[Image of Jamie McCourt via USA Today; image of the Segel House via You-Are-Here]
Jamie McCourt has officially filed for divorce. Her soon to be ex-husband Frank fired her as CEO of the Dodgers last week. In the divorce petition, now posted on TMZ, Jamie demands the job back, plus a whole lot of money and perks (baseball tickets, flowers, 5 star hotels, etc.). She also asks for "exclusive temporary use, possession and control" of the couple's John Lautner house in Malibu, and the house they own next door. Reading through the petition, we also find out she's really into pools. But that is just the tip of the McCourts' real estate iceberg, friends. The couple owns four houses in LA county, two houses in Massachusetts, a condo in Vail, and land in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and Montana. Now here's a question: Try and guess which one of the couple's houses contains a chef's kitchen that was transplanted across country--from another one of their houses--at a cost of $180,000?
The LA Times reports the McCourts signed an agreement in 2004 that gave sole ownership of the Dodgers to Frank and all the residential properties ("as well as artwork, jewelry, cars and boats") to Jamie. Jamie's contesting that agreement--she says she didn't retain an independent lawyer to review it before she signed. So obviously the Dodgers are the big prize, but we think the runner up sounds pretty good. Here's a roundup of the McCourts' real estate, according to Jamie's filing:
1. Until the split, the McCourts' main residence was on Charing Cross Road in Holmby Hills. (Jamie is staying in the Lautner, and the petition says Frank doesn't live at this house anymore either.) They bought the house for about $20 million when they moved to LA in 2004, and spent about $14 million "improving" it. The house has four bedrooms, ten bathrooms, and is more than 15,000 square feet. It has an outdoor pool and an Olympic-sized indoor pool with pool house, sauna, steam room, shower, dressing room, and massage room. There's also a gym, dance studio, indoor and outdoor guest quarters, and a "restaurant quality kitchen." That's the kitchen that traveled all the way home from the McCourts' former house in Brookline, MA. When they sold that house, they "retained the option to remove and take the kitchen if the property was going to be sold or torn down," and ended up exercising that option. The petition says the kitchen's delivery fees were $180,000, but there's no mention of the installation fees. Jamie says she swims in this house every day and wants exclusive use of the indoor pool between 6 am and 2 pm every day.
2. The couple also owns the house next door on Charing Cross, which they bought in 2004 for $6.5 million. They've made basic improvements and planned to convert it to a guesthouse, but haven't yet.
3. They bought Lautner's Segel House in 2007 for $27 million. It has four bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, and a small pool "not suitable for long-distance swimming." Before Jamie moved in, it was used as a weekend and summer house.
4. The McCourts use the three-bedroom, three bathroom house next door to the Lautner for when their kids or guests visit. They bought that house in 2008 for $19 million and are in the design phase of a lap pool installation.
5. Then there's the house on 100 acres on Cape Cod, purchased in 2000 for $19.5 million, with a ten bedroom, six and a half bathroom main house, and a smaller three bedroom house where the caretaker lives. The petition mentions this house is "quietly on the market for $50 million."
6. They also own another Cape Cod house. But this one is just for golfing. They paid $775,000 in 1998 for the nine-bedroom house, which is on the first hole of a golf course.
7. They paid $6 million in 2004 for the three bedroom condo in downtown Vail.
8. They paid $4.625 million in 2008 for unimproved land in the El Dorado Club resort community in Cabo San Lucas. They had hired an architect and have a design for a house on the property, but it hasn't been built yet. There is, naturally, an Olympic-sized pool at the resort (and a golf course).
9. The McCourts also planned to build on unimproved land at the invitation-only Yellowstone Club in Montana. They bought that parcel in 2006 for $7.7 million.
How many servants does it take to keep all those houses? Eight people, according to Jamie: two full-time housekeepers and an estate manager at Charing Cross; another housekeeper who works at Charing Cross, the Malibu houses, and the McCourts' two older sons' homes; a housekeeper at the Malibu house; a gardener for Charing Cross and Malibu; a part-time handyman; a caretaker at the Cape Cod estate; and a caretaker Jamie "believe[s] lives" at the Cape Cod golf house during the week. They got rid of the personal chef about a year and a half ago.
Jamie wants Frank to pay half of all their mortgages, and says she will pay for the expenses at the Malibu house she lives in. A CPA hired by her lawyer estimates her total monthly residence expenses (for all the houses) will be $333,022.
· Jamie McCourt Pulls Divorce Trigger [TMZ]
· McCourts Separate, But Who'll Keep the Malibu Lautner? [Curbed LA]
· Frank McCourt fires back after Jamie files for divorce [LAT]
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