‘Black-ish’ Star Deon Cole Lands in Studio City
By Mark David
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Comedy writer, stand-up comedian and actor Deon Cole, best known for his stone-cold committed portrayal of an eccentric, hilariously paranoid advertising agency employee on “Black-ish” and a drone-obsessed college dean on its spin-off “Grown-ish,” has splashed out a bit more than $2.5 million for 1990s residence in the foothills above the ever-more celeb-packed San Fernando Valley community of Studio City. Mostly out of view from the street on a leafy, low-key cul-de-sac above Coldwater Canyon, the stone embellished residence — for lack of clear architectural style, let’s call it a glammed up transitional traditional — measures in at more than 5,800 sq. ft. over two floors with five bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, plus a roomy one-bedroom and one-bathroom guesthouse with complete kitchen and exterior entrance.
The brick accented driveway passes through brick pillars and an iron gate before it swoops down to a compact motor court and two-car attached garage. Unceremoniously tucked into a small porch, the front door opens to a foyer dominated by a curved staircase lined with a fanciful etched glass banister under glitzy chandelier in the shape of an upside-down wedding cake. A three-sided fireplace sticks out at an angle into the formal living room that spills out through French doors to the swimming pool. There’s a separate formal dining room and the kitchen is divided from a bay-windowed breakfast nook by a wide, granite-topped peninsula snack bar, while the adjoining family room has an eye-catching fireplace opulently sheathed in green-tinted mirrored panels. The main floor is completed by an ample, en suite guest bedroom along with a mirror-walled gym/yoga studio with French doors that lead to a secluded, fairly featureless concrete patio with an over-the-treetops, cross-valley mountain view.
A second family room on the upper level is surrounded by a couple of guest bedrooms that share a bathroom, while the sprawling master suite sports a second three-sided fireplace that juts out from the wall at a catty-wompus angle between the sleeping area and sitting room. Further appointments include two walk-in closets, one of them lined in cedar, and a dizzyingly mirrored bathroom enhanced by couple of small stained glass windows and kitted out with a jetted garden tub and an over-sized shower.
The property was listed with Alex Izbicki at RE/MAX Olson Estates and Cole was represented in the deal by Nicholas Donohoe of Keller Williams Realty Brentwood .
Previously a two-time ensemble Emmy-nominated comedy writer on “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” and, later, “Conan,” and currently a characteristically wacky spokesperson for Old Spice’s nutty new commercials , Cole has substantially up-sized in Studio City from his previous home in a slightly farther flung San Fernando Valley community: a roughly 3,800 sq. ft., single-story 1960s ranch-style spread in Woodland Hills, Calif., with four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a swimming pool and a sport court that he picked up about three years ago for slightly more than $1.2 million.
