One of Hollywood’s most outspoken iconoclasts, Larry Charles, has sold his quirky, two-parcel estate in Bel-Air’s swanky Stone Canyon in two separate but contiguous transactions to the same buyer for a total of $3.6 million.
Property records show that the bushy-bearded, two-time Emmy-winning writer, producer and director — a former “Seinfeld” scribe who’s since directed a handful of button-pushing movies and documentaries (“Borat,” “Religulous,” “Bruno”) and produced several acclaimed TV shows (“Entourage,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm”) — purchased the 1.2-acre spread in 1995 for $2 million from the estate of vaunted traditionalist architect Edward “Ted” Grenzbach, whose impressive client list included showbiz heavyweights Rock Hudson, Johnny Carson and Barbra Streisand. One of Grenzbach’s last projects, in the early 1990s, was the remodeling and restoration of the BevHills mansion Rupert Murdoch just sold for $30 million to his son, James.
A cursory glance at the former Charles properties shows that the 4,128-square-foot main house seems on the outside to be a fairly traditional 1930s California colonial. However, a more complete look reveals a few radical architectural diversions, including a decidedly contemporary curtain wall of glass in the loft-like combination kitchen-informal dining-family room that opens to a flagstone terrace that does double duty as one of two driveways.
A center hall entry with an elegant curved staircase is flanked by a large dining room and massive living room with ebonized wood floors, 16-foot ceilings and a window-flanked fireplace bookended by built-in bookshelves. A second-level catwalk with a custom, squiggly patterned wrought iron railing passes through the cavernous living room to connect the three upper-level bedrooms to the private master suite. The main floor also includes a small semicircular office off the dining room, and two large rooms off the living room suitable as bedrooms, library, screening room and/or home gym. The back of the house, painted with a wacky, rainbow assortment of colors, opens to numerous terraces and other outdoor living spaces that link the main house to a studio-style guest unit top a detached two-car garage. The property was listed by Denny Kagasoff of Berkshire Hathaway.
listing photos: Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices
