BUYER: Kate Hudson (and Matt Bellamy)LOCATION: Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE: $5,300,000
SIZE: 7,014 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Several months ago Your Mama heard from a well-placed source we'll call Lucinda Liquidluncher who nonchalantly dropped the celebrity real estate nugget that currently preggers serial monogamist Kate Hudson and her whip-skinny British rock star baby daddy/fiancée Matt Bellamy–lead singer of Muse–were on the hunt for exceptionally expensive houses on the West Side of Los Angeles. We're talking serious mansions, my pretties, mansions in the $15-20,000,000 range. Real damn big-shitter stuff.
It was not long after that when rumors and reports ran up into our inbox that the romantically fickle Oscar-nominated actress and her Muse musician man-friend bought a four-million pound property in London and eyeballed a vintage Spanish mansion in the Los Feliz area, a world away from from their target area of the west side. We have no idea if Miss Hudson and Mister Bellamy bought a house in London or not but we do know that the soon-to-be parents' real estate trail quickly went all cotton mouth on Your Mama until yesterday when we happened upon documentation that indicates Miss Hudson splashed out $5,300,000 to purchase the 1935 Tudor Revival style pile immediately next door to her long-time residence in the insouciant but exceptionally posh and deceptively staid ocean side enclave of Pacific Palisades.
Despite her search in some of the other top-end zip codes on the west side it seems Miss Hudson couldn't escape the sentimental and familial tug of Pacific Palisades where she has not only lived in the same traditional style house since 2003 but also spent at least some of her childhood. Her magnificent mother Goldie Hawn and still-hunky step-daddy Kurt Russell are long-time residents of the quiet community and, in fact, according to The Movieland Directory, Miz Hawn and Mister Russell once owned the very house that Miss Hudson now (and again) calls home.
Miss Hudson did not, however, inherit or buy the house from her famous parents. They sold the house–we're not actually sure when–and eventually it came to be owned by screenwriter Barbara Gallagher who was also the long-time gal pal and baby momma of now-deceased (and gay) clothing designer Perry Ellis. Miss Hudson purchased the house from Miss Gallagher in December of 2003 for $5,400,000. When you're young, ridiculously rich and feeling nostalgic you can do things like that, spend more than five million bucks to buy your childhood home.
As for Miz Hawn and Mister Russell, at the latter end of the summer of 2004 they paid $4,124,591 for a 5,000-ish square foot house directly across the street from the 12,860 square foot pile they sold later in November of the same year for $12,000,000 to comedian Adam Sandler.
The property recently purchased by Miss Hudson–and presumably Mister Bellamy although we haven't any idea whatsoever of the details of what his financial involvement is or is not–was built in 1935 by an heir to a lumber fortune and was owned and expanded in the late 1980s and early 1990s by showbiz executive Brad Grey and his now ex-spouse Jill. Listing information shows the L-shaped house currently contains five bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms in 7,014 square feet.
A double-gated drive arches around to a small but prairie-like motor court dominated by a front-facing three-car garage. The front door is tucked into a corner of the dignified brick and stone that wraps round the main floor and supports a half-timbered second floor and that steeply pitched gabled roof. While the rear of the house maintains a correct sort of quirkiness, the front façade emits not just an air of architectural authenticity but also suffers from, regrettably, the posture of a semi-suburban mcmansion.
Inside the updated residence retains original features such as a generously proportioned formal living room with fireplace, an oak-paneled dining room and mahogany-paneled library with built-in book cases, fireplace and vaulted ceiling. The fully re-worked and commodious kitchen, re-did by the seller, has all the bells and whistles that ought to be expected in a five million dollar mansion including a Mercedes-sized center island, commercial-grade appliances, butler's pantry, breakfast area and lounge that opens through French doors to a terrace that overlooks the backyard. There's not really much in the kitchen that floats Your Mama's decorative boat; It's just not our style. But it's the ominous pot rack over the center island that really has us grabbing for the gin because it looks to Your Mama's paranoia like that thing has a sinister ache in its inanimate soul to drop a copper pot or two on to the soft skull of an unsuspecting minimum wage domestic worker.
Although not original to the house a voluminous space above the expanded garage now includes a family room with vaulted ceiling and built-in entertainment cabinet, a guest bedroom, not one but two bathrooms, a loft and workout room with mirrored walls and toxin-eradicating sauna.
A wide stone patio, part of which is covered by a pergola structure, runs the length of the back of the house, has a tree-top view over the surrounding neighborhood and steps down to a small flat patch of grass hardly big enough for a celebrity child-sized jungle gym. A white picket fence and a row of tightly-planted prickly white-rose bushes surrounds the swimming pool and raised spa. Little kiddies who like to play house will adore the people-sized play house that has a wee front yard of its own.
We don't know a microwave from a moron so Your Mama really can't say what Miss Hudson and Mister Bellamy's plans are for these two adjacent properties. Perhaps they'll leave the structures separate but marry them via the landscaping. Could be they'll convert one of the large residences to an guest/entertainment pavilion with sound-proofed recording facilities. Or maybe they're hire a really smart and expensive architect to figure out a way to combine the two large houses into one super-sized celebrity-style mansion. Or perhaps, just a thought not a prediction, they'll opt to tear one of the houses down to make way for expanded grounds that could easily accommodate a lighted tennis court, guest house, recording studio and/or staff quarters. Miss Hudson is well-known among the celebrity for her annual Halloween bash so the extra space could also be utilized for additional off-street party parking with enough space to spare for a party tent to be erected at will and as needed.
We shall see, puppies, we shall see. Maybe one day Miss Hudson will invite curious little ol' Your Mama to her next Halloween party and then we'll know just what she's done with the place. Just a suggestion.
listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty / Beverly Hills
