Friday, July 22, 2011

Irving Azoff Lists Carbon Beach Contemporary


SELLER: Irving and Shelli Azoff
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $13,750,000
SIZE: 3,552 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen, babies, Your Mama has got things to do, places to go and people to meet today so we're going to try as we might to be uncharacteristically brisk in our discussion of a mostly brown and beige contemporary crib on Carbon Beach, the most expensive stretch of sand in all of Malibu (CA). The house, listed for more than three months now with an asking price of $13,750,000, is owned by music industry maharajah Irving Azoff and his wife Shelli.

Mister Azoff made his name as the personal manager of major musicians and made his many millions from the ten (or whatever) percent he shaved off the earnings of his long list of successful clients who include (or once included) Christina Aguilera, Journey, Jewel, Josh Groban, Guns N' Roses, Van Halen, and New Edition. Mister Azoff used his substantial music biz income to amass a substantial real estate portfolio.

In May 2004 Mister and Missus Azoff dropped a very a-list $8,309,500 for a well-located seaside residence on Carbon Beach, often called "Billionaire's Beach" due to the high number of billionaires who own homes along the beach. Records show the house was purchased from Beverly Hills property pasha and Tea Party supporter Emerson Glazer.

Listing information shows Mister and Missus Azoff's two-story house measures 3,552 square feet and includes four family bedrooms plus a staff room and a total of five bathrooms. Like many houses, that Azoff residence turns a cold and nearly windowless shoulder to busy-busy Pacific Coast Highway. Beyond the copper entry gate a courtyard planted with tropical foliage and outfitted with a fountain to muddle the near-constant traffic noise leads to the front door. The slate material in the outside courtyard runs right into the main living area of the house, an expansive space that stretches the full width of the house.

A wall of sliding doors do not, unfortunately, reach quite all the way from the floor to the ceiling, but do allow the various areas of the main living space to have wide access to the ocean view. The large but–despite the view–not very airy room is divided into utility quadrants that include a lounge area with fireplace and a pair of white roll-armed slip-covered sofas, a dining area, billiard corner and a semi-circular built-in wet bar that while ass-uglee still delights a booze hound like Your Mama

Just behind and open to the dining area through a breakfast counter pass through, a center island kitchen with chestnut-colored Shaker-style cabinetry, granite counter tops and commercial-grade stainless steel appliances that include a $15,000 Sub-Zero fridge-freezer with glass door.

Of the four family bedrooms only the over-sized master has an ocean view. The long room, built out like a luxury stateroom of an ocean liner, has wood floors, curvilinear built-in cabinetry and a sitting area with fireplace and sliding glass doors that open to an ocean side terrace. The bed sits atop a platform under a large skylight for bed time star gazing and the adjoining bathroom is bathed in white-veined black (or maybe it's green) marble. The shower and over-sized soaking tub, in a greenhouse-like space with direct ocean view, are separated from the rest of the facility by a giant circular glass-filled doorway with etched detailing that depicts seaweed or some other bottom of the sea sort of plant material. This was clearly the architect and/or designer's "big idea" for the pooper but–sorry Charlies–it's just so damned hokey, clunky and contrived that we are left clutching our pearls with breathless flabbergast.

Anyhoo, besides the entry courtyard and the terrace off the second floor master bedroom, outdoor space is limited to a deck with glass railing that runs the full width of the main floor. Like the use-divided living area inside the deck too is divvied up into useful zones that include a barbecue corner, lounging area, sunbathing space and a small sunken spa. A larger beach-side backyard would be lovely but, really, who needs a big private yard for the long-bodied bitches when you can just let them skedaddle around on the sand whenever they need to exercise or do their booty business? Booty business that always–and we mean each and every time–gets picked up. We don't understand all these rude people with canine pets who don't have the decency to slip a goddam plastic bag over their hand and scoop the poop. It's just basic citizenship, a good-neighbor no-brainer, and anyone who doesn't do it is a fucking asshole as far as Your Mama is concerned. But, we digress.

Mister and Missus Azoff's beach house sits just a few doors away from the pristine Carbon Beach compound of billionaire David Geffen who is by law forced to maintain a public access way from the PCH to the sand even though he and many other residents of exclusive seaside enclave would like to ban the non-resident riffraff from walking on and–even worse–sitting down in the sand in front of their multi-million dollar beach homes. Other Carbon Beach property owners who may or may not have an opinion about pubic access to the water include Jerry Bruckheimer, Terry Semel, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Larry Ellison, Peter Morton, Eli Broad, Haim Saban, and Paul Allen.

Frank and Jamie McCourt–the very publicly dueling divorcees who have waged a fierce and bitter battle with each other over ownership of and income from the Dodgers–paid $27,250,000 for Courtney Cox's John Lautner-designed masterpiece on Carbon Beach in 2007 and then proceeded baller-style to snatch up the wee house next door for a staggering $19,000,000. They needed, it seems, some place to stash over flow guests and to build a lap-lane swimming pool for the Missus who was discontent with the existing swimming pool at the Lautner house, more appropriately sized for plunging than exercising.

As it turns out, their Carbon Beach crib is not the only piece of real estate pie Mister and Missus Azoff own in Malibu. Property records show that since the late 1990s Mister Azoff has owned an a 12-plus acre spread just up the hill from the once tawdry now trendy (and shocking expensive) Paradise Cove trailer park.

A peep and poke around the property records reveal that in addition to their Malibu holdings, Mister and Missus Azoff own at least three residences in Beverly Hills including their primary pad, a 1.85 acre estate bought in late 1985 for $6,320,000. The 12,609 square foot multi-winged Tudor style pile was built in 1932 and the L.A. County Tax Man shows it contains 7 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms. It is also where, some of the children may recall, Mister and Missus Azoff hosted the 2009 nuptials of reality television regular Khloe Kardashian and professional basketball player Lamar Odom. The Azoffs also own, as per prop records, a smaller adjacent property probably used for guests, family, staff or offices.

A further search through the interweb reveals that Mister Azoff also owns large amounts of land and property in the Texas towns of Linden and Karnak, at least one house near celebrity-stocked Aspen, CO including a six-acre spread in Snowmass, and a colossal newly constructed mansion behind the gates of the uppity Madison Club in the Coachella Valley desert community of La Quinta, CA. The 1,52 acre golf-course fronting estate includes a multi-armed mansion that according to the Riverside County Tax Man encompasses 17,384 square feet of living space with 11 terlits and garage parking for up to six luxury cars.

listing photos: Westside Estate Agency