SELLER: Sylvester Stallone and Jennifer Flavin
LOCATION: La Quinta, CA
PRICE: $4,199,000
SIZE: 5,173 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: With his career on a solid upswing — he’s got a handful of projects in the works, is nominated for a 2016 Golden Globe, and there are some who think he could be in the running for an Oscar nomination for his regularly reprised role as Rocky Balboa in “Creed,” Sylvester Stallone has put his deluxe desert retreat in the upscale La Quinta community near Palm Springs up for sale at $4,199,000. Property records show the stone-faced, red tiled-roofed, and frieze-embellished Mediterranean Revival-style villa was purchased in January of 2010 for $4.5 million and, given those figures, it doesn’t take a bejeweled abacus or a mathematics savant to see that even with a full price sale the “Rocky,” “Rambo” and “Expendables” franchises star faces a hard right jab to his financial solar plexus to the tune of $300,000, not counting carrying costs, improvement expenses, and real estate fees. Of course, this property gossip isn’t privy to Mister Stallone’s accountancy, and we would faint with flabbergast if he couldn’t comfortably weather the loss. But, still, it’s a significant sum of money to watch swirl down the real estate drain. As it turns out, this isn’t the first or even the second time at the rodeo for Mister Stallone with this particular property that popped up on the open market in 2011 at $4.3 million — within 10 days the price tag inexplicably jumped to $4.5 million — and once again in late 2014 with a markedly lower asking price of $4.2 million.
Located behind the gates of the exclusive Madison Club golf community, the 5,173-square-foot, two-story residence is one of four nearly identical villas that share a cobblestoned central motor court and online marketing materials proudly declare the four-bedroom and 4.5-bathroom abode is a “Golden Globe movie star’s villa” and “the essence of Hollywood Retreat.” And, just to hammer the celebrity pedigree point all the way home but good, just about every television that appears in listing photographs shows Mister Stallone in one of his movies. Wrought iron gets set into a high wall divide the public parking area from a lushly planted private entrance courtyard with tiled fountain and dining terrace. The stone tile floors in the barrel-vaulted entrance hall switch to lustrous dark hardwoods in the 32-foot-long, double-height living room that features an exposed wood ceiling and two sets of glass sliders that disappear into the walls when open and link to a stoutly columned loggia that overlooks the swimming pool. At one end of the capacious space a media center is flanked by built-in cabinets that incorporate a wet bar while the other is anchored by a monumental double-stacked carved stone fireplace between tall archways that connect through to the window-lined formal dining room. Just off of and completely open to the living room, an ample and expensively equipped if generically styled center island kitchen has slab granite counter tops, a walk-in pantry, and a climate controlled wine closet. The adjoining informal dining area opens through French doors on one side to the entry courtyard and on the opposite wall to a dining loggia with outdoor kitchen and grilling station that overlooks a generously watered swathe of emerald-green lawn that makes a gentle slope down to the man-man creek that runs along the rear border of the .45-acre parcel. Beyond the kitchen there’s a laundry room, a bedroom suitable for guests or staff, and a hall bathroom. A long, tile-floored hall zigzags back to an attached garage that accommodates two cars and at least one golf cart.
The larger of the two master suites, just the foyer on the main floor, encompasses a spacious bedroom with fireplace and built-in wet bar; a fitted walk-in closet that opens off a long dressing corridor; and a compartmentalized bathroom with double sinks, jetted tub, toilet cubicle, and windowed shower space. Upstairs, in addition to an over-sized landing that does double duty as an sitting room/office/library, there’s an en suite guest/family bedroom with private veranda as well as a second master suite that’s a bit smaller than the one downstairs but none-the-less complete with fireplace, fitted walk-in closet, large bathroom, and a private terrace that allows for a sweeping, over-the-palm-trees view of the craggy mountain range that runs along the Coachella Valley’s western edge.
The Madison Club winds itself around a fastidiously groomed Tom Fazio-designed golf course and its well-heeled residents, many of them likely wealthy snowbirds who spend little more than a few winter months in their mansions every year, pay hefty homeowners association fees — listing details show Mister Stallone’s property transfers with monthly dues of $1,871 — that pay for the swanky enclave’s creature comforts that include round-the-clock security, concierge services, and a sprawling clubhouse complex with screening room and billiard rooms, a fitness facility plus a full service spa, tennis courts and an outdoor swimming pool, and numerous dining options that include a sushi bar.
Mister Stallone, now 69, still fit as a fiddle, and married to his third wife Jennifer Flavin for nearly twenty years, was an early resident of the all but comically opulent guard-gated Beverly Park enclave in Beverly Hills where he presides over a 3.47-acre spread with a Mediterranean mansion the L.A. County Tax Man pegs at 15,401-square-foot with five bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. Property records and the Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial both reveal Mister Stallone additionally owns a one-bedroom and three-bathroom townhouse-type condominium that’s one long block from the beach in Santa Monica and occupied by his kind of wacky and ever-sassy nonagenarian astrologist mother Jackie Stallone.
Listing photos: Hurwitz James Company
