Thursday, May 22, 2014

UPDATE: Jamie McCourt

In 2004 wealthy Massachusettsians Frank and Jamie McCourt—much of their wealth was derived from well positioned parking lots in Boston—paid a heart pounding $430 million for controlling interest the Los Angeles Dodgers professional baseball franchise. They quickly and giddily carpetbagged their way to Los Angeles where they coughed up Grammy winner Baby Face Edmunds $21.25 million for a circa 1930s mansion on 2.61 gated acres in Holmby Hills. For better and/or worse, the estate sits directly across the street from the Playboy Mansion on Charing Cross Road.*

Court documents from their acrimonious, public and crazy expensive 2011 divorce—their legal bills alone reportedly topped $20 million—reveal the erstwhile couple spent another $14 million on a series of improvements and expansions, including having the kitchen in their Brookline, MA, de-installed, shipped to Los Angeles and, like Humpty Dumpty, put back together again in their new Holmby Hills mansion at a cost of $180,000. They later replaced an outdoor tennis court with a partially subterranean indoor swimming pool and spa complex complete with sauna, steam room, dressing room and massage room. Divorce documents also revealed expenses related to the maintenance of the estate ran up to $202,716 per month including nearly six grand a month in utility bills. Think about that for a minute.

So the reportage goes the divorce decree granted ex-Missus McCourt a settlement of around $130 million and sole ownership of a considerable number of the couple's many private residences, including the Holmby Hills estate. (They also maintained multi-million dollar homes in Malibu, Massachusetts and Colorado plus property in Mexico and Montana.) In March 2012, so Your Mama heard from Heidi N. Holmbyhills, Miz McCourt quietly floated the pretty darn palatial property as a whisper listing with an optimistically plump $65 million price tag. Almost two years later the property popped up on the open market with a $55,000,000 asking price and just a few days ago the lady property gossip at the L.A. Times announced that Miz McCourt had done sold the pristine property to an unnamed buyer for $45 million.**

The 20,627 square foot Euro-style villa, according to the official listing details and other online resources, has five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a step-down living room, a library/study, billiard room, bar, commercial-grade kitchen, and a home theater. In addition to the main house the gated estate includes a guesthouse, staff apartment, outdoor swimming pool house and pool house as well as the aforementioned indoor swimming pool and spa complex.

Naturally, as soon as we read that Mis McCourt sold the Holmby Hills house Your Mama tapped and typed our fingers to bloody nubbins contacting a few of our better connected contacts. We quickly heard back from Peter Propertyseller and Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air who both told us they're quite sure the previously unidentified buyer is low-profile British billionaire Ian Livingstone.

Mister Livingstone, a former optometrist who along with his younger brother earned their first (small) fortune through eyeglass stores, quietly parlayed the small fortune into a multi-tentacled, multibillion dollar real estate investment and development juggernaut that has, according to the fine folk at Forbes, ballooned their combined net worth to $3.7 billion. The brothers have their fingers in real estate pies all around the world (South Africa, Russia, Panama) as well as a bevy of swanky hotels in the U.K., including the stately and elegantly English Cliveden House.

Even though she shed the Holmby Hills house, Miz McCourt still has an impressive property portfolio that includes a John Lautner designed house on Carbon Beach in Malibu that she (and her ex-husband) bought in 2007 for $27.3 from Courtney Cox as well as the shackety-shack next door that she (and her ex-husband) picked up the following year for $19 million. Last fall the single, rich and fancy free Miz McCourt shelled out $11.25 million for a 21-plus acre vineyard estate in Napa, CA, with a two bedroom main house, a separate and architecturally significant two bedroom guest house and what the kids at Curbed called "a show-stopping lap pool."

*They also bought the spacious but far less grand house next door for $6.5 million that was sold off in August 2011 for $6,525,065. 

**As of today property records do not reflect a transfer of ownership and, hence, we can not confirm or deny the actual sale price but we have no reason or insight to dispute the reported $45 million sale price.

aerial photo: Bing

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

i would totally bang that milf

Anonymous said...

She has good taste, it's a shame there aren't any pictures. I bet the inside is beautiful

Anonymous said...

Seems like a deal if the property inside is great. Given the year built and the Karma probably she is lucky to get out like gentrified Ms. Lady Sapperstein. I see a pattern forming of all these old lady exes jumping ship like rats on the Titanic. Things they are a changing.

Anonymous said...

Mama,
I'm pretty sure Massachusettsians should be replaced with the more fitting Massholes in this case.
Lady J

MaryBeth said...

Does anyone have pictures of this kitchen that was moved across the country?

Anonymous said...

Heard a story about when The McCourt's bought the house. Babyface and his wife left the place in a shambles after the listing agent promised they'd be out at close of escrow. That and some hustle about a multiple offer from a buyer that flaked out. Turns out it's the same listing agent again. Interesting.

Anonymous said...

Actually, the 1930s claim may be dubious.
Old listing photos suggest this baby had her guts ripped out and stucco'd back together again, vinyl windows and beige travertine included.

Anonymous said...

Mama, you absolutely have to comment on this pile of rocks!!!
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/05/22/pkg-ky-castle-for-sale-30-million.wave.html

Feed the children!!!

California Mortgage Broker said...

oy, can you imagine the assets you'd need in order to get a mortgage for that house?

Anonymous said...

@6:03, I assure you they were out by close of escrow. If the deal closes you no longer own it....period. And a deal this size, I'm sure they were out. However it can be very difficult to ensure that a home is left in pristine condition between the entering of escrow and closing of deal. Have heard many a story of people entering homes after closing and finding that it was left in shambles with trash and shit left inside or out. Rich people can be scummy just like the rest and so it wouldn't surprise me if the place was indeed in shambles when they closed the deal. However picking the same real estate agent seems to be a good move given the price she got. Realtors don't have all that much control over a sellers actions, and often in this price range the realtor that sold you the house is the most well connected to sell it again.

@7:47, haha you simply can't/ don't get a "mortgage" for this type of house. You can certainly get a line of credit, which will have higher interest rates, generally won't allow you access to all the money at one time, and may be able to be recalled as soon as the assets depreciate in value at all.

Anonymous said...

All the money and properties in the world will not transform these crude and aggressive folks into something mildly acceptable.