We’re giving everyone fair warning in advance. This story is old. A year old, in fact. Both these purchases date back to summer 2015. Yolanda has known about them for quite some time but for whatever reason, we just never got around to posting about them. We were lazy, wanted to write about other things, had to get a pedicure, blah blah blah. In fact nearly forgot all about this until we wrote about that other dynamic duo (the Chainsmokers) the other day. Well, better late than never, right? Right?!
We also know that these homes are a bit more modest than the residences we usually profile. Yolanda kindly requests that you not whine, dine, and/or threaten us. We’ll have something big and fancy to suit the needs of you real estate size queens right quick. For now, enjoy this post. Or don’t. Do as you please.
Now quite frankly, kiddies, Yolanda personally does not give a hoot about YouTube millionaires but both we and Your Mama at Variety have written about folks like Jordan Maron and Rosanna Pansino recently and the stories — for whatever reason — generate lots and lots of hits. Apparently people want to read about the homes of folks who sit around and talk, sing, or tell jokes to their video camera all day and Yolanda is all about giving the people what they want.
Rhett & Link are among the most popular YouTube personalities. Their Good Mythical Morning channel — one of several they own — currently sports more than 11 million subscribers. According to Forbes, in the fiscal year ending June 2015 the two dudes hauled in a hefty $4.5 million in pre-tax income, most of it drawn from lucrative sponsored content deals (with big names like Gillette, Toyota, and Wendy’s).
Yolanda, being old, had never heard of the pair so naturally we had to turn to our friendly pal Google for insight. According to Wiki, Rhett & Link both hail from North Carolina, have college degrees in engineering, and are amateur comedians. They’ve also been best friends since the first grade. Aww. That’s kinda cute.
Anyway, the two amigos are now approaching the big 4-0 and have wives and rugrats. And being flush with YouTube cash, the pair recently decided it was high time to settle down and purchase family homes of their own.
Rhett & Link film their show out of a studio in Burbank, but they chose to eschew buying in the nearby and celebrity-heavy Hollywood Hills for the much more low-key and family-friendly neighborhood of La Crescenta, an unincorporated community in the San Gabriel Valley foothills just adjacent to Glendale and La Canada Flintridge and just about 10 minutes from Burbank by car and 20 minutes from downtown LA.
Now, as we’ve previously mentioned on here, Yolanda spent a fairly significant amount of time in her younger days over in the La Canada Flintridge/Crescenta Valley areas of LA and thus we are familiar with the neighborhood where these guys bought. Like we say, it’s hardly a celebrity haven. Trust us that this particular area is nice but very far from fancy or pretentious. In a way, it’s kinda admirable that these two guys decided to pick homes out there when they could almost certainly afford other, more swanky crannies of town, right?
That being said, we’re not sure if we’re down with their particular million-dollar home choices. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves already.
It was shaggy-haired Link (real name: Charles Lincoln Neal III) and his wife Christy who made the first real estate move by forking out $1,265,000 in May (2015) for a remodeled 1960 residence of indeterminate architectural vernacular on .29-acre of land. The rather oddball house sits on a whisper-quiet pine tree-shaded cul-de-sac and appears to be single level from out front but drops down mullet-style to two floors out back.
We’re not fond of the henna-and-yellow color scheme, but it’s certainly different. The double doors open into a hallway with an unevenly pitched ceiling and white tiles underfoot. The living room has hardwood floors and a small skylight overhead, and in one corner there’s a dark grey sofa pushed uncomfortably close to a wall-mounted flatscreen television.
One surprise is the kitchen, which errs on the side of huge and was recently remodeled (according to the listing) with wooden cabinetry, medium-grade stainless steel appliances, quartz countertops, and more white tilework.
Yolanda likes the yellow dining room. No, really, we do! Yellow dining rooms are almost always fab. We also like that there is a large media/game room with a booze-friendly wet bar and an enormous stone fireplace, although we’re not quite sure what to make of the weird and undulating drop-down ceiling.
The 3,638-square-foot structure has 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms plus a commodious master suite with glossy hardwood floors in the bedroom and a soaking tub and dual vanities in the bath. Outside there’s a freeform swimming pool jammed up a bit too close to the house — that thing’s gonna need a safety fence for sure — and peek-a-boo views to valley through the trees.
It appears Mr. Neal may have faced down some stiff competition for the property, as the $1,265,000 he paid through his “402 Blueberry Avenue Trust” is actually a full $70,000 more than the sellers were asking for the home.
Just two months later, Rhett (real name: Rhett James McLaughlin) and his wife Jessie purchased a La Crescenta home that’s only a mile away Mr. Neal’s as the crow flies. Mr. McLaughlin splurged a bit more than his buddy did — he paid $1,425,000 for a similar-sized house (3,214-square-feet) on an identically-sized lot (.29-acre) but with a radically different — ahem — architectural identity.
Listing info refers to the 1978 structure as an “updated modern traditional” but to Yolanda’s eyes the thing looks rather more like a rather nightmarish architectural abomination. Fortunately for the neighbors, the residence is privately tucked up and away from view at the end of a long, steep driveway.
We will say that the inside is not nearly as scary as the exterior initially led us to imagine. There is trendy dark hardwood flooring underfoot, a spacious sunken family room, a formal dining room with peaceful mountain views, a kitchen with granite countertops and medium-grade appliances, an upstairs living room/second family room, huge office, light-filled master suite with valley views, and a large outdoor sport/basketball court plus a pentagon-shaped swimming pool and spa.
The house seems like a great deal for $1.4 million, at least as long as you’re inside and not looking at the hernia-inducing front facade. And apparently other folks agreed the place was a deal, because records show that the $1,425,000 Mr. McLaughlin paid through his “Copper Canyon Trust” was actually $30,000 more than the home’s last asking price.
That’s all, folks. Now please get off this silly blog right quick and head on over to YouTube. Watch every Rhett & Link video you see and make sure you click on all the ads. It’s gonna take more than a minor real estate facelift to get these two gurls camera ready. Yikes!
Selling agent (Link’s House): Ben Kelly, Partners Trust
Selling agent (Rhett’s House): Carrie Grochow, Dilbeck Real Estate
Rhett & Link’s agent: Tricia Harding, T.N.G. Real Estate Consultants