Aaron Paul Breaking Away From Sunset Strip Villa
By Mark David
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – After a handful of months off the market, three-time Emmy-winning “Breaking Bad” star Aaron Paul has hoisted his former home just above L.A.’s perennially trendy Sunset Strip back up for sale with a new team of real estate agents — Trevor Edmond , F. Ron Smith and David Berg of the Smith & Berg Partners team at Compass — and a reduced asking price that now stands at just under $2.2 million.
Well below the not-quite $2.5 million sought when it first and briefly popped up for sale more than seven months ago and just a sliver less than the last ask of $2.25 million, the lower price is still well above the almost $1.4 million the “Big Love” alum paid for the hillside villa in the spring of 2012. Occupied in his early stardom by Brad Pitt and privately perched high on a steep slope above a street-level two-car garage, the updated 1930s residence has three and potentially four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in close to 2,900 square feet over three floors with sweeping views across the city.
A secured entry gate alongside the garage opens to a zigzagged exterior staircase that makes thigh-straining, multi-story climb to an antique, carved wood front door that swings opens to a center hall foyer with dark-stained wood beams across the ceiling and the original, stone staircase. Just to the right lies a spacious living room with more wood beams across the ceiling, along with a baronial stone fireplace, and a separate dining room features a vaulted ceiling and wood-trimmed casement windows that frame a panoramic view of the downtown skyline over the iconic Chateau Marmont Hotel. Under a groin-vaulted ceiling, the kitchen is fitted with designer appliances and the lower level offers a roomy den with media lounge, bar area and bathroom.
An al fresco dining space is discreetly tucked beneath the house, while a terra-cotta-tiled roof terrace provides mesmerizing sunset views and access to a stairway that ascends to a secluded lounge where a cushioned banquette wraps around a poured-concrete fire pit.
Paul, a 2019 Emmy nominee for his voice work on the animated Netflix dark comedy “BoJack Horseman” and the headliner of this year’s well-received feature-length “Breaking Bad” sequel, “El Camino,” also on Netflix, and his wife, anti-bullying activist Lauren Parsekian , substantially upgraded their living situation earlier this year when they paid “Big Bang Theory” superstar Jim Parsons $6.95 million for an historic, celeb pedigreed home on a star-lined street in the historic, Hollywood-favored Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. Besides Paul and Parsons, previous owners of the private and gated 1920s Spanish Colonial include Tim Curry, Noah Wylie, Robert Pattinson and Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson. Some of the other showbizzy homeowners on the curvy street include “Modern Family’s” Jesse Tyler Ferguson — his home was previously owned by Gwen Stefani and, briefly, sitcom creator/producer Mark Brazill — and sitcom veteran Kirstie Alley , who has her opulent Italianate manse on the market at almost $9.8 million after first setting it out for sale earlier this year with the in-hindsight unrealistic price tag of nearly $12 million.
