SELLER: Maggie Lawson
LOCATION: Los Angeles, Calif.
PRICE: $1.2 million
SIZE: 1,406 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: We’re not sure if it’s a classic case of the Celebrity Real Estate Fickle, a not particularly successful attempt to make a quick real estate buck or — most likely — something else entirely but, whatever the sitch, it was only exactly a year ago that “Psych” star Maggie Lawson paid a couple of indie film producers — Carissa Buffel and Kevin Matusow, per property records —$1.1 million for a then newly renovated cottage in L.A.’s historic Bronson Canyon that she subsequently gave another, presumably costly cosmetic makeover and flipped back on the market this week with an asking price of $1.2 million.
The pint-sized Colonial-style cottage, originally built in the late 1880s and moved to its current, 0.15 acre and mostly flat corner lot in the late 1920s, measures in at a modest 1,406 square feet, per current listing details, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Among other nips and tucks, Miz Lawson revamped the landscaping, added a tall privacy hedge plus secured entry gates, installed all new dark espresso-toned hardwood floors throughout, put in copper plumbing, replaced the heating and cooling systems and tacked a small storage room to the garage.
A minimalist fireplace flanked by built-in open bookshelves anchors one end of the living room, while sophisticated and decidedly un-Colonial glass and steel doors were installed in the adjoining dining room — as well as in both of the bedrooms — to facilitate a convenient flow between the indoor living areas and the numerous, courtyard-like patios and terraces that surround the house. In the cozily sized but well-equipped kitchen, which is open to the dining room with a long view to the fireplace at the far end of the living room, the countertops and backsplash were changed out, the cabinetry was painted a crisp white, and a built-in center island was ripped out to make way for a (re)movable counter-height snack counter/work table with rustic, reclaimed wood top.
Both bedrooms are quite small and, unfortunately, neither is en suite. That’s right, puppies, $1.2 million does not buy a proper master suite here. The larger of the two bathrooms, a fully tiled affair with separate tub and shower, opens off the short hall between the two bedrooms, and a snug three-quarter bathroom is tightly tucked behind the kitchen next to a laundry closet with stacked washer and dryer.
Although the roll-up door remains in place, the detached two-car garage was repurposed as a lounge/art studio with wood-grained porcelain tile flooring. Listing details smartly point out that there are four additional off-street parking spaces behind the electronically gated driveway gates.
In March of 2014, shortly after she purchased the Bronson Canyon cottage that’s now for sale, Miz Lawson, long a couple with her “Psych” co-star James Roday, sold an eco-conscious contemporary in Los Feliz for $2.2 million — she paid $1.775 million for it in August 2011 — and a few years before that, in January 2012, she sold a 1,200-square-foot 1920s Spanish bungalow with a separate, 900-square-foot guesthouse near the Westside Pavilion mall in West L.A. for $805,000.
Listing photos: David Charmaine for Nourmand & Associates
