SELLER: Wolfgang Puck
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $8,495,000
SIZE: 6,025 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: It was our ever-faithful Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills who kited a covert communique to Your Mama to let us know that Austrian-born celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck quietly put his former home in the flats of Beverly Hills up for sale last week with an $8,495,000 asking price.*
That the charismatic and entrepreneurial professional cooker — the two-time James Beard award winner was inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame last year — would want to sell the property isn’t such a surprise to property gossips and avid celebrity real estate watchers who already know that 65-year old Mister Puck and his significantly younger third wife, Ethiopian-born clothes horse and high-end handbag designer Gelila Assefa, purchased a 12,269-square-foot, 1930s Mediterranean villa in Bel Air last October for $14,000,000 from multi-billionaire Hyatt Hotels heir Anthony “Tony” Pritzker.
Property records and other online resources indicate Mister Puck purchased his Bev Hills house in June 2003 for $3,675,000, right about the time he divorced his exuberant living second wife, Barbara Lazaroff.
Though the Puck property has already been withdrawn from the open market Your Mama managed to dig up some digital marketing materials that indicate the 6,025-square-foot “classic and chic Mediterranean Villa” occupies a gated and high-hedged .28-acre mid-block lot on one of the more desirable, tree-lined streets in the Bev Hills Flats. As best as we can tell from a careful parse of property records and listing descriptions, the fully renovated two-story house was originally built in 1940 and contains 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms and 4 fireplaces in the main house plus a detached guesthouse with an additional bedroom and bathroom.
Not for looking Your Mama didn’t turn up any current listing photographs but listing descriptions reveal the “move-in condition” mini-mansion has a double-height entrance hall with wrought iron railed staircase and both formal living and dining rooms — the former with high beamed ceiling and antique stone fireplace. There’s also a separate library/office, a family room with direct backyard access and a “spectacular gourmet kitchen” that Your Mama would bet both our long-bodied bitches, Linda and Beverly, is extensively and expensively fitted and kitted for a world-renown chef and television personality of Mister Puck’s caliber and means.
Listings details show there are three guest/family bedrooms on the second floor plus a sizable master suite complete with fireplace, sitting area and “luxurious closets and baths.” Numerous French doors at the rear of the L-shaped residence open to vine-draped loggias that lead out a grassy backyard with mature landscaping, outdoor lounge areas and a swimming pool.
*For the record: The property was withdrawn from the MLS yesterday but, as of this morning, still appears on the listing agent’s online portal.
Listing photo: Westside Estate Agency
