BUYER: Victoria Azarenka
LOCATION: Manhattan Beach, Calif.
PRICE: $7 million
SIZE: 4,280 square feet, 4-5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: It came to our attention via digital missive from industrious real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak and we later confirmed through property records that professional tennis player Victoria Azarenka has dropped $7 million for a brand-spanking new multistory contemporary residence on a much-coveted walk-street in Manhattan Beach, California.
The 25-year old Belarusian baseline ball brutalizer, one of the top-earning players on the tour with nearly $16 million in prize money and endorsements for the 2012-13 season, is well known for her punishing two-handed backhand, lickety-split ground speed and excessively loud screeching. The former No. 1, sidelined for much of 2014 with a nasty foot injury but back on the court and slowly climbing the rankings, can boast two Grand Slam singles titles, two more Grand Slam doubles titles plus an Olympic bronze for singles and a gold for doubles at the 2012 Summer Games.
Listing details and other online resources show Vika’s newly built three-story residence, a jigsaw puzzle-like combination of limestone blocks, concrete and glass with rustic wood accents, measures in at 4,280 square feet — or 4,431 square feet, depending on where one looks — and sits on a measly but typical for the tightly packed beachside ‘hood 2,749-square-foot corner parcel that’s but a short block to the beach and a few blocks from the upscale community’s thriving downtown shopping and dining scene. There are, according to marketing materials, 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms plus a ground-floor bonus room that might easily be pressed into use as a fifth bedroom, staff suite, Pilates studio or tennis gear and tournament trophy storage room.
Online marketing materials show the modern-minded abode is decked out with all the new-fangled, high-tech bells and whistles money can buy and includes a comprehensive home automation system, high-efficiency heating and cooling systems, a custom lighting package, remote-controlled sun shades and — brace yourselves, children — an all-glass elevator. That’s right, a glass elevator. It’s an arguably quite convenient if — in our humble and utterly meaningless opinion — entirely unnecessary and preposterously ostentatious design gimmick that might make the grocery bag-laden schlep from the ground level three-car garage to the top-floor kitchen all but effortless but, seriously people, a well-placed pneumatic dumb-waiter would have done the trick in a far less flashy manner. If it’s an elevator that is required or desired, we just think there are so many more dignified and discreet options besides a too-jazzy all-glass situation that — let’s be honest — loudly announces to dinner guests and the Chinese food delivery guy that the homeowners are so very rich, like people to know it and are, maybe, a little bit too lazy to climb a couple of flights of stairs. But we digress….
The front door, tucked around on the dark side of the house, opens into a middle-floor foyer and stair hall, while the open-plan main living spaces were smartly put up on the uppermost level to take advantage of the panoramic, through the telephone wires and over-the-rooftops ocean views that stretch from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to Malibu and include the photogenic Manhattan Beach Pier and Catalina Island. A gigantic, single pane glass slider adjacent to the gas fireplace in the living room area slips into the wall to provide a seamless transition to a salt air licked outdoor living space outfitted with a kitchen/barbecue station, limestone-faced and television surmounted gas fireplace and built-in ceiling heaters to take the edge off chilly and often foggy coastal mornings and evenings. The kitchen opens over a breakfast bar island to the ocean-view dining room and is fitted with custom walnut cabinetry, slab marble countertops and backsplashes, and an adjoining butler’s pantry with sink, second dishwasher and open shelves. There’s an additional living space on the ground floor with built-in wet bar, climate controlled wine storage and floor-to-ceiling glass sliders that open to a neighborly street-side terrace. Three guest/family bedrooms — one en suite and the other two share a Jack ‘n’ Jill style bathroom — occupy the middle floor along with an ocean-view master suite replete with private wrap-around balcony, two walk-in closets, and an attached bathroom with two-sink floating vanity, soaking tub and separate double-sized steam shower.
Listing photos: Shorewood Realtors
