At the time, Angelina Jolie confessed that as soon as her six children reached the age of majority, she would move out of the United States. For this, she was willing to sell the mansion of just over 1,000 square meters that she bought for 24.5 million dollars in 2017, a year after her divorce from Brad Pitt. Six months ago, she put it up for sale for 29.85 million dollars.
The property located in the exclusive neighborhood of Los Feliz in Los Angeles belonged to silent film pioneer Cecil B. DeMille, creator of The Ten Commandments (1923) and co-founder of Paramount Studios.
It was The New York Post that exclusively reported at the end of August that Madonna was interested in the property. Finally, U.S. media outlets such as the real estate portal Robb Report have published the news.
The anecdote is how the queen of pop carried out the transaction. As revealed by the aforementioned media, the singer's personal assistants called the real estate agents, Ernie Carswell from Sotheby's International Realty, and Jon Grauman from Resident Group, to conduct a personalized virtual tour of the residence. The singer of La Isla Bonita would have paid 22 million dollars for the mansion (about 19 million euros), almost eight million less than what the star of Maleficent was asking for.
It is currently unknown if Madonna will consider the house as her primary residence, as she normally lives in New York in another urban mansion composed of three contiguous buildings. Another question is where Jolie will settle, as one of her first options is Cambodia, where she adopted her son Maddox Chivan in 2002.
The features of the century-old property are incredible. It has six bedrooms and 10 bathrooms on a plot of 8,000 square meters. Inside, there is a spacious living room with a fireplace, a dining room, a kitchen, a library, a wine cellar, and a gym. It also has a garage for three cars with a guardhouse.
The historic house designed in 1913 is the most famous work of architect B. Cooper Corbett, whose Beaux-Arts style embodied the glamour of that golden age of cinema. The facade blends neoclassicism, baroque, and French eclecticism, a very popular trend in Hollywood until 1920. Architecturally, it is symmetrical, with large windows, well-defined axes, and a small colonnade at the entrance door as its most distinctive features.
What stands out the most is the porch at the back with Tuscan art columns and a wooden pergola ideal for unwinding thanks to the suspended swing made of woven rattan covered with white canvas. This area leads directly to the garden.
In the perfectly manicured garden, there is a classic Old Hollywood-style pool with a limestone edge, integrated lighting, and elevated jets in the shape of an arcade. The white loungers and umbrellas provide the necessary warmth. The century-old trees are a bonus.
Here, you can find elements that denote well-understood luxury with a pool house, a guest studio with its own lounge and fireplace, and a specific tea house.
It is rumored that Cecil B. DeMille filmed the Garden of Gethsemane scene in the silent film The King of Kings in this area of the estate in 1927.