LOCATION: Thousand Oaks, CA
PRICE: $10,500,000
SIZE: 8,711 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Canadian born and bred former profession puck pusher Wayne Gretzky—often called the greatest ice hockey player that ever strapped on bladed skates—pops up in the property gossip columns on the regular.
In the mid-1990s he sold a good-sized residence in the steroidal guard gated Beverly Park development in Beverly Hills (Post Office) for an unknown amount to discount tool tycoon Eric Smidt. The property makes up about half of Mister Smidt's estate that is currently on the market for $45 million. In August 2007 the Gretzky couple sold a grand—and arguably grandiose—red brick neo-Georgian on a private 6.5-ish acre knoll in the swanky Sherwood Country Club development for $18.5 million to former professional baseballer Lenny "Dude" Dykstra. Mister Dykstra, bless his white collar criminal heart, fell on hard financial times and eventually lost the house to foreclosure. In 2011, The Dkyster was sentenced to house arrest on a bankruptcy fraud indictment and sentenced in March 2012 to three years in prison. But we digress...
In June of last year (2013) Mister and Missus Gretzky listed a 5,600+ square foot mini-manse in a small gated enclave in Scottsdale, AZ for $3.395 million and sold it lickety-split just a few months later for $2.875 million. Later in the same year the property laden pair listed a four bedroom and four bathroom townhouse-type residence inside the guarded gates of the Sherwood Country Club for $1,899,000. (As of today, it remains unsold and on the open market at the same price.)
That brings us to this week when we heard word via covert communique from Wanda N. Westlake that the former professional puck pusher and his former actress wife, Janet (Jones) Gretzky, hoisted their their current home in Thousand Oaks on the open market (in late January 2014) with an asking price of $10,500,000.
Property records and other digital resources show the couple purchased the 8,711 square foot single-story sprawler in November 2009 for $2,765,000 and gave the place a soup to nuts make over that included the addition of the swimming pool and accessory structures in the backyard. Current listing details laud the low-slung and liberally faux-quoined mansion as "unparalleled in terms of quality, privacy, luxury and chic sophistication." Is it now? Unparalleled, is it?
Listen, children, we've seen (listing) photos of the house as it appeared in all its beige-on-beige banality at the time the Gretzkys acquired it in 2009 and Your Mama believes deep in our cynical celebrity real estate soul that they spent oodles and oodles of money for high quality craftsmanship and premium-grade materials. The rehabbed house and grounds represent a radical and deliriously successful improvement over the property's woefully pedestrian previous iteration and were unquestionably designed for easy-breezy casual yet still expensively sumptuous living. However, unparalleled just seems to this inexcusably bitchy property gossip like a pretty big word to throw around. But anyways...
Official digital marketing materials show the spacious residence has five bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms plus a detached pool house complex with an unknown number of bathrooms and/or bedrooms. Listing details rapturously describe the house as an "Interplay of decadent textures and clean lines highlighted by natural light that beams through high soaring windows and doors."
Several rooms at the back of the house open to a series of luxuriously appointed verandas that smoothly transition the lavishly embellished and decorated indoor living spaces to the backyard entertainment and recreation areas. Half a dozen or more chaise loungers line the long sides of the super-sized swimming pool, about half of which is made up of a shallow area for semi-submerged sunbathing and lounging.
Beyond the swimming pool is the aforementioned, L-shaped pool house complex that includes a fully equipped fitness room, a poolside lounge pavilion, and a (pleasingly muscular) trellis over an open air kitchen/barbecue station and poolside dining area with outdoor fireplace.
Listing details show the property comes with a very reasonably and even rock bottom sounding $380 per month in home owner's association fees. We're not sure exactly what services those fees cover (or don't cover) but they most certainly do not provide access to the long list of recreational amenities provided at the private and prestigious Sherwood Country Club. Residency within the gates aren't required but membership is limited and only available by invitation or member referral. We can't be sure of the current cost of membership but back in 2011 The Hollywood Reporter reported the initiation fee alone was $160,000 and that members include(d) Justin Timberlake, Will Smith, Kevin James, Adam Sandler, and Mel Gibson.
Property records show that in addition to the two properties behind the gates of the Sherwood Country Club that are currently listed for sale—the townhouse and the mansion—Mister and Missus Gretzky also own a modest four bedroom home in Westlake Village, CA, they picked up in late 2004 for $919,000 as well as a small condominium in Palm Harbor, FL, they acquired in early 1998 for $119,000. (No, puppies, that's not a typo, they really paid $119,000 for a small condo about 25 miles northwest of Tampa.)
listing photos: Engel & Völkers
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