Ted Raimi Sheds Shabby Toluca Lake Compound (EXCLUSIVE)

By Mark David

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – A frumpy micro-compound along an unassuming but tree-shaded street on the northern border of Los Angeles’ affluent and celeb-favored Toluca Lake community has been sold by actor Ted Raimi for $967,000 — a bit below its $979,000 asking price. The “Xena: Warrior Princess” star, who popped up in his brother Sam Raimi’s blockbuster “Spider-Man” trilogy, acquired the four-structure property, which is ripe with upside, just over 10 years ago for $810,000.

The four buildings that comprise the less than quarter-acre compound include a slightly more than 1,400-square-foot, street-facing mid-century ranch-style cottage all but hidden in a jumble of untamed trees behind an archetypal white picket fence. The cottage has three bedrooms — one of them a windowless interior room painted blood red — and two small and serviceable if dingy bathrooms. Lustrous dark hardwoods and a brick-accented fireplace ground the living room, which is filled with light through a floor-to-ceiling bay window. An adjoining compact dining nook is divided from a dated, galley-style kitchen and adjacent laundry room by a raised, three-stool snack counter.

Three additional structures clustered around a swimming pool and interspersed among more than a dozen fruit trees of various varieties include: a studio-style office/guesthouse with bizarrely mismatched floor materials, a shabby bathroom and a kitchenette; a pint-sized game room with another woefully run-down bathroom; and a charmingly rustic entertainment pavilion wrapped in a ribbon of windows under a vaulted, exposed-wood ceiling with classic knotty-pine cabinetry and an immense stacked-stone fireplace.

listing photos: Redfin