Saturday, June 30, 2012

Music Producer Richard Perry Sells Sunset Strip Estate

SELLER: Richard Perry
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $12,750,000
SIZE: 5,935 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Legendary music producer Richard Perry has quietly hoisted his long-time Los Angeles, CA residence, perched on a private knoll on a narrow, curving street just above the Sunset Strip, on the open market with an asking price of $12,750,000.

Mister Perry's high-flying, professional salad days were unquestionably the 1970s an 80s when he produced more than a dozen gold and platinum albums for music industry movers and shakers such as Rod Stewart, Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, Diana Ross, Leo Sayer, Neil Diamond, Martha Reeves and Captain Beefheart. Although the septuagenarian still keeps his professional toe in the water, nowadays he's more likely to be most familiar with gossip glossy readers as the very tan man-friend of still-sizzling-at-75 Jane Fonda.

Property records aren't specific as to when Mister Perry acquired his Sunset Strip residence or how much music industry moolah he coughed up for it but current listing information shows the gated estate was originally built in 1942—for Ronald Reagan and first wife Jane Wyman—and occupies an elevated .72 acre hillock with nearly unobstructed 340-degree views over the twinkling lights of Tinseltown.

The main house, set high above the street on a steep bluff, measures in at a sizable but hardly huge 5,935 square feet, and includes a total of 5 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms; a paneled formal living room with fireplace; formal dining room; library; wine cellar; indoor and out door spas; and a master suite with fireplace and dual poopers. At least one room in the house has a boozer-friendly, built-in wet bar and walls lined floor to ceiling with scads of photographs of famous people and gold records.

Listing information shows the property offers upwards of ten off-street parking spaces along the wide, gated driveway that swoops up past the north-south aligned lighted tennis court and around the front of the house to a small motor court and three-car garage. The swimming pool and adjacent Balinese-style pool pavilion are somewhat awkwardly situated across the driveway on a large flat plateau.

Some of Mister Perry's nearby neighbors include English actor Michael York, decorator/restaurateur Lynn von Kersting—co-owner of showbiz industry eatery The Ivy on Robertson Boulevard—and movie producer John Goldwyn and his hotelier man-mate Jeff Klein who owns the chic, celeb-stocked Sunset Tower Hotel.

Miz Fonda decamped Atlanta a few years ago and rented an apartment in Los Angeles at the star-studded Sierra Towers building just off the Sunset Strip where other high-profile condo owners include (but are not limited to) pickled and preserved Showbiz and music industry icons like Sharon Osbourne, Cher, Joan Collins, Diahann Carol and Elton John.

The children may recall Your Mama discussed Miz Fonda's airy, art- and crafts-filled loft in Atlanta—with its mortifying Pepto-Bismal-pink, womb-like entrance hall—back in May 2010 when it was first put on the open market with an asking price of $4,500,000. Unfortunately for Hanoi Jane, the 4,764 square foot loft hasn't yet appealed to a buyer and the price has plummeted to $1,195,000.

Miz Fonda recently told former D-list turned B-plus-list comedienne Kathy Griffin that she hasn't spent a single night in her rented 1 bedroom and 1.5 bathroom rental, preferring instead to shack up at Mister Perry's pad from where she said she can see her (unused) apartment from the bathroom window.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker / Beverly Hills South