Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Six—Or Maybe Two—Degrees of Celebrity Real Estate Separation: Reese Withespoon

SELLER: Jim Toth
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,795,000
SIZE: 1,788 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In case you don't read the Showbiz trades or peruse the celebrity gossip glossies when you're in line at the supermarket, Jim Toth is Tinseltown A-lister Reese Witherspoon's Hollywood power player husband, a muckety-muck at talent management colossus CAA who hardly lives in the shadow of his wife's Oscar-winning career. (His client lists includes or included Matthew McConaughey, Robert Downey, Jr., Rachel Bilson and Scarlett Johansson.) Anyways, a week or so ago, Mister Toth, now married and making babies with Miz Witherspoon, listed his former bachelor pad on a wickedly twisted cul-de-sac high in the Hollywood Hills with an asking price of $1,795,000.

Property records show Mister Toth purchased the contemporary crib in December 2006 for $1,950,000. If you're paying attention you'll have already noted that, unless his successful real estate agent can secure a sale price higher than it's current $1.795 million asking price, Mister Toth faces a $155,000 loss on the property not counting upkeep expenses, improvement costs and real estate fees.

Current listing details show the two-story house, behind a tall concrete wall and tightly wedged on to a compact, .17 acre kitchen axe shaped parcel, has two en suite bedrooms and a total of three bathrooms in 1,788 square feet. The tidy, glassy and airy interiors were put in place prior to Mister Toth's 2006 acquisition by celebrity designer Darryl Wilson who installed grey oak floors, rift cut oak cabinetry in the kitchen and bathrooms, and stone counter tops with seamless integrated sinks. There are clerestory window topped sliding glass doors, numerous sky-lights and a fireplace in the living room.

The upper level of the house, where the main living spaces and at least one of the bedrooms are located, opens to a slender, cantilevered deck that hugs that rear facade before, outside the master bedroom, it juts out over the yard at tree top level. Down below, the triangular-shaped backyard, surrounded by a towering wall of bamboo, has a flat patch of grass cut by an row of square cut stone stepping stones and a large dining terrace outfitted with a slightly raised circular spa and a built-in fire pit with curved, cushioned for comfort built-in sofa lounge.

For the record, Your Mama has no idea who or if anyone has occupied this residence since Mister Toth moved across town to the West Side and in to Miz Witherspoon's long-time home in Brentwood. Maybe it sat empty or was rented to some young celebrity client of Mister Toth. Perhaps the couple used it to crash after awards ceremonies or work related dinners in West Hollywood. Who knows? Who cares, right?

In other, celebrity real estate news quasi-related to Miz Witherspoon, whackadoodle action flick actor Steven Seagal put Lava Lakes Ranch, his scenically sensational, luxe-rustic 4,400 acre spread near the town of Mt. Shasta in Siskiyou County, CA, up for sale with a $12,000,000 asking price. In addition to the 14,00 square foot main house—a log-built edifice with 11 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms and at least two taxidermied bears standing up like they'd like to maul somebody—the working cattle ranch and nature preserve has a second, 4,200 square foot house with guest house, a barn or two or three and seven lakes that teem with essentially undisturbed wildlife.

And, finally, our big, sad and desperate lurch in this silly game of Six/Two Degrees of Celebrity Real Estate Separation to connect Mister Seagal to Miz Witherspoon... In August 2010, a year before she married Mister Toth, Miz Witherspoon paid Mister Seagal $6.9 for a bucolic 2.53 acre ranchette in the Mandeville Canyon area of Los Angeles. (The estate was previously owned by famously mustachioed actor Tom Selleck.) Presumably in order to to make way for an estate custom-built to her celebrity specifications, she razed the existing residence and most if not all of the other structures and equestrian facilities on the property.

Alas, Miz Witherspoon clearly caught a case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle because she quietly sold the increasingly celebrity pedigreed property in early 2013 for $7.5 million to super producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall who, between them have more than a dozen Oscar nominations. (Back in 2011 Mister Marshall and Miz Kennedy sold their Gwathmey Siegel & Associates-designed mansion in Pacific Palisades for $26 million to Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. Remember that? Anyhoo...) A couple months ago, a the Kennedy-Marshalls flipped the property back on the market with an asking price of $9.75 million and it's still listed for $9.75 million.

Miz Witherspoon owns a nearly 6,500 square foot house in a gated community in Nashville (TN) that she bought back in 2005 for $760,000 but she and Mister Toth (et famille) primarily live in an expensive and quiet gated enclave in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles on a three-parcel spread purchased in three separate transactions between December 2003—when she was still married to her first husband and the father of two of her three children, actor Ryan Phillippe—and late December 2012. All together, by Your Mama's calculations, Miz Witherspoon has spent a total of $11,050,000 for the three properties.

listing photos (Hollywood Hills): The Agency
listing photos (Siskiyou County): Ranch Marketing Associates

5 comments:

lil' gay boy said...

The Toth residence is a kinda of dated, early 80's -- a somewhat Gwathmey+Siegel influenced structure (mainly the strip windows & pipe railings) that could benefit from another refresh. The Seagal residence is just trés rustique.

Since Mama mentioned playing the Six Degrees (i.e., the Kevin Bacon) Game -- hubby BGD's cousin acted in Rich and Famous with Candice Bergen, who in turn did Sweet Home Alabama with Miz Witherspoon -- small world.

But what's creepier, there is a parcel of land in Siskiyou County close to the Seagal spread owned by none other than moi; not cup-of-sugar-borrowing close, but too close for comfort nonetheless.

=8-O

Anonymous said...

Her career did a toilet swirl when she was pulled over and sassed the officer. Sigh.

Anonymous said...

I object!

Sandpiper said...

I j'adore Toth's property. Bummer about the math.

As for the Segal ranch, it has tons of potential. If the decor elements as shown are his, I can tell him what he can do with those two (once magnificent) taxidermy bears -- sideways. (If they aren't his, then somebody else can.)

Unknown said...

Beautiful place indeed. Kitchen, dining hall, and lake view is just everyone wants.
Real Estate