SELLER: John SchneiderLOCATION: Agoura Hills, CA
PRICE:$2,199,000
SIZE: 6,890 square feet 6 bedrooms, 6 full and 2 half bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back when Your Mama was knee high to a grasshopper we spent many summers on the family homestead in Nowheresville, CA with our rough, tough and long gone Granny Rayna. Come sundown, there was supper and then an hour or two in front of the boob-toob. Our Granny, an educated woman originally from Bumfuck, Arkansas, watched only three things on her big ol' console tee-vee. The local news, The Lawrence Welk Show and The Dukes of Hazzard, a little ditty about a couple of hotsy-totsy hillbilly ne'er do well cuzzins named Bo an Luke Duke who race around the Georgia backwoods in a muscle car painted up like the damn Confederate flag. Lowerd. Pleeze. A show like that just seems preposterous nowadays, don't it?
One of the Duke cuzzins was a brunette. That would be actor Tom Wopat. The other was a beau-hunky blond perfectly played by beau-hunky actor/stunt man/director/writer/editor/cinematographer/producer John Schneider who, we learned from our informant Juanita Wordspiller, recently heaved his estate in ex-urban and semi-rural Agoura Hills, CA on the market with an asking price of $2,199,000.
Until perusing his resume on the Internet Movie Data Base, Your Mama would have been hard pressed to name a single television program in which Mister Schneider appeared besides The Dukes of Hazzard and a recent multi-episode arc on Desperate Housewives. Turns out and despite a few dips into professional obscurity, Mister Schneider has been a bizzy Tinseltown beaver since his Dukes of Hazzard days. His long list of ack-ting credits include innumerable tee-vee movies and regular longer-term gigs on programs that include Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, Diagnosis Murder, Touched By an Angel, Nip/Tuck and 90210. For the last 10 years he's shook his money maker on Smallville, a program we've never bothered to view that we understand to be based on the Superman story. Mister Schneider's career seems to be on a continued upswing with at least half a dozen projects already in the hopper with specious titles like Snow Beast, Super Shark and October Baby.
Lesser known or maybe not known by many of the children is that Mister Schneider parlayed his popularity as Bo Duke into a successful if not spectacular country music career with at least 10 albums to date and in 1998 he became a born-again (Christian) while living with country music near-deities Johnny and June Carter Cash. We're not entirely sure how that came about but it's kind of intriguing, ain't it?
Anyhoo, moving on to the matter at hand. Property records show Mister Schneider scooped up his faux half-timber Tudor manor house in the rolling hills of Agoura Hills in November of 1999 for $1,250,000.
A short sale means a property is offered or sold for less than the amount the homeowner owes and, according to listing information provided by our dear Juanita, Mister Schneider's property is being marketed as a short sale that's subject to lender approval. That real estate morsel indicates that like so many other folks in the good ol' U.S. of A. during the go-go real estate years in the early naughts, Mister Schneider and his missus Elvira used their Agoura Hills home as an ATM machine and their pocketbooks are now suffering the consequences.
Listing information indicates the Schneiders' spread in Agoura Hills sprawls across 2.67 acres and includes a main house that measures 6,890 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. A guest house provides another sleeping chamber and terliting facility and a detached office includes a reception area and another half pooper.
Electronic gates open to a paver-stone drive that curves up to the front of the English-y mansion where an unfortunately unsubstantial decks extends from the front façade to create a rather anemic-looking porte-cochere. Inside, the public rooms exude a distinct southern bordello style with miles of custom carved woodwork throughout, a curving staircase à la The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, a formal dining room with a pair of glittery crystal chandeliers and yard after yard after yard of gold and crimson velvet brocade upholstery in the double-height formal living room.
The less formal family quarters include a room with parquet floors that listing information calls and "English pub and game room" that includes a billiards table and a full-scale built-in bar with glass fronted cabinets full of booze. In the family/media room we find blood red walls, dark blue patterned wall-to-wall carpeting, a giant poster of Mister Schneider's face and a suite of sofas and ottomans upholstered in the very same crimson and gold velvet brocade fabric used in the formal living room.
The half dozen bedrooms include two full master suites, one of which has a fireplace with carved wood mantelpiece, a ceiling fan, wall-to-wall carpeting that runs from the bedroom right on into the bathroom and a gold-ish coverlet laid over a bed laden with far too many decorative pillows. To each his or her own to be sure, but iffin anyone were to ask Your Mama–and nobody did–we'd hiss and piss about how the bedroom day-core is aggressively banal, beyond horrendous and, let's be honest puppies, runs up on horrific.
A driveway winds from the front gate past the house and through the mostly flat grounds to an electronically controlled gate. The property offers garage space for up to five General Lees and additional parking for 8 or 10 more pee-cup trucks SUVS. A terrace that runs along the backside of the house steps down to a large lawn and infinity-edged black-bottomed swimming pool and spa. A poolside cabana with vaulted ceiling and fireplace is also equipped with a fully-equipped kitchen with built-in barbecue. A seasonal stream trickles across the undeveloped back end of the property where the next owner might easily construct equestrian facilities.
Property records reveal that in addition to the family home in Agoura Hills Mister and Missus Schneider's property portfolio includes (but may not be limited to) a townhouse-style condo in Westlake Village, CA, a very modest house in the suburban Nashville, TN community of Madison and several properties in and around Apple Valley, CA.
listing photos: Coldwell Banker Westlake Village
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