Gwen Stefani Sells Beverly Hills Estate at Steep Discount
By Mark David
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – After nearly two years on and off the market at increasingly lower prices, pop star Gwen Stefani has finally sold her boldly decorated Beverly Hills mansion for $21.65 million. The recorded sale price is a huge amount by any standard, but it’s also a notable amount below the final asking price of not quite $25 million and a small fortune below the original, pie-in-the-sky asking price of $35 million .
The three-time Grammy winner, since 2014 an off-and-on coach on “The Voice,” and her now ex-husband, British musician and avid tennis player Gavin Rossdale, purchased the mountaintop estate over the summer of 2006 for $13.25 million from hospitality entrepreneur Sam Nazarian who bought the property not quite two years earlier for close to $11 million from showbiz supernova Jennifer Lopez who had, in turn, acquired it in early 2000 for a thimbleful under $4.3 million. Stefani retained ownership and residency after she and Rossdale divorced in 2016.
Inside the guarded gates of the Summit enclave that runs along a slender ridge high in the mountains between and Studio City, the two-acre estate is hidden down a separately gated, 250-foot-long driveway with a total of seven bedrooms and 10 bathrooms in more than 15,000 square feet between the sprawling main house and detached fitness pavilion and guesthouse.
Eclectic, funky and decorated by maximalist decorator Kelly Wearstler with a quarry’s worth of marble, a jaw-dropping array of cheerfully bright colors and a kaleidoscopic plethora of black and white graphic patterns, the main residence offers formal living and dining rooms filled with pedigreed vintage furnishings and divided by a back-to-back fireplace sheathed in carefully book-matched black marble. There are a couple of additional, somewhat less “formal” but still wildly dressed sitting rooms, one with another book-matched black marble fireplace and the other with open views over the swimming pool through vast picture window. Filled with natural light though a gigantic skylight, the eat-in kitchen is an eye-popping, mausoleum-like temple of food preparation finished with a white marble floor, black marble countertops and walls lined in slim, black-and-white horizontal stripes. Elsewhere in the house there is a professional quality screening room and both executive and domestic offices. Each of the guest and family bedrooms has a private, elaborately tiled bathroom, while the master suite has two lavish bathrooms and bespoke dressing rooms worthy of an idiosyncratically fashionable international style icon.
A detached pavilion next to the lighted tennis court houses a fully equipped gym as well as a glass-walled guest suite with unobstructed views across the eastern end of the San Fernando Valley, while outdoor creature comforts include a vast terrace with fireplace and outdoor kitchen and an infinity-edged swimming pool with inset spa and separate, shallow kiddie pool. Beyond the pool, a wide stretch of lawn gives way to canyon, mountain and city lights view that includes a snaking bit of famed Mulholland Drive.
The listing was jointly held by Jade Mills at Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage and Craig Knizek at The Agency and the as-yet unidentified buyer was repped by Jonathan Nash and Stephen Resnick , both from Hilton & Hyland .
Stefani has long owned two other, far more modest homes in Los Angeles, one in West Hollywood and another in a sought after Hancock Park adjacent neighborhood, while her longtime boyfriend, Platinum selling country music singer Blake Shelton, also a coach on “The Voice,” owns “Ten Point Ranch,” a vast and fairly remote ranch about half way between Dallas and Oklahoma City as well as a Hawaiian-themed getaway near Kingston, Okla., on the shore of Lake Texoma. Since late last year the celebrity real estate rumor mill has been abuzz the “Hollaback Girl” singer and the “Some Beach” singer have been house hunting in some of the San Fernando Valley’s more expensive neighborhoods and last month there were unconfirmed reports the unmarried pair bought a house “in the area.”
