BUYER: Graham King
LOCATION: Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE: $5,475,000
SIZE: 5,505 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: Looks like Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have a new neighbor and both Yolanda Yakketyyak and Lucy Spillerguts told Your Mama it’s British-born bigwig movie producer Graham King who shelled out $5.475 million for an undeniably luxurious and recently refreshed if — in this property gossip’s humble, uneducated and entirely meaningless opinion — architecturally questionable villa in the swank Upper Riviera section of Pacific Palisades.
Mister Graham, in case his named does not ring any bells of familiarity with the children who operate outside the Hollywood establishment, is the London-raised son of a taxi driver and hairdresser who grew up to produce or executive produce a slew of successful movies that include “Ali,” “Traffic,” “The Aviator” and “The Departed,” for which he earned his Oscar in 2006. More recently his name and expertise was attached to “The Tourist,” “Argo,” “World War Z” and the currently in theaters but only so-so received silver screen version of the wildly successful Broadway musical “Jersey Boys.”
Online resources show the mullet-style house — It presents as a single level from the street but drops down to two stories at the back — has been on and off the market since August 2011 when it popped up with an in-hindsight rose-tinted $6.5 million price tag. The most recent marketing materials Your Mama found on the internets shows the rehabbed two-story residence was originally built in 2002 and is currently configured with five bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in 5,505 square feet.
There are formal living and dining rooms. Both have milk chocolate-toned wood floors and the former is also dressed with an exposed (and also milk chocolate-toned) wood ceiling and a carved stone (or possibly poured concrete) fireplace. The roomy kitchen has perfectly ordinary but probably pricey, high-quality white raised panel cabinetry and beige tile flooring that may or may not be limestone, travertine or porcelain made to look like limestone or travertine. There’s a full suite of high-grade stainless steel appliances, an unusual U-shaped center island with three-stool snack counter as well as a wee breakfast area set into a bowed bay window with an uninspired view over the gated motor court below. One corner of the kitchen makes a catty-corner connection to a compactly cozy family room with more of the beige tile flooring of unknown material as well as a television-surmounted fireplace and balcony access.
Upper level rooms, which include a spacious, ocean-view master bedroom with walk-in closet and — ahem — rather unfortunately tiled bathroom, open through banks of wood-framed glass doors to a variety of wrought iron railed balconies with panoramic views that extend out over the Pacific Ocean. The views are even better from the roof terrace and several lower level rooms, which include a bedroom/office, a small fitness room and a media room, open through a series of French doors to a broad, glass-railed tiled terrace that’s cantilevered over the hillside and decked out with a negative edge swimming pool and outdoor kitchen.
Both Yolanda and Lucy also told Your Mama — and property records confirm — that Mister King and his long-time wife, Valerie, also own a substantial home in the same, itty-bitty gated enclave in the upper Bienveneda area of Pacific Palisades where Judd Apatow lived until he 2009 when upgraded his residential circumstances with the $18.25 million purchase of an estate in Brentwood. Property records show the Kings picked up the nearly 7,500-square-foot spread in 2003 for $5.4 million. Your Mama’s brief and unscientific research suggests the property is not currently on the market and we certainly haven’t an iota what the Kings plan to do with the place.
Listing photos: Teles Properties
