Perhaps the most star-studded street in LA isn’t where you might expect it to be. It’s not in the 90210 or in the Hollywood Hills. Nor is it a road in Malibu. Actually, it’s Amalfi Drive in low-key Pacific Palisades. The two-mile north/south drive is about two miles long and runs all the way from Santa Monica to nearly the northernmost point of the Palisades’ ultra-desirable Riviera neighborhood.
Yolanda will attempt to do a comprehensive rundown of celeb residents later on in this tale. But today we wanted to briefly chat about a particular house on this street.
This house is certainly not one of the bigger or newer ones on this tony roadway. Built in 1949, the unassuming two-story pad (of no particular architectural vernacular, really) sits on a relatively small .45-acre lot and weighs in at 3,211-square-feet with 4 beds and 4.5 baths. Heck, that’s almost a normal person house size! Almost.
Of course, the price of admission is definitely not anywhere close to normal. Though it was never publicly offered for sale, the little house sold for a very A-list $8,150,000 just over a year ago (back in September 2016). Kiddies, that’s BIG money. More than $2,500 per square foot, and it does not appear that the buyer took a mortgage on the property.
The new owner’s identity is carefully shielded behind a mysteriously-named entity that Yolanda was unable to crack, so we eventually gave up trying. Can’t win ’em all, y’all.
But then, out of the blue, Yolanda was contacted by a Westside resident named Nosy Posy. (Seriously, that’s what he calls himself.) Our Little Mr. Posy whispered to Yolanda that the new owner of the $8.15 million pad was none other than longtime Hollywood actress Michelle Pfeiffer.
At first Yolanda was a little skeptical, but some further research clearly reveals that Mr. Posy is not just whistlin’ Dixie. Ms. Pfeiffer really did pay more than $8 million for this house. So thanks for putting us on the right track, Mr. Posy. Kiddies, go check him out on the Instagram contraption.
Long considered one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood, Ms. Pfeiffer has starred in a whole bunch of feature films including Grease 2 (1982), Scarface (1983), Dangerous Minds (1995), What Lies Beneath (2000), Hairspray (2007), and Dark Shadows(2012). She has also thrice been nominated for an Academy Award (always a bridesmaid, never a bride).
As Bruno Mars would say, Ms. Pfeiffer is that white gold (whatever that means) and Yolanda happens to think that she still looks fantastic, despite the fact that she will turn 60 this year. And after a long dry spell, her career is back on the upswing. Just last year, she starred in Mother! (2017) and Murder on the Orient Express (2017). She also received her first Emmy Award nomination for portraying Ruth Madoff in the HBO television film The Wizard of Lies (2017) — congrats!
For those of you wondering how Ms. Pfeiffer can afford an $8 million house in the Palisades when she hasn’t worked steadily in many years, Yolanda will tell you. It’s because she has a very rich hubby! David E. Kelley, to whom she has been married for nearly 25 years and with whom she has two adult children, is a very successful screenwriter/producer who created shows like Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, The Practice, Ally McBeal, Boston Public, Boston Legal, Harry’s Law, and Big Little Lies. This dude is loaded.
Mr. Kelley and Ms. Pfeiffer haven’t lived in LA in many years, but they are not new to the Westside. Back in 2005, they sold a big ass two-parcel compound for a whopping total of $27,005,000. The property is located on what is often considered to be the best street in Brentwood.
The larger parcel with its 7,426-square-foot Traditional mansion was sold in December 2005 for $18,425,000 to Disney CEO Bob Iger, who continues to the own the estate. The smaller parcel — with its 3,867-square-foot Paul Williams-designed house — was sold in July 2005 for $8,580,000 to Ezri Namzar, aka the “Madoff of Beverly Hills”.
For what its worth: the Paul Williams house is now owned by developer Robert Hanasab, who battled his next door neighbor Mr. Iger for many years over his right to demolish the structure and build a big new house. In the end, Mr. Hanasab seems to have given up — the property is now back up for sale with a fat $16,950,000 asking price. But we digress.
For more than a decade, Ms. Pfeiffer and Mr. Kelley have mainly resided in the tiny and tony Silicon Valley town of Woodside, CA, far away from the bright lights of Hollywood. It is here where the couple have quietly assembled a two-parcel equestrian compound for which they paid nearly $21 million in two separate transactions (one in 2004, one in 2008).
The nearly 9-acre property is in the same general area as the homes of billionaires like Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene Powell, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, and GoPro creator Nick Woodman.
Anyway, back to the Palisades. While Yolanda is not sure what Ms. Pfeiffer (and Mr. Kelley) plan to do with their $8 million crash pad, the current house does sport a two-car garage and a sizable pool.
Per an old lease listing, the house also has an “updated kitchen”, an open floor plan, and views of Santa Monica Canyon. It is situated privately behind tall hedges near the southern end of Amalfi.
Directly next door to Ms. Pfeiffer is a humongous under-construction mansion being built by Houston Astros owner Jim Crane at a cost of $12 million, according to our Mr. Nosy Posy. Also on the south side of Amalfi (the portion below Sunset Boulevard) are the homes of celebrities and Hollywood honchos like Kate Hudson, Molly Sims, Sam Raimi, Guymon Casady, and French superstar Johnny Hallyday.
On the north side of Amalfi are folks like Reese Witherspoon, Paul Doucette, Barbara Bosson, Alain Goldman, Mitch Hurwitz and Mary Jo Keenan, Chuck Lorre, Steve Bochco, Colin Hanks, Conan O’Brien, and Steven Spielberg. And that’s just the people we can remember off the top of our head!