Paula Patton Trades Sunset Strip For Monte Nido
BUYER: Paula Patton LOCATION: Calabasas (Monte Nido), CA PRICE: $2,050,000 SIZE: 4,078 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: An architecturally specious structure high above the Sunset Strip in the celeb-favored Bird Streets nabe, the long-time L.A. residence of showbizzers Paula Patton andRobin Thicke, popped up on the open market in July (2014) with a $2.985 million price tag. This wasn’t much of a surprise to property gossips and celebrity watchers since the comely couple of more than two decades had publicly split several months earlier amid allegations of infidelity and Mister Thicke’s admitted revelations of drug and liquor abuse, not to mention his rather — uhm —icky twerking incident with Miley Cyrus on national television. (Remember that career changing pop culture high water mark?)
Anyhoodles, the couple’s dated and — let’s be honest, butter beans — poorly decorated but desirably located Bird Streets residence was quickly de-listed about three weeks later. We can’t say whether Mister Thicke opted to remain in residence because we really don’t know but this property gossip has twice heard — first from veteran real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak and then from celebrity real estate savant Lucy Spillerguts — that soon-to-be ex-Missus Thicke decamped the estranged couple’s Bird Streets aerie for the semi-remote Monte Nido community that’s tucked scenically in the Santa Monica Mountains between Malibu and Calabasas where she quietly, via trust, plunked down $2,050,000 for a spacious, 1960s split-level ranch contemporary residence on a largely wooded acre.
Your Mama’s research on the internets shows the secluded property last sold in March 2010 for $1.745 million (to a non-famous person) and was first put up for sale in February 2014 with an asking price of $2.39 million. Digital marketing materials peg the rustic-modern house at 4,078 square feet with five bedrooms and four full bathrooms.
A rock-lined circular drive passes beneath ancient and carefully laced oak trees as it arches up to the front of the house. Gothic-style double front doors open to a spacious and, arguably, nearly capacious bi-level main living space with Mexican paver tile floors, rugged stone accents, generous expanses of glass and a voluminous, steeply peaked exposed wood ceiling.
A chunky, stone wall that’s taller than a (dreaded) pony wall but stops short of the elevated ceiling divides the entry area from a comfortably commodious dining room that overlooks the front yard through the one of the abode’s many glass sliders that facilitate easy-breezy and quintessentially Californian indoor-outdoor living. At the center of the lofty main space there’s a kitchen that appears fairly recently renovated with black, Shaker-style cabinets topped by much lighter speckled granite counter tops, a good-sized center island with four-stool snack counter clad in reclaimed wood slats and a customary suite of stainless steel appliances.
The living room is open to but half a dozen open-tread and rail-free steps below the kitchen. The ample space is solidly anchored by a rugged, field stone fireplace that stretches monumentally from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Glass sliders set into a soaring, pentagonal wall of windows opens to a broad, wrap-around deck that over-looks a copse of well-laced oaks. More windows and sliding glass doors opposite the fireplace open to the deck’s other leg that overlooks the swimming pool.
As with at least one wall in both the dining and living areas, at least two walls in the adjoining family room are — or were at the time the house was sold — sheathed in vertical, wide plank wood paneling. The ceiling vaults over a small area of the room but most of the space has a much more conventionally flat ceiling crossed by muscular exposed wood beams. More glass sliders provide direct access to the deck. We’re just going to assume the office/recreation room that listing details indicate was used by a previous owner as a recording studio is not the same room as the just discussed family room but honestly, children, we really don’t know.
There are four family bedrooms, at least two with wood floors and vaulted ceilings and (at least) one with a bay window and a summer camp cabin-ish, built-in combination bed and desk platform suspended from the ceiling by ropes. The roomy and sky-lit master bedroom has wood floors and another super-sized exposed stone fireplace as well as a renovated and also sky-lit bathroom fitted with sunken tub and separate steam shower.
One leg of the wrap round deck off the main level living areas steps down to a partially and pleasantly tree-shaded swimming pool and spa set in to a flagstone terrace while the other leg overlooks a photogenic dining area under twisted oak branches asymmetrically and photogenic strung with lights. Listing details go on to mention that the unconventionally shaped one-acre parcel has fenced riding arena in place and room for horses.
By: Variety
