Holy crap, the ever-in-the-know Real Estalker hears that one of Los Angeles's most storied properties has hit the market for $150 million. The current Owlwood, which sits between Sunset Boulevard and the Los Angeles Country Club in Holmby Hills, was once three ridiculously over-the-top, celebrified estates (including Jayne Mansfield's famous Pink Palace with the heart-shaped pool). Now all that's left is "a 12,000-plus square foot Italian Renaissance-style pile ? designed by accomplished architect Robert Farquhar and built in 1936 for Florence Quinn, the ex-wife of department store magnate and real estate mogul Arthur Letts Jr." (Letts's old house, by the way, is now home to Hugh Hefner and scads of bunnies.)
Since then, Owlwood has belonged to Joseph Drown, who turned the Hotel Bel-Air into a hotel in the forties; Joseph Schenk, who founded the studio that become 20th Century Fox (he supposedly kept Marilyn Monroe in the guesthouse); Superior Oil founder William Keck ("who is said to have added an indoor swimming pool and gold-plated bathroom fixtures shaped like—you got it!—oil derricks"); Tony Curtis; Sonny and Cher (good story about Cher trying to kick Sonny out post-separation here); a carpet magnate; a possible arms dealer; and today: Dawn Arnall, the widow of subprime mortgage profiteer Roland Arnall. Whew.
And that's just the main property! Back in 1999, the possible arms dealer picked up porn producer Bill Osco's estate next door and created a new pool and tennis complex. Then, in the early aughts, the Arnalls bought those two parcels plus a third neighbor : Jayne Mansfield's famous Pink Palace. That house was originally built for Rudy Vallee and was also owned by Engelbert Humperdinck. The Arnalls demolished the palace in 2004 ("allegedly without the proper permits").
The Arnalls did a very good job of keeping the property records opaque, but they seem to have paid about $30-35 million for the three properties, which total 9.83 acres. Last the assessors checked in, the house itself had nine bedrooms and 12 bathrooms. An old video says that living room alone is 1,500 square feet. Kind of makes you want to puke, right?
Word is that The Agency has the listing on Owlwood, but who knows if it'll ever hit the open market.
· Your Mama Hears... [Real Estalker]
· Cher and David Geffen's Siege on Sunset Blvd. [Curbed LA]
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