Live at JLo's for less: Jennifer Lopez discounts her suspiciously lush L.A. oasis by a couple million
By Lisa Johnson Mandell
Special to Yahoo Homes
Eight months after first floating her lush Valley oasis on the market at $17 million, Jennifer Lopez is knocking a couple of million dollars off the price, according to the Wall Street Journal. She is relisting the home at $14.5 million, having withdrawn the property in late July.
The Hidden Hills estate came under some critical scrutiny back in May, when the New York Post took aerial photos of ritzy Los Angeles neighborhoods to highlight how "Hollywood celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Barbra Streisand and Jennifer Lopez continue to suck up water to keep their gardens fresh and lawns green, while Southern California withers from a devastating drought." One official estimated to the Post's Page Six that about 100 manicured estates in the Hidden Hills area were responsible for guzzling 70 percent of the Los Virgenes Metropolitan Water District supply.
Neighbors were furious — anonymously, of course. "The Kardashian flowers and hedges are right in our face," one told the Post. "It’s disgusting. You walk by and you can smell the freshness." And Lopez and Jessica Simpson, whose homes are nearby, were said to be "just as bad. And because of all their money, they can just pay the extra rates for water and let the city be damned." (The Google Maps satellite image here shows Lopez's home in May.) A couple of weeks ago, the Hollywood Reporter revealed that Los Virgenes district residents including Kylie Jenner, Tyga, Dr. Dre, Denise Richards and David Hasselhoff; see the video at the bottom of this post.
We'd cut Lopez a little slack, though. After all, it’s not easy to sell a posh place like that when it’s surrounded by dead grass, especially in a fancy neighborhood that overflows with Kardashians and even Beliebers for a while there, until Justin’s partying friends and wild driving ways all but got them thrown out. Hidden Hills is a tightly secured "village" that has become known as one of the fairest of them all.
Lopez's 3-acre property' includes a 17,129-square-foot main residence with nine bedrooms and 11 full bathrooms. The estate is also tricked out with an "entertainment pavilion" that features a dance studio/gym with an adjoining laundry room so your backup dancers’ sweaty togs need never enter the main house; a professional-grade recording studio with a soundproof booth; a 1,000-plus-square-foot saloon/lounge with a full bar and fireplace; a poker nook; and a 20-seat theater with stadium seating.
And then there’s the master bath, which features a freestanding tub surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
Could it be that the house is a little too specialized for anyone who isn’t a singer/movie star/video queen/avid bathroom reader?
Or maybe the area has gone just a little too Hollywood. Kim Kardashian and her husband, Kanye West, recently purchased a 3.5-acre spread nearby for $20 million. If you can afford to spend multiple millions on a home and want to avoid the cliche celebrity hustle and bustle of Beverly Hills, Brentwood or Bel Air, do you really want to be running into the likes of Miley Cyrus, Drake, Kendra Wilkinson, Brandy, or any one of a handful of Kardashians when you and your nannies take your baby out for a stroll? Isn’t the point of moving out to the Calabasas area, about 30 miles from L.A., supposed to be to get away from that crowd?
Maybe all JLo's home needs is a good price chop and a new sales team. The Wall Street Journal reports that the property, formerly represented by Matthew Gaskill and Alisa Peterson of Sotheby’s International Realty, is now listed with Brett Lawyer of Hilton & Hyland.
Lopez recently bought the atop the Manhattan "luxury fortress" where Chelsea Clinton is one of just three neighbors.
Lisa Johnson Mandell is an author, critic and reporter whose family has been involved in the entertainment industry for generations. She is founder and editor in chief of the website At Home in Hollywood and was the Los Angeles correspondent for HGTV's now defunct FrontDoor.com.
Also on Yahoo Homes:
• Jennifer Lopez buys penthouse in NYC 'luxury fortress' where Chelsea Clinton lives (25 photos)
• LeBron James sells his 'King's palace' in Miami (51 photos)
• Deliverance from real estate hell: Burt Reynolds finally unloads his throwback Florida home (31 photos)
