Joseph Gordon-Levitt Buys Vintage in Los Feliz
BUYER: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
LOCATION: Los Angeles, Calif,
PRICE: $3.25 million
SIZE: 3,771 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: We’ve now heard word from two celebrity real estate snitches — first from newcomer Paul Mawl and then from the inestimable Yolanda Yakketyyak — that child actor-turned-television and movie star Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“3rd Rock from the Sun,” “(500) Days of Summer,” “Inception”) has done snagged himself some new digs in L.A.’s Franklin Hills ‘hood, between the celeb-attracting Los Feliz and hipster harboring Silver Lake areas. Mister Gordon-Levitt, 34 years old and already a showbiz veteran of nearly 30 years, appears to have faced some hardcore competition for the dated but architecturally dignified residence in question that online resources show was officially listed in mid-January (2015) at $2.995 million and sold, per property records, three lickety-split weeks later for $3.25 million.
Online marketing materials show the single-story, Paul Revere Williams-designed classic California ranch-meets-Hollywood Regency-style residence — 3,771 square feet on a mostly flat street-to-street lot of 0.4 acre — was originally built in 1940 and retains many original and/or vintage features including a well-maintained quartet of time capsule bathrooms, one with a flesh-pink pedestal sink and another a bathtub that appears to be the exact shade of lemon chiffon as the tile work that surrounds.
The wide, low-profile abode sits high and privately above the street, up a lovely if glutially arduous flagstone stairway that makes a 17-plus step ascent to an inset porch with shuttered, pedimented, pilastered and side-lit front door. The probably original, honey-toned hardwood floors in the slender center hall entry that cuts clear through to the back of the house continue into the ample formal living with fireplace, bay window and over-the-shrubbery city views. An unexpectedly commodious family room, on the other hand, has more rustic peg-and-groove hardwood flooring of varying widths along with a generously vaulted and exposed beam ceiling and shutter-flanked casement windows with more over-the-shrubbery city views. A deliciously bowed walk-in bar next to the slate-hearthed red brick staircase is enough to make a boozehound like Your Mama salivate with envy.
Digital marketing details call out a formal dining room and a “retreat room,” whatever that is, along with a stupendously outdated but stylistically spot-on, pine-paneled kitchen with scallop-edged pine cabinetry and an adjoining, pine-wainscoted breakfast room. The extensive service wing additionally encompasses a sewing room, bathroom and roomy, pine-lined laundry room with utility sink and, at least at the time of its sale, classic, Harvest Gold-hued washer, dryer and stand-up freezer set into — you got it butter beans! — more pine cabinetry.
The sleeping wing comprises a master suite with compartmentalized bathroom and two guest/family bedrooms, both of which have en suite access and at least one of which has original, built-in clothing storage wardrobes and dresser.
The back of the essentially U-shaped residence opens to a sun-dappled red brick terrace and chain-link girdled swimming pool ringed with a thin strip of flagstone terracing. There does not appear to be a spa, but there is, this property gossip is pleased to report, an open-air cabana with conveniently attached changing room and bathroom.
Our research shows Mister Gordon-Levitt still owns a similarly sized but stylistically very different multistory residence set behind gates and perched high above the street in the hills Silver Lake that he picked up in October 2008 for $1,137,500.
Listing photos: Coldwell Banker
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