Zooey Deschanel Sells Her Old House in Manhattan Beach
By Mark David
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – After more than a year on the market and a series of declining prices that started out at an in-hindsight too rosy $5.25 million, “New Girl” star Zooey Deschanel and indie film producer Jacob Pechenik have sold their old house, a family-sized Cape Cod inspired residence in affluent Manhattan Beach, Calif., for $4.7 million. Unfortunately for the Hollywood scion, musician and internet entrepreneur — her father is six-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, she’s one half of the quirky duo She & Him and she co-founded the women-oriented lifestyle website HelloGiggles, which was sold in 2015 for roughly $30 million to Time Inc. —once improvement expenses and real estate fees are factored in she and Pechenik likely took a loss on the property they picked up about 4.5 years ago for not quite $4.57 million .
A charcoal-colored flagstone path passes through a gated and secured courtyard to the front door of the handsomely unassuming residence that measures in at more than 5,300 sq. ft. with six bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms. Inside, formal living and dining rooms flank the central entrance hall and the marble-countered gourmet kitchen is open over large island to a window-lined breakfast room and a family room with fireplace. One of the guest bedrooms, with private bathroom, is discretely located off the living room and there are four more en suite guest bedrooms upstairs, one with a small balcony and each with a small, luxuriously updated bathroom. Sequestered privately in a wing of its own, the master suite comprises a spacious bedroom with fireplace and vaulted ceiling, a private balcony, a fitted walk-in closet and a luxury bathroom fitted with a two-person soaking tub and separate, glass-enclosed shower. Both the living room and family room have glass sliders to the backyard where a stone-paved loggia fitted with ceiling-mounted outdoor heaters that take the damp edge off cool coastal evenings overlooks a patch of grass bordered by clipped plantings and verdant trees that shield the neighboring homes.
The listing was held by Tad Thormodsgaard of Palm Realty Boutique and the buyer was repped by Kathleen Cartier at Compass .
Deschanel, who previously owned a secluded cottage in the Hollywood Hills she bought in 2009 for $1.65 million from Mark Ruffalo and sold in 2015 for $2.33 million to Arctic Monkeys’ Matt Helders, doesn’t appear to have packed up and moved very far. In early in 2018 she and Pechenik quietly shelled out nearly $5.6 million for another family-sized Cape Cod-inspired home in another Manhattan Beach neighborhood that’s substantially closer the beach.
