Ryan Reynolds Lists at a Loss Above the Sunset Strip

SELLER: Ryan Reynolds
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,599,000
SIZE: 1,789 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In the early months of 2007 hunky he-man actor Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Definitely Maybe, National Lampoon's Van Wilder) and his long-time lady-mate/fiancee Alanis Morissette busted up and went their separate ways. It wasn't long before handsome Mister Reynolds hooked up and quickly coupled with curvaceous actress Scarlett Johansson who, in May 2007, had spent a very a-list $7,000,000 for an historic Spanish style casa in the star-studded Outpost Estates area of Los Angeles, CA.

We're not sure when Mister Reynolds and Miss Johansson began to shack up together but we do know that in October of 2007, some six months after Miss Johansson snatched up her house in the Outpost Estates, Mister Reynolds coughed up $1,715,000 for a modestly-sized single-story house of his own perched on a ridge high above the Sunset Strip.

Here's the weird part, puppies: Your Mama can't imagine they did it on purpose but we also can't fathom they were not wide-eyed aware that abtastic Mister Reynolds could stand on the back patio of his new crib above the Sunset Strip and look directly across the canyon at Miss Johansson's big house in the Outpost Estates less than two football field lengths away. Indeed, the red tile roof of Miss Johansson's house is fuzzily visible in several listing photos (shown below) date-stamped September 2009, when Mister Reynolds first and unsuccessfully attempted to sell the property.
The comely couple became engaged in May 2008 and married in an all but secret ceremony in September of the same year at a wilderness resort outside Mister Reynolds' native Vancouver, British Columbia. Alas, their wedded bliss was short lived. They revealed their decision to split via a joint statement in December 2010 and their divorce was finalized in early July 2011. During the short time they were coupled and married, Mister Reynolds and Miz Johansson were regular riders on the celebrity real estate carousel.

Just before the comely couple got engaged, Miss Johansson spent $2,100,000 on a 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom penthouse pad with a glittery city view terrace on East 53rd Street in Midtown Manhattan. Starting in April 2009 Your Mama starting hearing that Miss Johansson–by then Missus Reynolds–wanted to dump her digs in the Outpost Estates neighborhood. She eventually listed the property on the open market in February 2010 with an asking price of $4,995,000, just over two million bucks less than she paid for the place not counting renovation, decoration and carrying costs. It didn't take long for Miss Johansson–then still Missus Reynolds–to sell her unwanted residence but records show she took a gut-punching $3,000,000 loss on the property when it sold in June 2010 for $4,000,000 to television producer/writer Matt Tarses (Scrubs, Sports Night).

Although their marriage had done swirled down the Tinesltown Terlit of Love by early December 2010, they must have felt confident enough about their young marriage in the summer of 2010 to make (at least) two real estate acquisitions, one in the unlikely locale of rural Louisiana and the other in the much more obvious Los Feliz area of Los Angeles.

In the June of 2010 the comely couple reportedly coughed up around $350,000 for a farmette near Lafayette, LA that includes a squat-looking quasi-Colonial style wart of a house with maniacal mint-colored shutters and a rusty barn fashioned mostly from corrugated metal panels. Mister Reynolds was at that time filming the successful superhero action film Green Lantern in the area.

A few months later, just four short months before their separation was make public, Mister Reynolds and Miss Johansson spent $2,900,000 on what's known as The Wong House, a low-slung mid-century modern with 2 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms tucked into the hills of Los Angeles' historic and celeb-friendly Los Feliz neighborhood. Property records show the city view house has not been sold and, although we can't vouch for it, at least one report from early 2011 purports that Mister Ryan retained ownership of the Los Feliz residence while Miss Johansson kept the farmette in Louisiana in her property portfolio along with the penthouse apartment in Midtown Manhattan.

Anyhoo, let's get back to the matter at hand, which is the hip-roofed ranch-style residence located above the Sunset Strip that Mister Reynolds bought in October of 2007 for $1,715,000 and–thanks to The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial-currently has on the market with a $1,599,000 price tag. A few quick flicks of the well-worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that's a fractional but not insignificant $116,000 less than he paid for the property four years ago. Mister Reynolds attempted to sell the house

This is not, as mentioned above, Mister Reynolds' first attempt to sell this house. In the fall of 2009 he put the property on the market with an asking price of $1,900,000 but withdrew the listing six months later for unknown reasons. He put it back on the market in late July 2011 with a much reduced priced tag of $1,690,000, an amount that his since been reduced by nearly a hundred grand to its current $1,599,000.

Listing information shows the house has 2 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms in 1,789 square feet of single level interior space. The house, directly across the street from a house currently owned by sitcom star Matthew Perry, sits at the tail end of a culd-de-sac and, like many houses in the hills and mountains around Los Angeles, sits hard up on the street with the only off-street parking available in the attached two-car garage.

Entrance to the very ordinary but full of potential house is through a gated and high-walled courtyard at the front of the house. Inside the main living/dining area has wide-plank hardwood floors with distressed finish, a vaulted wood beam ceiling, fireplace, and a full wall of floor-to-ceiling wood-framed glass panels and sliding doors that join the house with the covered patios and terraces that just out over the canyon at the back of the house. A wide opening in the dining area connects the main living area to the not particularly large or special galley kitchen adequately equipped with ordinary raised-panel white cabinetry, grey counter tops that may or may not be some sort of stone or solid surface material, white subway tile back splash and stainless steel appliances that include a half-width under-counter wine fridge.

Listing photos show one of the bathrooms–probably the master, but we're not sure–has wainscot mill work that surrounds a claw-footed tub, an over-sized separate shower cubicle with white subway tiles, and bubble gum pink walls.

The back of the house opens to a deep covered terrace with with Mexican paver tiles floor that steps down to an open terrace long views over the mansion dotted canyons and towards the Hollywood Reservoir and, as mentioned before, Mister Reynold's ex-wife's former home where–we presume he also lived for at least some portion of their romance and short marriage.

Listing information states the house has a newer roof, tank-less water heater, impact resistant windows and French doors, a security system and solar heating.

Before the children get 49 kinds of hostile over the rather dismal day-core keep in mind that Your Mama does not know if Mister Reynolds occupies this premises–which would make him responsible for the haphazard furnishings and not entirely wisely chosen paint colors–or if , more likely, listing photos show the house furnished and "decorated" by a rental tenant.

We also have no intel or inside information about it, but in the months after their announced split The NY Daily News reported that Mister Reynolds went searching for a new residence in New York City's TriBeCa neighborhood.

listing photos: Keller Williams / Beverly Hills