Our property guru chimes in with some corrective info and a little somethin' extra to complete the story of Heath Ledger's return to the Hollywood Hills. As we reported last week, Ledger, wife Michelle Williams and baby Matilda, have purchased Ellen DeGeneres' superfab mid-mod masterpiece known as the "Tree House." The property guru emails us: "First, the house was not built by Marmol + Radziner. Ellen sold this house to buy a $6.5 million dollar Marmol + Radziner in Mt. Olympus.
"Ellen sold the 'tree house' to a commercial director who had bought it for his mistress. In the process of closing, the wife found out and made him drop the mistress and sell the house. It went back on the market nearly immediately and sat for 6+ months on the market.
"The house is very 'Gay-sian' in design and is surprisingly mid-market in finishes. KitchenAid, not Sub-Zero, etc. And VERY small bedrooms. Even the name 'tree house' was sort of a semi-joke on more famous mid-century homes. There are strong Buff + Hensman lines, but when I pulled the plans at the city, there is no provenance. The reports are true that the lot is VERY private (walled, gated, set back from the street, separate gated driveway), however there are zero views. The house sits on Woodrow Wilson, sited to look into green treetops, no interior canyon views, no city lights, just forest. If you can jump the fence, the master has a shower with floor to ceiling glass, facing the yard so Michelle can tease the gardeners. Oddly, a remaining feature from when it was Ellen’s house is that there are lighted paths across this lot and the adjoining two that she still owns, connecting them at night. With Will Ferrell renting the other houses, the two celeb families with babies can walk back and forth for play dates and shared nanny duties."
No more celebrity news for the rest of the day. It makes our heads hurt.
· Another Australian Takes to the Hills [Curbed LA]