Usher resorts to a deep discount to sell Alpharetta, Ga., mansion for $1.5 million
MANHATTAN 3,500 SQ. FT. 4 BEDROOMS 4 BATHS After being fired from NBC in late 2017, former “Today” co-anchor Matt Lauer apparentlyapparently nono longer needs a pied-a-terre for working in the city. He listed his apartment on Manhattan’sattan’s poshposh Upperupper East Side just four months ago, and it quickly sold to an as-yet-unidentified buyeruyer forfor aboveabove itsits $7.35 million asking price. (The apartment went into contract just a month afterafter itit waswas listedlisted inin April, but the transaction was only completed more recently.) Lauer, whose estrangedstranged wifewife ofof 2020 years, Annette Roque, left him in the aftermath of multiple allegations of sexualual misconductmisconduct inin the workplace that led to his departure from NBC, purchased thethe approximatelyapproximately 3,500-square-foot, 11-room prewar pad in August 2004 for a smidgenmidgen lessless thanthan $$5.95.9 million. Meanwhile, he’s still trying to sell an 8,000-square-footot mansionmansion inin Sagsag Harbor, reportedly while living elsewhere in the Hamptons. That propertyproperty firstfirst came up for grabs with a too-aggressive $18 million asking price thathat hashas sincesince plummeted to $12.75 million.
At more than 28 feet long, with coffee- colored hardwood floors and chunky coved- ceiling moldings, the graciously proportioned living room highlights a delicate, carved-stone antique fireplace opposite a trio of deeply set sash windows. Perfectly aligned double doors open one end of the room to a carpeted library and the other to a formal dining room snazzily wrapped in a snappy, teal- colored Chinoiserie-style wall covering. The service areas incorporate a sleekly equipped up-to- date if not especially spacious kitchen, an adjoining breakfast room and a laundry room/home office.
The 12-story co- op apartment house on the bustling corner of East 64th Street and Lexington Avenue is infamously known as the former home of imprisoned Wall Street swindler Bernie Madoff.
Outside of his spectacular professional downfall — he once upon a time hauled in a reported $25 million annual salary — Lauer has been much in the Hamptons property-gossip columns since 2016 when, in that single year, he sold a modest if expensive bayfront cottage in Southampton for $3.5 million and paid Richard Gere an eye- catching $36.5 million for an unquestionably picturesque, two-residence bayfront compound in nearby Sag Harbor.
Usher Drops Georgia Manse at Deep Discount
Though it took about a year, with shrinking asking prices that started at a defiantly pie-in-the-sky nearly $2.5 million and dropped all the way down to $1.6 million, Usher has at last sold his longtime mansion in Alpharetta, Ga., for $1.5 million. As a teenager, he first visited the house in 1991, when it was owned by now- disgraced music industry mandarin L.A. Reid. Eight years later, at 20, with a role on the sitcom “Moesha” and his recording career on a steep upward swing that has never really stopped, Usher bought the property for $1.2 million from Reid’s pop-singer ex-wife Perri “Pebbles” Reid. Prominently sited on a lushly landscaped 0.87-acre corner lot inside the guarded gates of the affluent Country Club of the South golf community about 30 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta, the three-story suburban mansion and its unusually ample two-story guest house together measure 10,823 square feet with a total of seven bedrooms and seven full and three half bathrooms.
The taupe stucco mansion’s decidedly traditional, sharply gabled exterior belies much more contemporary interior spaces that feature lustrous hardwood floors with a rich, cherry wood tone and rustic-modern, reclaimed wood mantelpieces around each of the property’s three fireplaces.
A finished lower level opens to a deep covered poolside terrace and contains a huge, concrete-floored theater/music room with sunken seating area along with a yoga studio and a spa bath replete with open shower area, a pair of end-to- end soaking tubs and a multi-person dry sauna. The detached and completely self- contained guesthouse offers a spacious living room with fireplace, a full kitchen, two bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and a mirror-walled studio.
Outdoor recreation and leisure options include sun-soaked and shaded patios, a swimming pool set into stone terracing, a built-in grilling station and a children’s playground with a super-swank, climate- controlled treehouse.
The eight-time Grammy-winning musician additionally owns an “urbane, artfilled” 1920s Mediterranean villa behind the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles he has on the market at $3.75 million.
David James Elliot Has Brentwood Villa for Sale
Canadian-born actor David James Elliot, best known for his long-running starring role on the late-1990s, early-2000s crime drama “JAG,” has his longtime residence in the casually fancy Brentwood area of Los Angeles for sale at a wee bit below $8 million.