Flea and Frankie Rayder List Los Feliz Traditional (EXCLUSIVE)
By Mark David
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Michael Balzary, better known as mononymic Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, listed a 1930s traditional in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, Calif., at $2.997 million. The gap-toothed six-time Grammy winner and occasional actor, who popped up on silver screen in the summer 2017 sleeper hit “ Baby Driver ,” and his international fashion model wife, Frankie Rayder, acquired the modest-by-rock-star-standards residence not quite four years ago for $2.47 million . The two-story residence, a not-unpleasantly boxy, semi-Colonial dipped in a strong tincture of Streamline Moderne that is shyly set but not entirely invisible behind a towering hedgerow and secured gates on a just over one-quarter of an acre corner parcel just south of the eastern flank of Griffith Park, contains four and potentially five bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms in 3,561-square-feet of art-filled interiors.
An unusually purple-painted door set into a shallow, paneled porch under a stately broken pediment opens to a central entrance hall and stair gallery that features original magnesite flooring and staircase. The foyer is flanked by ample formal living and dining rooms, the former with a fireplace and both with lustrously refinished hardwood floors, elegant moldings and extraordinary, 30-pane bowed bay windows that fill the rooms with natural light. Arranged around a center island with jet-black granite countertops on antique white cabinetry and designer-quality appliances, the kitchen opens over a short serving counter to a breakfast room that spills out through French doors to a sheltered dining terrace and built-in barbeque.
A partially paneled family room with tile-accented angled fireplace and an en suite guest bedroom or staff suite complete the main floor and upstairs two guest bedrooms that each have a private, vintage-tiled bathroom are joined by a master suite that encompasses an adjoining study/office or potential fifth bedroom plus a private terrace, walk-in closet and updated bathroom with marble-topped double-sink vanity, classic claw-footed soaking tub and separate, over-sized shower decked out with multiple shower heads and built-in bench.
The flagstone-paved dining terrace outside the kitchen and breakfast room steps down to a grassy yard surrounded by mature landscaping. Off to one side there’s a detached two-car garage and wide set of steps leads up to a lap-lane swimming pool and spa.
Balazary and Rayder, who continue to own a two-plus acre bluff-top compound along Malibu’s Encinal Bluffs they scooped up in 2006 for $9.98 million, are certainly no strangers to the property gossip columns. Prior to their coupling, Balzary once owned a secluded Hollywood Hills home later owned by Jake Gyllenhaal and in 2008 the couple paid $3.85 million for a Los Feliz estate they sold in 2010 for just under $6 million to comedian Jack Black. More recently, the Balzary-Rayders owned the so-called Van Griffith Estate, a gated Los Feliz compound that backs up to Griffith Park they picked up in July 2011 for $4.45 million and sold just over three years later for $6 million . As was sussed out by property snitch Yolanda Yakketyyak, the Van Griffith estate was recently hoovered up by property-mad mega-producer Megan Ellison for $7.75 million .
Listing photos: Compass
