A labyrinth? Why not? Celebrity homes feature the quirky
LOS ANGELES — Actor Mark Wahlberg’s Los Angeles mansion has a putting green. Tech billionaire Bill Gates’ Medina, Wash., abode includes rooms where guests can customize the music, lighting and climate. Actress Shirley MacLaine’s on-the-market New Mexico ranch includes a stone labyrinth.
Celebrity homes are a bright slice of the high-end real-estate market well beyond Hollywood. And for stars with money and imagination to spare, unique or quirky add-ons are routine.
Many celebrities “are recessionproof” when it comes to conceptualizing and paying for a niftily outfitted dream home, says Santa Monica, Calif.-based architectural designer Kevin J. Cozen, who has designed for high-profile clients for more than three decades.
For 89-year-old Hugh O’Brian, star of the 1950s and early ’60s Western TV series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Cozen reduced the scale of the actor’s house in the hilly Los Angeles neighbourhood of Benedict Canyon to resemble a low-slung Prairie home.
According to real estate expert and author Michael Corbett, who hosts Mansions and Millionaires on NBC’s Extra, quirky add-ons don’t necessarily make homes more valuable to potential buyers, especially if those quirks — say, a boxing ring, or a $70,000 wall of candy — limit the field of those interested. A celebrity name attached, though, does help.
“The rule of thumb is that celebrity homes don’t necessarily sell because they’re celebrity homes,” Corbett says. “Yet celebrities definitely increase marketability of a property. That increases the speed of the sale and sometimes the value of the property because of the marketability.”
Real estate agent Joshua Altman, who has represented many famous faces, is more blunt.
“The property is attractive simply because of who lives there, not because of the add-ons.”
Besides a putting green, Wahlberg’s 30,000-square-foot mansion also features a full outdoor basketball court, a wine cellar, gym, library and a rocklandscaped swimming pool with a waterfall and diving rock, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Landry’s other clients include model Gisele Bundchen and her husband, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, and the creator of the Full House TV show, Jeff Franklin.
Bundchen and Brady’s French château-style “eco-mansion,” custommade with sustainable elements such as a greywater irrigation system, solar panelling and reclaimed cobblestones, was bought last June by rapper and producer Dr. Dre, the Los Angeles Times reported.
MacLaine’s New Age beliefs are embedded in every inch of her retreat near Santa Fe, Plaza Blanca Ranch, which she listed for sale earlier this year. The home includes a horse barn, chicken coop, yurt and a stone labyrinth path for meditation.