English Actress Julia Ormond Lists L.A. Lair

SELLER: Julia Ormond
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA (Brentwood)
PRICE: $2,875,000
SIZE: 2,842 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Earlier today the long-legged blond gal at Trulia Luxe Living beat Your Mama to the celebrity real estate punch with her short report on The Los Angeles, CA residence English actress Julia Ormond (most recently seen in My Week With Marilyn) put on the market this week with a $2,875,000 price tag

Miz Ormond, born into a well-to-do family, launched into near-superstardom in the mid-1990s with much lauded and applauded roles in Legends of the Fall, First Night, and Sabrina. She was then and unfairly sometimes called "The Next Julia Roberts" by the entertainment media, which just seems ridiculous because what the devil does that even mean? Anyhoo, since then her Showbiz star has shined less brightly but not due to a shortage of well-regarded roles on television and in films such as The Baby of Mâcon, Inland Empire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Che, and the HBO movie Temple Grandin for which she took home an Emmy.

Property records show Miz Ormond purchased her pretty pad in the low-key but decidedly-affluent Los Angeles enclave of Brentwood in June 1999, just about the height of her professional salad days. The busy beavers at Blockshopper show she she paid $1,563,000 for the south of Sunset Boulevard property located a conveniently short stroll from the laid-back but very chi-chi shopping and dining complex known as The Brentwood Country Mart. The purchase came right about the time she married her now-ex-second husband, advertising executive and political activist Jon Rubin, co-founder of the non-partisan non-profit organization Rock the Vote.
 
Miz Ormond's Mediterranean meets Monterey Colonial-style crib was originally built in 1928 and measures 2,842 square feet according to the L.A. County Tax Man—listing information conspicuously does not show the square footage—and contains 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms according to listing information.

The two-story house sits a bit closer to the very narrow street—a hedge lined and tree-shaded lane, really—than one might ordinarily hope in a nearly three million dollar house that weighs in under 3,000 square feet. It also, however, sits privately behind a thorny tangle of fuchsia bougainvillea that straddles a tall privacy fence that girdles a gated, brick-paved entry courtyard thick with vines and potted plants.

Primary living and entertaining spaces include a living room with fireplace, sun-soaked dining room with deep bay window, a home office with outdoor access, and L-shaped eat-in galley-style kitchen with built-in breakfast banquette and an adjoining family room with wood-beamed ceiling, built-in bookshelves (filled with actual books), over-sized multi-mullioned windows and, curiously, faded denim blue walls.

Gallery white walls and rich, espresso-colored hardwood floors throughout most of the house act as a neutral and high-contrast canvas for Miz Ormond's elegantly casual and more than a little Shabby Chic day-core that snaps, crackles and pops with snippets and swatches of bright colors: There is a row of vermilion poppies on the mantel over the fireplace in the nearly all white living room; The table at the built-in breakfast banquette in the kitchen is the color of sunshine; One of the secondary bedrooms has hot pink window treatments and a single, yolk-yellow decorative pillow on the otherwise all-white bed.

The master bedroom, comprised of private office/sitting room, bedroom with fireplace, and remodeled bathroom, opens out to a private deck that sits amid the tree tops. Other rooms open to covered balconies at the front and rear of the residence and the backyard steps down the sloped parcel and includes secluded-feeling tree-shaded terrace for dining and lounging has an outdoor fireplace.

listing photos: Prudential California / Brentwood