BUYER: Amy Adams and Darren Le GalloLOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $3,165,000
SIZE: 4,311 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: According to no fewer than three of Your Mama's better connected sources, two-time Oscar nominated actress Amy Adams (Junebug, Enchanted, Sunshine Cleaning, Doubt, Julie & Julia) owns a perfectly lovely if architecturally ordinary 3 bedroom and 4 pooper Cape Cod-ish style crib with designer done interiors in the lower Benedict Canyon area of Beverly Hills. According to property records, Miss Adams' Benedict Canyon property was purchased through a trust in December of 2008 for $1,825,000.
In mid-May of 2010 Miss Adams pushed out a gurl baby that she made with her actor-artist fiancé Darren Le Gallo. If Your Mama has said it once we've said it 72 times: When the rich and famous get a new baby–or a new spouse–it often means they buy a new house. We're not sure why that is exactly but property records reveal that in late July of 2010 the very same trust and trustee associated with Miss Adams and her baby daddy's Benedict Canyon residence scooped up a new house on a secluded quiet cul de sac high in the Hills above Beverly.
Your Mama managed to dig up listing information for the new property which indicates the Connecticut style ranch was originally built in 1952 and extensively remodeled with contemporary elements in 2005. The sprawling and well maintained house measures 4,311 square feet according to listing information with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 poopers including a master suite privately situated on the second floor that provides tree top views, hardwood floors, a fireplace, two custom fitted walk-in closets, a posh pooper with spa tub, and a private patio with a slivery view of the city lights and Pacific Ocean.
An electronic drive gate opens to a small flagstone motor court lined with lush plantings. The children will note how the landscaping palette has been kept to just green things, a choice that along with the frosted glass paned garage doors lends a contemporary vibe to an otherwise architecturally traditional house. We're certain that some of the children will loathe this merger of modern with East Coast traditional–the somewhat cliché garage doors in particular–but Your Mama don't mind it a bit. Yes, we love and appreciate an architecturally and stylistically pure abode just as much as the next property snob, but we can also get on board when an architecturally undistinguished house is given a more contemporary spin on things.
Anyhoo, a short walkway leads to the front door that opens into a small foyer that immediately and unceremoniously gives way to the combination living and dining room that features original hardwood floors, a vaulted and beamed ceiling punched through with sky lights, built-in bookshelves, a stacked stone fireplace, and three sets of French doors that open the room to the gigantic flagstone terrace that extends off the back of the multi-winged ranch.
Very contemporary, frameless frosted glass panels that stretch from the floor to the ceiling divide the living/dining room from a good sized and oddly shaped study/den with charcoal colored slate floors, built-in shelving, and vaulted wood ceiling with exposed beams. Since the day-core in the listing photos is that of the previous owner we won't comment (much) on that but Your Mama will confess that we get goose pimples over how the crisp white and art-friendly walls in the living/dining room and the study/den beautifully juxtapose themselves against the more organic woods and stone elements that repeat themselves throughout both the interior and exterior of the property.
The charcoal colored slate floors continue into the commodious kitchen, into the adjacent family room that opens out to the back yard terrace and, somewhat unexpectedly and strangely, up the walls and onto the back splash in the kitchen. The gore-may cookery is essentially a wide galley style affair with a long work island/breakfast bar down the center. The sleek flat fronted cabinetry, sky lights, and high grade stainless steel appliances that include a sizable side by side Sub-Zero and a mac-daddy Viking brand range are, once again, set off against the more organic quality of the slate flooring and vaulted wood ceiling with exposed beams and trusses. Built-in cabinets in the family room area accommodate tee-vee and stereo/iPod equipment.
According to listing information, there are three bedrooms in addition to the master suite and a fourth that has been converted to a home gym. Your Mama really has no idea if Miss Adams and Mister Le Gallo plan to maintain a home gym, but this being Tinseltown it would certainly not be surprising if the well formed pair opted to install a whole bunch of body torture equipment in their new home to save them the trip and indignity of going to a public fitness facility.
A large room with a flat beamed ceiling and original hardwood floors was outfitted by the previous owners as a media room with a gigantic sectional sofa, floating built-in cabinetry for books and entertainment equipment and a wall mounted flat scree tee-vee. Short of putting it in a cabinet with closing doors it's nearly impossible to hide the squawk box. The children will take note, however, that the the boob-toob was cleverly disguised–or at least minimized–by hanging artwork in a tight cluster around the tee-vee.
In addition to the generously sized flagstone terrace that runs along the back of the house, the back yard area includes a built-in barbecue center, mature trees and plantings, an unnaturally green lawn that undulates gently with the terrain, and a gated and nearly hidden free-form swimming pool and spa. While all the trees and foliage that run up to the edge and hang over the pool and spa look amazingly au natural, we're certain that Miss Adams and Mister Le Gallo's pool man will quietly curse them out every week while he's skimming all the leaves and other crap off the surface and bottom of the swimming pool.
The nearly 1-acre property also includes a cactus garden–and Your Mama loves us a cactus garden–a fully fenced and partially shaded dog run with stacked stone walls, pathways that meander up and around the hillside and lead to stone benches, and at least one secluded deck with long views over the surrounding canyon towards the city lights and the Pacific Ocean.
Listen chickens, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter don't pine to live in a Connecticut style ranch house in the 90210, but iffin we did and we had three and some million clams to spend, Miss Adams and Mister Le Gallo's new digs just might be the icing to that cake. It's wonderfully private, perfectly quiet, big without being obscene, luxurious but kick your feet up casual, done without being over done, traditionally built but modern minded and, generally speaking, looks like a lovely spot to escape the intensity and fakery of showbiz. Brava! Miss Adams.
Some of Miss Adams and Mister Le Gallo's new neighbors include Queen Latifah and, we presume, her "trainer" Jeanette Jenkins, Dixie Carter's widow Hal Holbrook, actor Jonathan Frakes and his soap star wife Genie Francis who put their 6 bedroom and 10 pooper house up for lease in 2009 when they moved to Maine, and leveraged buyout tycoon Ted Forstmann who owns the IMG talent agency and once courted Top Chef's statuesque stunner Padma Lakshmi.
listing photos: PostRain Productions for Partners Trust
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