Candis Cayne Lists English Tudor in Glendale Foothills

By Mark David

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Groundbreaking actress and entertainer Candis Cayne has her home in the bohemian, up-and-coming Adams Hill neighborhood in the southeastern foothills of Glendale, Calif., up for sale at $1.285 million.

Cayne, a legendary drag performer before she blazed showbiz trails as the first transgender actress to portray a recurring transgender character on primetime TV in ABC’s “Dirty Sexy Money” and who more recently popped up on “Elementary” and portrayed the Fairy Queen on the third season of the fantasy drama series “The Magicians,” hopes to just about double her money on the property that last traded in late 2012 for $650,000. Perched remarkably high on a precipitous slope, it’s a long, thigh-burning and fanny-toning three flights up from the street level two-car garage to the front door of the imposing and ever-so-slightly spooky 1920s English Tudor Revival cottage that contains three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms plus a self-contained one-bedroom and one-bathroom guesthouse, all in 2,627 square-feet.

A postage stamp-sized porch and a proper if puny foyer leads to a voluminous living room under a steeply pitched and vaulted ceiling with a towering arched casement window that frames a northeasterly, cross-canyon view over Glendale. A glitzy, gold-painted fireplace is emblazoned with a regal crest and on the back wall behind the sofa hangs a risqué portrait drawing of the home’s bombshell resident.

Dark-stained oak floorboards continue from the living room into the adjoining dining room that features original diamond paned casement windows and an eclectic mélange of modern and antique furnishings that include a fully mirrored and gilt-trimmed dining table. A sunny, cozily proportioned breakfast nook has French doors to an arched loggia and mismatched archways in the dining room and breakfast nook lead into the kitchen, an extra-wide galley-style arrangement that was stylishly redone by San Francisco-based gamble + design’s Jeni Gamble, a life-long friend of Cayne. Custom cabinets are painted a watery shade of washed denim, counter tops are marble and the Moroccan-inspired herringbone pattern black and white tile back splashes extend decadently all the way to the ceiling. The main floor also offers a powder room and a small office/den lined with simple plank wood shelving.

An enormous stained glass window sends colored shards of light through the switchback stairway that winds up the top floor where a pair of modest guest bedrooms share a hall bathroom sheathed in dated, burgundy ceramic tiles and the master bedroom offers an open view through a picture window along with a walk-in closet, a small attached bathroom that could use a cosmetic overhaul and a second arched loggia that provides a panoramic, over the telephone wires vista.

Discreetly tucked under the main house with both interior and exterior entrances, the attached one-bedroom and one-bathroom guesthouse is unexpectedly spacious and completely independent with a parquet-floored living room anchored by a massive fireplace, a full kitchen with adjoining dining nook, a uniquely bi-level bedroom and a bathroom with claw-footed bathtub and, like the bathrooms in the main house, decoratively dated tile work.

Reminiscent of an elegant, Haussmann-era Parisian apartment, salvaged steel-trimmed French doors in the kitchen lead out to a verdantly planted backyard that includes flagstone terrace bordered by rock walls, a chunky outdoor fireplace, and a dining patio under a romantic canopy of vines that cling to a steel framework. A stone stairway climbs up to the rear of the up-sloped property that privacy loving potential buyers will take note backs up to a dead quiet cemetery.

Brad Lawrence at Sotheby’s International Realty holds the listing and images are courtesy of Rancho Photos.