SELLER: Michael De Luca
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $5,199,000
SIZE: 4,751 square feet, 5 bedrooms and 5 full bathroom (plus 2 water closets)
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: He may have co-hosted a star-studded post-Oscars bash at Madonna’s former mansion in Beverly Hills earlier this year, where he served McDonalds on silver platters, but for at least the last half-dozen years veteran producer and movie industry exec Michael De Luca has bedded down in Brentwood where — we first heard from real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak — his former home is up for sale for $5,199,000.
The three-time Oscar nominee (“The Social Network,” “Moneyball,” “Captain Phillips”) used to head up production at New Line Cinema and DreamWorks and currently toils as the fairly newly hired President of Production at Sony/Columbia Pictures. Mister De Luca hitched his wagon in 2009 to a gal named Angelique Madrid who appeared as a contestant on the first season of “The Bachelor” in 2002.
Property records show Mister De Luca acquired the clapboard-sided Colonial in February 2008 for $4,150,000 and digital marketing materials show the five bedroom and 5.5 bathroom residence has 4,751 square feet of well-appointed if inoffensively mundane interior spaces with semi-glossy milk chocolate wood floors, heavy-duty moldings and more crystal chandeliers than this property gossip cares to count.
The house, all but hidden from the street behind a low wall and high hedges, sits sideways on the .26-acre lot and Electronic gates open to a concrete driveway that bends tightly towards a front-facing two-car garage. Formal living and dining rooms — the former with fireplace and built-in bookshelves and the latter with custom wainscoting and two crystal chandeliers — flank a classic, center hall entry. French doors in both the living and dining rooms link through to a narrow but wide flagstone-tiled front porch that overlooks a petite front yard lined with a dense, almost house-high hedge.
A wide opening in the living room leads in to a family room outfitted with a built-in entertainment unit, built-in breakfast banquette, built-in sound system and multiple multi-paned sliding glass doors with backyard access. The adjoining kitchen has ordinary although probably very pricey antique white raised panel cabinetry, lightly veined slab marble counter tops, a full suite of high-quality stainless steel appliances that include a warming drawer and full height wine fridge and a massive, double wide center island lit by a glitzy pair of crystal chandeliers.
A tightly spindled, switch back staircase leads up from the center hall entry to private family quarters that include small second family room/den with built-in entertainment unit and three secondary bedrooms, one of which has a teeny crystal chandelier. The also upstairs master suite encompasses a high-ceilinged bedroom with fireplace and a marble-sheathed bathroom with two-sink marble-topped vanity, a gigantic garden tub and a separate steam shower with convenient built-in bench. Many of the children may find the two custom-fitted walk-in closets — “hers” with a crystal accented chandelier, natch — to be the apex of luxury in the master suite but as far as Your Mama is concerned by far the best feature are the two, separate water closets in the bathroom that provide maximum (and blessed) olfactory and auditory privacy.
A shallow porch wraps around the rear corner of the house and opens to a compact backyard with flagstone dining and lounging terrace and a pill-shaped swimming pool bordered by a thin strip of what looks to Your Mama like fake grass. Like it or not, lawn lovers, the scary scarcity and ever-higher cost of water in California makes synthetic lawns an increasing viable and desirable landscaping option in bone dry southern California.
Listing photos show the De Luca domicile was worked over by Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota and, according to good ol’ Yolanda, Mister and Missus De Luca have already decamped to a larger and newly built six bedroom and 7.5 bathroom home in the Mandeville Canyon area they quietly acquired in late May (2014) for $5,812,500.
Listing photos: Sotheby’s International Realty
