Ellen DeGeneres Sells Beverly Hills Villa
By Mark David
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Almost as well known for their perpetually-in-flux portfolio of fearsomely pricey homes as their many showbiz accomplishments, Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi have sold a soignée Hollywood Regency villa in the expensively trendy Trousdale Estates area of Beverly Hills for $15.5 million, a huge amount by any standard but considerably less than the almost $18 million they originally asked. Considering the comprehensive updates and real estate fees that easily ticked up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, it seems unlikely the property-mad pair turned much, if any, profit on the eye-catching residence, which they scooped up almost exactly a year ago for $15 million .
The characteristically theatrical work of iconoclast architect John Elgin Woolf , the sophisticated single-story villa, built in the early 1960s and once home to late actress Marjorie Lord, sprawls over about 5,100 square feet, mixing classic old Hollywood elegance with new-fangled creature comforts. There are five bedrooms, one of them outfitted as a gym, and 4.5 bathrooms, including a master bath that features boldly veined navy-blue and white marble throughout. The graciously proportioned, deceptively casual combination living and dining room is done up with a rarefied and costly collection of collectible vintage furniture and spills out to a huge, heated loggia with a glittering city-lights view over the swimming pool. The colossal, high-end kitchen is open to a cozy den.
DeGeneres and de Rossi were represented in the deal by Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency ; the buyers brought Hilton & Hyland ’s Stephen Resnick .
Two of Tinseltown’s most prolific high-end house flippers, DeGeneres and de Rossi have bought and sold a handful of trophy homes just this year. Early in 2019, they dropped $27 million for a sleek, Balinese-inspired estate in the mountains above Carpinteria , Calif., where, in July, they unloaded a beachfront compound that fetched $23 million — almost $4.5 million more than the $18.6 million they paid in October of 2017. And, in Los Angeles, the deep-pocketed couple paid Adam Levine $42.5 million in an off-market deal for an unapologetically aristocratic English Tudor mansion in that the Maroon 5 singer bought just over a year before from “Will & Grace” co-creator Max Mutchnick for a bit over $33.9 million.
