Where the Celebrities Call Home: Hancock Park

Filed under: Famous Homes, Celebrity Homes, Cool Homes

Hancock Park is an idyllic neighborhood with turn of the century estates, a lively village and plenty of charm. It's also one of the most star-studded areas of Los Angeles.

Long before Beverly Hills was 'Beverly Hills', there was Hancock Park, one of the oldest, most affluent, architecturally well-preserved and star-studded neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Just 5 miles west of downtown, the neighborhood bloomed in the 1920s when prominent Angelenos with notable names like Doheny, Chandler and Ahmanson hired accomplished architects such as Wallace Neff and Paul Williams to design large and elegant mansions on the oversized, mostly flat lots.


The commercial hub of Hancock Park is tree-lined Larchmont Village, a Main Street USA style strip of upscale boutiques, hardware stores, a bookstore or two, and oodles of restaurants that spill out onto outdoor dining areas that line the sidewalks. It's not unusual in Larchmont Village to see Hollywood power players going about their daily business with little fanfare and, more often than not, no pesky paparazzi.

Big name residents of Hancock Park have included Muhammad Ali and legendary actor John Barrymore Sr., Drew Barrymore's grandfather. But the neighborhood and its eclectic mix of Mediterranean, Tudor and Colonial Revival style homes fell into real estate disfavor in the 1970s and 80s when rich and famous folks gravitated towards some of Tinseltown's glitzier zip codes.

Since the turn of the last century, the tidy and dignified neighborhood, which wraps around the Wilshire Country Club, has been on an upswing with home prices that now rival those in Beverly Hills. While there are homes in Hancock Park priced under a million bucks, most of the neighborhood's mansions sell for between two and eight million dollars.

Today, a person can't swing a cat without hitting a famous person in Hancock Park, and a list of the owners of the well-preserved mansions in the 'hood reads like a who's who of Hollywood. Although Jason Alexander ("Seinfeld") lived in Hancock Park long before them, Spanish film star Antonio Banderas and his bubble-lipped actress wife Melanie Griffith are often credited with being some of the early celebrity pioneers of the Hancock Park real estate revival. In 1999, the comely couple paid $4.2 million for a 15,000-square-foot beast of a house built in 1929 with 13 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms. The following year the couple scooped up the house next door, which they proceeded to knock down to make way for a soccer pitch sized lawn.

Soon to follow Banderas and Griffith were David Schwimmer from "Friends" who shelled out $5.5 million in June of 2001 for an 11,300-square-foot Mediterranean-style mansion in Hancock Park with 8 bedrooms, 15-foot ceilings in the living room, media room, separate guest house, swimming pool and tennis court.

"Will & Grace" alum Sean Hayes bought a 1930 Tudor style pile in Hancock Park in late 2001 for $1.65 million. He put the fully renovated 5,800-square-foot residence on the market in early 2008 with a hefty asking price of $8.95 million, but, alas, the house didn't sell. Although a Hancock Park source whispered to ShelterPop that Hayes no longer lives in the house, property records none-the-less show he still owns the 4 bedroom and 5 bathroom mansion.

Über-successful sit-com actress Patricia Heaton ("Everybody Loves Raymond" and "The Middle") and her actor-director-producer husband David Hunt have been in Hancock Park since the fall of 2001 when they forked over $4.85 million for their double-lot corner spread surrounded by a thick and dramatic bougainvillea hedge. The Heaton/Hunt house, a spectacular 8,400-square-foot Mediterranean mansion, was built in 1923 with 5 bedrooms and 7 baths. The couple meticulously restored, renovated and decorated the residence, which was photographed for Architectural Digest in late 2009.


Other famous residents of Hancock Park include Kathy Bates whose house backs up to the Wilshire Country Club golf course, "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice" writer and producer Shonda Rimes who recently dropped $5.6 million to purchase a 6 bedroom and 9 bathroom mansion from quirky musician Beck, and celebrity gossip queen Janet Charlton who lives in a mid-century modern house filled to the rafters with mid-century modern furniture that she unsuccessfully tried to sell in 2007.

Even more stars who call Hancock Park home are Partricia Arquette and Thomas Jane, "Reno 911" actor Tom Lennon who bought actress Maura Tierney's house for $2.195 million in mid-2009, and French fashion designer Christian Audigier, the man responsible for foisting the Ed Hardy label onto the world and whose house is on the market for $8.299 million.

While many celebrities can be capricious in their real estate choices, buying and selling houses like regular people buy groceries, it seems that the recent revival of Hancock Park as a neighborhood popular with Tinseltown types is here to stay for a long time.

For more on celebrity homes, don't miss:
- Ryan Phillipe Selling His Home
- Gwyneth Paltrow Loves This Furniture Designer
- Is Oprah Moving?

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments