/dining room with ever-so-lightly chatoyant honey-toned oak floorboards, a mantel-free white brick fireplace, and a trio of wood-framed glass sliders that open to the swimming pool. The somewhat petite but nonetheless nicely outfitted kitchen is completely open to the living/dining room and fitted with a combination of butcher block and stainless steel countertops on white cabinetry and a perfectly preserved vintage range.
Double pocket doors in the living room link through to a roomy media lounge with low, built-in storage cabinetry along the back walls and, unfortunately, hardly any windows. The residence’s lone guest bedroom, definitely on the puny side and accessible from both the living room and the den, is anchored by a huge corner brick fireplace, has a bank of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, opens through a wood-framed glass door to a small private terrace, and has a compact en suite with walls and floor entirely sheathed in small light green tiles. The master bedroom, immediately off the main living/dining space, has glass sliders to the yard and a bathroom that does not appear to this property gossip to have a shower space but does have an old-fashioned claw-footed bathing tub and an L-shaped single sink vanity with green glass countertop. The walk-in closet, which opens off the bathroom, is custom fitted with racks for clothes and shelves for shoes and has a stacked washer and dryer rather inelegantly if probably conveniently installed in one corner.
The living/dining room and the master bedroom open to an ebony flagstone terrace that quickly steps down to a rather photogenic, dark-bottom swimming pool and trapezoidal spa. Around the corner there’s a built-in grilling station and, on the far side of the pool, a bi-level deck that incorporates built-in bench seating, and a built-in fire pit cantilevers over the hillside with a foliage-framed, over-the-treetops city lights view.
Mister Galecki, whose silver screen credits include “CBGB”; “In Time,” with Justin Timberlake; and the not-yet-released “The Master Cleanse,” which debuted at SXSW this year, was catnip for all us property gossip columns last year after he shelled out a decidedly A-list $9.2 million to snatch up a stunning and sophisticated, celeb-pedigreed Spanish residence in the star-studded Outpost Estates area that he bought from action flick beau-hunk Jason Statham, who had purchased the house about four years earlier for $7.325 million from Ben Stiller.
Listing photos: Hilton & Hyland
