SELLER: heirs of Samuel Goldwyn Jr.
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, Calif.
PRICE: $39 million
SIZE: 10,982 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: Buckle your real estate safety belts, children, because — as was first revealed by the property gossip gals at the Wall Street Journal — one of Hollywood’s most storied properties, the Beverly Hills estate of Hollywood pioneer Samuel Goldwyn Sr., has become available with an asking price of $39 million.
Set on 1.94 gated and landscaped acres at the hook end of a candy cane-shaped cul-de-sac behind the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Georgian-esque style mansion, completed in 1934, was commissioned by Goldwyn Sr. and designed by architect Douglas Honnold. In addition to the Goldwyn mansion — not to mention a number of “Googie” style drive-ins and coffee shops — Mister Honnold did up luxury residences for a number of other Tinseltown luminaries including Hollywood Reporter founder Billy Wilkerson and film industry art director Cedric Gibbons — the designer of the Oscar statuette — and his wife, Mexican-born actress Dolores del Río. The Honnold-designed Gibbons/Del Río residence, a particularly stunning streamlined moderne in Santa Monica Canyon, was later owned by veteran studio executive and producer Joe Roth, who sold the property in 2011 for just under $9 million to its current owner, Fox Television co-chairman and CEO Gary Newman. But we digress….
So the stories go, Mister Goldwyn Sr. frequently used the property as collateral to finance his films and, given his vaunted status in Hollywood, regularly entertained a slew of Golden Age stars at the estate including Cole Porter, Frank Capra, Clark Gable, Bette David and Charlie Chaplin. In the mid-1970s the estate passed to Mister Goldwyn Senior’s namesake son, recently deceased, Oscar-nominated producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr., whose professional credits include “Mystic Pizza,” “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” and “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”
Various online resources and reports peg the sprawling mansion at not quite 11,000 square feet — 10,982 square feet as per the L.A. County Tax Man — with half-a-dozen bedrooms and five bathrooms, including a main floor guest suite with private entrance plus a self-contained guest apartment or staff suite above the garage. There’s a motor court at the front of the house large enough to turn a limousine and a pillared portico that opens to a central foyer with elegant curved staircase. Formal living and dining rooms are joined by a paneled library with wood-burning fireplace, a card room, gym space and — not surprisingly given the property’s provenance — a home theater with 35mm projection system. The hilltop estate’s exterior features include spacious terraces, extensive terraced gardens, expansive lawns and, set well below the house, a solar-heated swimming pool and adjacent pool house with kitchenette as well as a lighted tennis court built on pillars over the canyon.
This is not the first time since Your Mama has been slinging real estate dirt that Goldwyn’s legendary estate has been up for sale; some of the children may recall we discussed the estate way back in the fall of 2008, when it popped up on the open market with an asking price of $24 million.
The property is represented by Joyce Rey and Stacy Gottula, both with Coldwell Banker Previews International.
Listing photos: Marc Angeles and Nick Springett For Coldwell Banker
