LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $8,995,000
SIZE: 3,159 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A late night missive from The Rolling Stone let Your Mama know that Oscar-nominated screenwriter, director, producer and occasional actor Todd Phillips has his hideaway house on Malibu's La Costa beach on the open market with a freshly reduced $8,995,000 asking price.* Property records show Mister Phillips bought his beach house in February 2010 from high-flying movie producer—and newly minted billionaire—Ryan Kavanaugh for exactly $9,000,000.
Mister Phillips earned his Oscar nod as screenwriter for the polemical and over-cumbersomely titled 2007 spoof Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan but the NYU film school drop out's real rocket to Tinseltown fame and fortune as the writer, directer and producer of the freakishly popular and preposterously profitable Hangover franchise; The three bro-mancy movies have hauled in an astonishing 1.4 billion bucks in gross worldwide box office receipts. (If any of the children had any question how this Todd Phillips person, who you might never have heard of before qualifies for our saucy celebrity real estate online endeavor and/or how this fella can afford a nine million dollar house at the beach, well, now you know.)
Current listing information shows the 1938 Spanish-ish style residence has three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms—plus four fireplaces and garage parking for two cars—in 3,159 square feet of newly remodeled and updated interior space with state-of-the-art electronic and lighting systems. A locked and gated entry opens to a supermodel slender courtyard—a corridor really—that leads to the wrought iron and glass front door.
There are textured stone tiles the color of wet sand throughout the main floor open plan living/dining space that spans the full width of the lower level and spills out through three sets of French doors to a bench-lined beach front deck. The re-done kitchen has dark chocolate Shaker style cabinetry, some sort of solid surface counter top—no doubt of costly quality, a white tile backsplash behind the range that (unfortunately) makes use of three differently sized and shaped tiles, and a full suite of commercial-style appliances.
A cozy, second floor den/media lounge has hardwood floors, a fireplace over-mounted by a flat-screen television, a built-in media equipment niche, and a pitched and beamed ceiling pierced by numerous sky lights that fill the room with natural light.
A short enfilade of archways links the media lounge/den to the master suite. Like the living/dining room directly below it, the master bedroom stretches the full width of the house and easily accommodates a television-centric sitting area. There are more wood floors, more sky lights in the pitched and beamed ceiling, and an entire wall of wood-framed doors that slide open to a private, wrought iron railed terrace. The attached master bathroom is an all-white affair with over-sized walk-in steam shower and louvered panels behind the separate soaking tub that, when open, facilitate an ocean view for teeth brushers and tub loungers.
Avid celebrity real estate watchers will recall that not-divorcing rock-n-roll royals Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne used to have a house on La Costa that they unloaded after a long slog in April 2012 for $7,925,000. Sitcom actor (and ladies man) David Space sold his beach house that's just a few doors down from Mister Phillip's seaside shack this last June (2013) for $10,225,000 and a few doors down in the other direction is the itty-bitty but smartly dressed 1930s cottage that Charlize Theron sold it in May 2011 for $6,562,500 to Glee creator Ryan Murphy who quickly flipped it (at a bit of a loss) in October 2012 for $6.5 million to text prep tycoon Robert Feinberg who, as it turns out, shoveled the property back on the market in early August (2013) with a higher price tag of $7,950,000.
It doesn't take a genius (or a snarky property gossip) to figure out that even though the current asking price is only five grand less than his $9 million purchase price Mister Phillips none-the-less faces a substantial punishment to his pocketbook when upkeep, improvements, carrying costs and real estate fees are subtracted from the final sale price. As it turns out, this isn't the first ocean front house in Malibu owned by Mister Phillips and it's not, funnily enough, the first one he's likely to take a hit on. In September 2005 the money-minting Showbiz superstar shelled out $3,950,000 for an approximately 1,800 square foot contemporary on a rocky stretch of Las Tunas State Beach that he sold at a $700,000 loss (not counting upkeep, improvements, carrying costs and real estate fees ) in July 2010 for $3,250,000.
Property records also suggest Mister Phillips continues to own a fairly modest (if hardly inexpensive) house on a little-trafficked street right on the border between West Hollywood and Beverly Hills that he scooped up way back in March 2002 for $1,935,000 even though last year, as we had forgotten but once floated a blind item about, last year Mister Phillips traded up to a double-lot estate in the flats of Beverly Hills for which he paid a very A-list $17,250,000. Last August (2012), property records indicate the Hollywood mover and shaker coughed up almost $4.3 million for a three bedroom and 2.5 bathroom mid-floor condo at the celebrified Robert A.M. Stern-designed Superior Ink building in New York City's far West Village.
*Mister Phillips first put his La Costa beach front house on the market in early September for $9.4 million and lowered the price by $405,000 just a few weeks later.
listing photos: Westside Estate Agency
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