Yolanda profusely apologizes for our sporadic postings as of late — summer blues and all that. More precisely, we are traveling out of the country for the next week or so, but we promise to return to our regularly scheduled programming after that. Don’t fret.
Anyway, we won’t bore you with further digressions; let’s get down to brass tacks. We recently discovered that famously brash powerhouse talent agent Ari Emanuel has — somewhat surprisingly — ponied up a very substantial $11,500,000 to acquire the home of his next door neighbor in Brentwood.
We say “somewhat surprisingly” because Mr. Emanuel’s own home — he bought it back in 2015 for $16,550,000 — sits on .75-acres of land and already has a large guesthouse on the premises, so we really can’t fathom why he needs further space. But then again, more is always better than less and Mr. Emanuel now has serious property bragging rights. His new 1.25-acre compound is on price par with the homes of Hollywood’s wealthiest. Los Angeles may be infamously expensive, but this total of $28 million is still a very substantial amount of money here.
For those who may not be aware, the hard-charging Mr. Emanuel is co-CEO of talent agency juggernaut William Morris Endeavor (WME), which represents individuals from across the entertainment spectrum (movies, TV, music, digital, and even sports). WME was formed in 2009 by the merger of two smaller firms: William Morris Agency and Endeavor Talent Agency. In the years following WME’s birth, the company has grown and in 2016 it acquired Zuffa LLC — parent of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) — for an eye-popping $4.2 billion (via private equity backers).
Our Mr. Emanuel has long been married to a lady named Sarah (nee Addington), and together they have three sons. And for the record — in case anyone was still wondering — yes, Mr. Emanuel was the inspiration for central character Ari Gold on the long-running HBO show Entourage.
Back to the house. Unfortunately, we have no photos to share of Mr. Emanuel’s $11.5 million acquisition, as the deal went down completely off-market. But we can tell y’all that the house has 4,330-square feet of living space and sits on a flat half-acre lot with a pool and large lawns. The property is very private and invisible from the street out front, thanks to tall hedges and gates. It appears the sellers — a non-celebrity couple — owned the house since 1994, when they coughed up a mere $1,475,000 for the property. Ka-ching!
Perhaps Mr. Emanuel will raze the existing structure, or maybe he is seeking additional at-home office/meeting space or something. Whatever the case, the new place is stylistically the polar opposite of his main residence — it’s a modest Traditional/ranch-type sort of thing, while Mr. Emanuel’s place is a large and flashy contemporary modeled after the modern homes of legendary Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta.
If you’d like to read more about Mr. Emanuel’s current home, feel free to peruse our previous story, but for here suffice to say that it is actually one of our favorites in the Brentwood area and sits in the bucolic and equestrian-friendly lower Mandeville Canyon area.
Clearly Mr. Emanuel is a fan of this area of town — he has lived there since at least 2005, when he and his wife paid $9,850,000 for a 6,800-square-foot abode on a prestigious street in Brentwood Park only 5 minutes or so by motor vehicle from his new Mandeville Canyon spread. That house, incidentally, has not been sold but (since 2017) has been solely owned by Mrs. Emanuel. Her hubby appears to have relinquished his interest in the property.
Meanwhile, back in Mandeville Canyon, some of Mr. Emanuel’s nearest famous neighbors within sugar-borrowing distance include actress Gwyneth Paltrow, director Ryan Murphy, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, and Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio.