With lush landscaping, fountains, and stone walking paths, this Mediterranean-style home for sale in Beverly Hills, CA, seems like your classic LA mansion — one with a $42.5 million price tag.
But the seven-bed, eight-bath manse, named Bella Vista, has been home to some Hollywood legends. Built in the late 1920s for director, producer, and screenwriter King Vidor (nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Director), the 6,976-square-foot home has unique details.
A fireplace greets guests in the entry, which leads to an octagonal living room. There are two libraries and a pub with redwood floors. The main house has three bedrooms, with an opium den above the master suite. (Yes, really.) There are two guest cottages on the property, as well as a two-story guesthouse with two additional bedrooms, two kitchens, and two living rooms.
Eventually the home was sold to Drew Barrymore’s grandfather, John Barrymore, an actor on stage and screen who lived a life of Hollywood royalty, complete with a tempestuous personal life (including four wives) and notoriously strange behavior. (He once stole a totem pole from an Alaskan fishing village. Coincidentally, that pole was just returned to the village a couple of weeks ago.)
The home’s most recent owner was the late Tony Scott, known for directing blockbusters such as Top Gun and Crimson Tide, who died in 2012.
Images courtesy of Westside Estate Agency Inc. (via The MLS). The listing agent is Stephen Shapiro.
