SELLERS: Phil and Robin McGrawLOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $6,250,000
SIZE: 6,980 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Way back in April 2008 Your Mama heard from several sources inside the Platinum Triangle real estate game that blustery and thickly mustachioed tee-vee talking head Phil McGraw and his wife Robin quietly put their Beverly Hills, CA mansion on the market as a pocket listing. More than two years later–in July 2010–the 11,036 square foot mock-Med manse located on uppity Lexington Road was officially listed on the open market with an asking price of $16,500,000.
The same month they put their 8 bedroom and 7 bathroom Lexington Road residence on the market they coughed up a staggering $29,816,500 for a bigger and better mock Med-manse with 16,079 square feet, 5 bedrooms and 9 full and 2 half bathrooms situation on a gated promontory high above Beverly Hills. It seems to Your Mama almost like cruel and unusual punishment that a publicity hungry man whose sometimes controversial and bully-like psychological style that can be summed by his frequent mantra to "get real" can afford a thirty million dollar mansion in Beverly Hills but, like it or not, such are the far from fair ways of showbiz and capitalism, puppies.
Anyhoo, the Mister and Missus finally sold their florid Lexington Road pile in April 2011 for $12,000,000 to, according to property records, a manufacturer of undergarments. That's far less than the $16.5 million they'd pined and prayed for but still substantially more than the $7,500,000 they paid for the place in December 2002.
In between their shuffling of primary residences, Mister and Missus McGraw made several other real estate purchases including a pair of homes above the Sunset Strip for their two adult sons. One of the McGraw boys–Jay–recently moved with his former nude-model wife to an 11,127 square foot mansion in a double-gated enclave in Calabasas, CA called The Oaks. The Calabasas crib was bought in early 2011 for $6,575,000 according to property records.
Perhaps the most perplexing of Mister and Missus McGraws real estate acquisitions in and around Tinseltown was the January 2007 purchase of a somewhat recently remodeled contempo-mock-Med mansion in an expensive but lackluster area of the Beverly Hills Post Office. Although we scoured the internets looking for a sale price, our few minutes in the trenches didn't turn up a number. However, we do know that just this week the McGraws put the privately situated but architecturally specious abode on the market with an asking price of $6,250,000.
To be honest puppina-weenuhs, Your Mama really hasn't any idea whether Mister and Missus McGraw themselves lived in this house themselves or whether it was occupied by their son Jay and his wife Erica–the ones that recently bought a house in Calabasas. What we do know is that title records and deed documents show the names of the elder Mister and Missus McGraw.
Listing information shows the house sits up a long gated drive, well away from the street on a mostly flat .45 acre lot tucked into a steep hillside. The 6,980 square foot mock-Med mansion–the McGraws do love their mock-Meds don't they?–includes 5 bedrooms and 5 full and 2 half bathrooms that include a master "retreat" with and stone and tile pooper and separate his and her closets.
Listing photos don't show the interior spaces but if we know the McGraws–and we do not actually know the McGraws–the Missus had the interiors of this house done done duh-un in a similar style as their lavish Lexington Road residence that we described in a previous discussion as "an over-stuffed frenzy of faux-Tuscan extravagance mixed with glittery nouveau riche excess." Just our opinion, puppies. Listing information does tell us that the interiors include a double-height entry with "sweeping stairwell," formal living room that opens to the back yard, formal dining room, "chefs kitchen" that opens into a "theater style" family room, home office, sun room, den and a temperature controlled wine storage facility.
The exterior spaces are, however, well represented in listing images and include a motor court with detached front-facing three-car garage and petite but exuberantly landscaped front yard fountain and pathways lined with orange flowers. Out back stone terracing surrounds a free-form swimming pool and raised spa with hand-laid mosaic tile detailing. There's also an outdoor fireplace (there are three more fireplaces inside the house) with small seating area, a built-in grill station with long curving snack counter and a tented cabana with stacked stone walls, heat lamps and privacy curtains perfect for pulling closed for when the Mister and Missus of the house want to get down and dirty outdoor but don't want to be peeped (or photographed) by their domestic staff.
listing photos: Hilton & Hyland
