Compass: Last News

Over the years, unmolested and original midcentury modern homes have become increasingly scarce, even in the midcentury mecca that is Los Angeles. So when a 1958 gem in prime Los Feliz became available last year, for the very first time ever, potential buyers flocked to the residential time capsule. The unassuming house quickly sold for $3.1 million — a whopping $905,000 more than the asking price, or 41% over what the sellers were seeking.

California’s legalization of recreational marijuana has reaped incredible financial rewards for many in the cannabis industry, but most notably for those at the very top of the proverbial food (weed?) chain. One of those executives is Carissa Davino, a Chicago resident who now spends a significant amount of time in Los Angeles, where her various business interests are mainly headquartered.

Tinseltown scion and budding entertainment industry multi-hyphenate Jamie Iovine — he’s a DJ, a former WWE producer, former proprietor of the bygone Meltdown Comics and now the co-creator of mobile shopping platform Ntwrk — has opted to put down some permanent residential roots in a very central part of L.A, in the form of a $2.5 million cottage that’s essentially all-new.

Legendary singer-songwriter Neil Finn, Crowded House frontman and Fleetwood Mac’s newest member, has purchased an impressive new house on L.A.’s Eastside, in the perennially expensive and celeb-beloved community of Los Feliz. Records reveal Finn and longtime wife Sharon paid $4.3 million for the property, which was sold by Emmy-winning “Simpsons” writer Tim Long, former head writer for “The David Letterman Show.” And from 2007 to 2013, the house was owned by erstwhile “Grey’s Anatomy” star Katherine Heigl.

A Los Angeles residence tax records show is owned by Scotsman Gerard Butler has come available as a fully furnished rental at $17,500 per month. Veteran celebrity real estate watchers may recall this is not the first time the rugged, oft-bearded actor and producer has made his handsome, Spanish Revival-style residence in the foothills of the low-key and high-cost Los Feliz area available as a high-end rental: In 2016 it popped up at $15,000 per month and at the same time was floated for sale as on off-market listing at not quite $4.4 million.

Though it has humble beginnings rooted in a Pennsylvania skate camp, Ripndip has ballooned to become one of L.A.’s hottest apparel brands — and arguably now one of those hypebeast labels whose outsized popularity with clout chasers seems to defy any rational considerations. That success is largely thanks to Ripndip’s mascot Lord Nermal, the smiley cat who’s always flipping everybody off. Ripndip’s flagship store, a sleekly modern building on L.A.’s Fairfax Avenue, happens to sit right next door to James Jebbia‘s Supreme, one of Ripndip’s closest competitors. And naturally, the Ripndip store’s façade was formerly adorned with a giant mural of Lord Nermal, his royal kitty highness flagrantly giving Supreme the bird.

When he’s not busy playing for the Green Bay Packers, Wisconsin-based NFL star David Bakhtiari and his partner Frankie Shebby usually spend offseasons in his native California. And now the offensive tackle — currently signed to a four-year, $48 million contract extension — has chosen to put down some real estate roots in balmy Los Angeles, where he’s selected a brand-new, $3.9 million estate.

L.A.’s ever celeb-popular, Eastside enclave of Los Feliz is seeing another star join its ranks. Though she’s also appeared on major productions like “Gossip Girl” and “The Sopranos,” Emily Wickersham is best-known for her role as the Oklahoma-born special agent Eleanor Bishop on the CBS action drama “NCIS,” a major part she’s played since season 11 of the long-running show, now 17 seasons strong.

Though she remains locked in a long-running legal war with powerhouse music producer Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald, Kesha is no proverbial shrinking violet. The veteran singer-songwriter just released a new album, 2020’s joyous “High Road,” which Variety described as “the sound of reclamation and abandon, of finding her form and shedding old skin.” And so, after listening to that courageous rebound, it’s little surprise that this reborn Kesha has seen fit to upgrade her residential circumstances in a bold and impressive new way.

After dropping more than $20 million on a couple of high-maintenance landmark homes in Pasadena — more on that in a minute — “Avengers: Endgame” director Anthony Russo, a busy film and TV producer and a 2004 Emmy winner for directing the pilot episode of the cult-favorite TV series “Arrested Development,” has sold one of two neighboring residences in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, Calif., for a small bit more than $2 million.

Earlier this year, recently-married “Glee” and “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: An American Crime Story” star Darren Criss put his Los Angeles starter home up for sale. Lucky for him, buyers went hog-wild over the supremely located midcentury bungalow, which is tucked away in the coveted Los Feliz neighborhood of town on L.A.’s Eastside. The property quickly sold in a bidding war for $1.81 million, a hefty $113,000 premium over the asking price.

After more than two decades at Amazon, Greg Hart — most recently head of worldwide video and a member of Jeff Bezos’s senior leadership team — is leaving the ecommerce giant for a new gig.

With Coronavirus concern (and panic) spreading like wildfire across the city and world, German film and television director Tom Tykwer has hoisted his pint-sized co-operative apartment along a charming, tree-lined street in New York City’s trendy and historic Soho neighborhood up for sale at $800,000. Best known for directing the 1998 film “Run Lola Run” and co-creating, writing and directing the neo-noir Sky 1/Netflix series “Babylon Berlin,” the Berlin-based filmmaker hopes to double his money on the approximately 600-square-foot fifth-floor walk-up tax records show he scooped up almost 11 years ago for $400,000.

Low-profile tech entrepreneur George Ruan became an overnight billionaire earlier this year when Honey, the electronic coupon-clipping browser extension he co-founded with Ryan Hudson in 2012, was sold to PayPal for $4 billion in cash. That unprecedented mega-deal ranks as the biggest tech acquisition in Los Angeles history, easily eclipsing the $2 billion that Facebook paid for Oculus VR back in 2014. (Despite the sale, Ruan continues to officially lead the Honey team.)

“Queer Eye” fashion arbiter Tan France, also a co-host on “Next in Fashion,” Netflix’s strikingly similar answer to Bravo’s “Project Runway,” has celebrated his rising reality show success with the ever-so-slightly more than $2.5 million purchase of a 1920s Spanish villa along a winding street above L.A.’s perennially trendy Sunset Strip. Hidden behind a tall, vine-covered wall and secured behind wrought-iron gates, the hillside home has three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in close to 3,000 square feet.

A glass-encased gun wall, lavender sofas and angry anime figures made the listing for this L.A. mansion go viral in early January, back when it first popped up for sale. Tucked into the mountains above Beverly Hills, the secluded villa has an ordinary Tuscan-style McMansion exterior but an interior that’s been assaulted and overwhelmed by colorful decorative debauchery.

Film producer Steve Chasman, one of the handful of executive producers of the 2019 blockbuster action pic “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbes & Shaw,” and a producer for the upcoming Arnold Schwarzenegger crime-comedy “Kung Fury 2,” has his estate in the L.A. neighborhood of Pacific Palisades up for grabs at nearly $15 million.