SELLERS: Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi-DegeneresLOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: Rumored to be $49,000,000 and $60,000,000
SIZE: Big
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Way back in mid-February 2011 Your Mama relayed the brewing real estate rumor that comedienne and chat show tycoon Ellen Degeneres and her equestrian-minded wife Portia de Rossi-Degeneres wanted to unload the Beverly Hills, CA compound they spent years and many tens of millions putting together and customizing. In the summer of 2008 the a-list scissor sisters hitched their lesbian wagons in a small but perfectly orchestrated ceremony in the backyard of this here house.
By the end of April 2011, the whispers and rumors of Miz Degeneres's desire to unload her large estate in Bev Hills became deafening and just now, at the end of May, the property was semi-officially put on the open market. A listing does not (as of today) appear in the MLS or an any of the other real estate listing aggregators like Redfin and Trulia but one did pop up on the website of listing agent Kurt Rappaport of the illustrious Westside Estate Agency. That listing shows the price for Miz D's digs as "available upon request."
Several sources have shimmied (alleged) asking prices our way over the last few months but one particularly well-placed informant snitched and swears to Your Mama that the asking price(s) being bandied about Beverly Hills are $49,000,000 for the the main house–plus separate guest and staff quarters and extensive grounds–and $60,000,000 for the entire kit and caboodle that includes the main house–plus separate guest and staff quarters and extensive grounds–and the two additional houses on adjacent parcels that Miz Degeneres and Missus de Rossi-Degeneres also purchased to further secure and preserve their privacy.
The center piece of the compound, which she bought in early 2007 from Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick for $29,000,000, includes an approximately 9,000 square foot main house with extensive outdoor living areas plus a detached guest house. Your Mama understands from several little birdies who have visited the property for one reason or another that the main house includes a kick-ass master suite with extensive dressing area and two more guest/family bedrooms each with en suite facility and each with private nudity-encouraging sunbathing terrace.
The detached guest house has two en suite bedrooms plus living/dining and kitchen. Additional space under the swimming pool–yes, children, under the swimming pool–includes high-tech fitness/body torture chamber, a well-appointed one-bedroom staff suite and underground garage space for 8 or 10 of Miz Degeneres's many Porsches, as opposed to her lone Portia who, we imagine, parks in the house and not the garage. Access to the areas under the swimming pool are by way of an all but hidden staircase behind the all-wood pool cabana.
The following January (2008), the privacy-seeking pair paid Beverly Hills real estate über-agent Jade Mills $8,500,000 for an undistinguished house just across a cramped and shared driveway. Miz Mills owned buy did not occupy the premises. Soon after closing on Miz Mill's rental residence, Miz Degeneres got behind the wheel of a bulldozer herself and knocked the damn house down to make way for expanded grounds now done up like an honest-to-goodness private park with meandering pond and soothing canyon views.
In June of 2008 the property mad pair paid another $5,000,000 to purchase a third contiguous property, this one with a down-at-the-heels 1 bedroom and 3 bathroom house with canyon views. One month later they splashed out another $5,500,000 to acquire yet another adjacent property, this one a 4 bedroom and 4 bathroom house perched on a hillside at the back of the house. Apparently, we've been told, the residents had some sort of visual access to the property that irked Miz Degeneres and Missus de Rossi-Degeneres to the tune of five and a half million George Washingtons.
If Your Mama works the beads on our bejeweled abacus and add up all the many above-mentioned purchase prices we conclude that Miz Degeneres and her wife spent $48,000,000 (or thereabouts) to create their own private Idaho in the heart of Beverly Hills only to decide a few years later that they no longer want to live there. How y'all like them apples? Such, as we well know, are the fickle real estate ways of rich and famous folks.
The recent sale of high society matron Iris Cantor's La Belle Vie in Bel Air for forty million–in cash–and the rumored $35,000,000+ allegedly-soon-to-be-sale of Jennifer Aniston's Ohana–her contemporary mansion in Beverly Hills listed at $42,000,0000–surely have Miz Degeneres and Missus de Rossi-Degeneres salivating with real estate hope and desire. But, let's be honest, mon freres. The forty million clams Miz Cantor hoovered up is a long way from the 49 and 60 million Miz Degeneres is widely whispered to want for her super-luxe and carefully-crafted estate.
Although plagued by a famous and incurable case of The Real Estate Fickle, it must also soothe Miz Degeneres's nervous pocketbook to recognize that she has a fairly good and profitable track record of buying and selling high-priced and high-maintenance houses. She bought and sold several ranches in the Santa Ynez Valley at tidy profits and in early 2006 she paid $15,750,000 for an historic house in Montecito, CA that she turned around and sold in November 2007 to Google CEO Eric Schmidt for $20,000,000.
Anyone care to wager their real estate reputation on what amount the property might actually sell? Your Mama will attempt no such folly, but those of the children who might should know that according the Bev Hills real estate insiders the property has attracted a fair amount of attention amongst the sort of folks who can afford and might be willing to cough up considerable cookies for a substantial estate in one of the better zip codes in Los Angeles.
In addition to their maxi-posh but no-longer-wanted compound in Beverly Hills Miz Degeneres and Missus de Rossi-Degeneres also own a small apartment in Beverly Hills–acquired in late 2010 for $835,000, presumably for staff or family–and an extensive equestrian complex in the scenic boondocks outside Westlake Village, CA they snatched up in late 2009 for about ten million buckaroonies.
listing photos: Westside Estate Agency
