Quirky Add-Ons a Common Feature of Celebrity Homes
Actor Mark Wahlberg's Los Angeles mansion has a putting green. Tech billionaire Bill Gates' Medina, Washington, abode includes rooms where guests can customize the music, lighting and climate. Actress Shirley MacLaine's on-the-market New Mexico ranch includes a stone labyrinth.
Celebrity homes are a bright slice of the high-end real-estate market well beyond Hollywood. And for stars with money and imagination to spare, unique or quirky add-ons are routine. Neverland Ranch, the late Michael Jackson's former Southern California ode to childhood ? amusement park, bumper cars and all ? is not alone as an example of personalized architectural opulence.
Many celebrities "are recession-proof" when it comes to conceptualizing and paying for a niftily outfitted dream home, says Santa Monica, California-based architectural designer Kevin J. Cozen, who has designed for high-profile clients for more than three decades.
For 89-year-old Hugh O'Brian, star of the 1950s and early '60s Western TV series "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp," Cozen reduced the scale of the actor's house in the hilly Los Angeles neighborhood of Benedict Canyon to resemble a low-slung Prairie home, with lots of wood and glass to showcase nature-filled views.
"He wanted a Western influence, so it looked like you could tie your horse outside," says Cozen.
According to real estate expert and author Michael Corbett, who hosts "Mansions and Millionaires" on NBC's "Extra," quirky add-ons don't necessarily make homes more valuable to potential buyers, especially if those quirks ? say, a boxing ring, or a $70,000 wall of candy ? limit the field of those interested. A celebrity name attached, though, does help.
"The rule of thumb is that celebrity homes don't necessarily sell because they're celebrity homes," Corbett says. "Yet celebrities definitely increase marketability of a property. That increases the speed of the sale and sometimes the value of the property because of the marketability."
Besides a putting green, Wahlberg's 30,000-square-foot mansion, designed by celebrity architect Richard Landry and located in the gated neighborhood of Beverly Park, also features a full outdoor basketball court, a wine cellar, gym, library, and a rock-landscaped swimming pool with a waterfall and diving rock, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Landry's other clients include model Gisele Bundchen and her husband, New England Patriotsquarterback Tom Brady, and the creator of the "Full House" TV show, Jeff Franklin.
Now on the market, Franklin's home on a Los Angeles hillside has a master bedroom raised 40 feet in the air, with an indoor-outdoor shower. Bundchen and Brady's French chateau-style "eco-mansion," custom-made with sustainable elements such as a gray-water irrigation system, solar paneling and reclaimed cobblestones, was bought in June by rapper and producer Dr. Dre, the Los Angeles Times reported.
By: ABC News
