Rose McGowan Snags Hollywood Hills House

BUYER: Rose McGowan
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,390,000
SIZE: 2,927 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In mid-August sex-pottish small and silver screen actress Rose McGowan (Red Sonja, Conan the Barbarian, Charmed) charmingly regaled chat show ho-stess Chelsea Handler with her recent and high-larious (if costly) tales of real estate woe.

In early 2011 Miss McGowan put her historic residence in Los Angeles' Los Feliz area on the market with an asking price of $1,849,000. She'd decided to move, she told Miz Handler, because she
suffered severe allergies brought on, she thought, by something in the house. She'd spent, according to Miss McGowan, seventeen thousand bucks trying to clean the duct work (etc.) but turns out she wasn't allergic to anything in the ducts or bowels of the house but rather to her easily swapped out down pillows.

Alas, by the time she figured out she was allergic to down she'd already (and inadvertently) fed a bunch of real estate professionals pot brownies–her assistant left them on the kitchen counter during an open house–and sold her house for at a loss in late May for $1,775,000 to music manager Scott Rodger whose client roster includes (or has included) superstars like Paul McCartney, Björk, and Arcade Fire.

Miss McGowan, raised in a hippy-dippy religious cult in Italy and Oregon, told Miss Handler she hated her new house and that she actually tried to buy her old house in Los Feliz back but Mister Rodger wanted "a lot more money" for the quirky and well-patinated 4 bedroom and 2.75 bathroom abode that Miss McGowan purchased in July 2004 for $1,850,000.

We felt for likable Miss McGowan but quickly forgot about her real estate plight until yesterday when the statuesque blond gal who puts together the celebrity real estate stuff at Trulia Luxe revealed Miss McGowan slammed down $1,390,000 on the last day of November for a mid-century modern-ish residence in the Hollywood Hills that lacks any and all the vintage charm of her beloved but lost Los Feliz home.

Since the transaction for her new mid-century modern-ish digs high atop Nichols Canyon was recorded several months after Miss McGowan told Miss Handler how much she hated her new house we just can't be sure if this house is the same house she bought and hates or if this is a third house for which–one hopes–she harbors a greater appreciation than the one she told Miss Handler made her cry.

Whatever the case, property records and listing information shows Miss McGowan's newest house in the Hollywood Hills, a collection of boxy volumes joined by a towering curtain wall of glass that signifies the front entry, measures 2,927 square feet over two floors with a total of 4 bedrooms and 3 or 3.5 bathrooms depending on where in the listing one looks.

The airy, double-height entry–punished in listing photos with a fleshy color we hope Miss McGowan has the good sense to let her nice, gay decorator fix–has a floating switchback staircase with steel supports and concrete treads. The stairs lead to the second floor where the home's primary living areas are located and where the ceilings are lower than most will find optimal, the floors a combination of polished concrete, medium-brown hardwood and taupe wall-to-wall carpeting, and the kitchen and bathrooms recently remodeled with a crisp, clean-lined cabinetry and sleek modern hardware.

A chunky, stone tile-encrusted and somewhat awkwardly located double-sided fireplace warms both the "formal" living and dining rooms. The living room, spacious enough to easily accommodate a grand piano, opens to the broad backyard terrace through a not-quite-wide-enough bank of wood-framed glass doors and the dining room has a custom designed built-in floating corner buffet and another not-quite-wide-enough bank of wood-framed glass doors that open to the backyard terrace.

A wide opening that can be closed off by a some flimsy beige curtains joins the dining room to the contemporary center-island kitchen complete with custom cabinetry (some white lacquer some walnut), a bevy of medium-grade stainless steel appliances, black granite counter tops (or some other sort of solid surface), and a double-stack of open shelving on either side of the commercial-style range and exhaust hood most suitable for the display of cookery knick-knacks, daily use dish wear, and extensive collection of dry herbs and spices.

The property, nestled into a steep up slope, encompasses just over a quarter acre of land but most of it is unusable, or at least unused. At the front there's little more than a short driveway that connects the street to the conveniently direct entry two-car garage, an extra-wide set of entry steps, and a raised planting bed full of drought tolerant plants. At the back outdoor space is somewhat limited to a wide stamped concrete terrace where a nipple-high rough-to-touch stacked stone wall keeps the hillside at bay and a cozy covered section provides a welcome an shady respite from the scorching summer sunshine.

Given Miss McGowan's previous homes–that would be the historic Spanish is Los Feliz and before that an historic Spanish in the Whitley Heights' hood just above Hollywood, this lackluster (but not un-fixable) 1964 contemporary seems a strange residential shoe for her to wear. Iffin we didn't know any different–and, really, we don't–we'd think this is the house that made Miss McGowan cry As far as Your Mama is concerned it's not nearly private enough, lacks historic character and desperately needs the expensive talents of a nice, gay decorator to squeeze some stylish blood from this real estate turnip.

listing photos: Michael Andrew McNamara Photography for Prudential California Realty / Beverly Hills