You'll find all sorts of amenities in this historic Holmby Hills megamansion, but you won't find a solitary wire hanger. This is the very mansion immortalized by Faye Dunaway in the epic Joan Crawford biopic "Mommie Dearest," and it can now be yours for $35 million.
Movie buffs will recognize the grand, sweeping staircase that Dunaway swanned up and down in the 1981 film. An almost identical copy was built on the Paramount lot, where most of the interior scenes were shot (including the memorable wire hanger scene).
The lavish pool area is the actual location where filmmakers shot Christina's birthday party scene, with the carousel and pony rides. It's also where a fiercely competitive mother-daughter swimming competition took place in the camp classic.
The pool area hasn't changed much since 1939, when it was built for prominent filmmaker Allan Dwan, who founded one of the first motion picture studios in Los Angeles and directed Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, among many other cinema stars of the era.
For that matter, the entire house -- with its Palladian mirrors and windows, french doors, antique marble fireplace, rolling lawns, and full-size tennis court -- hasn't changed much at all. The six bedrooms and five bathrooms on the 1.66-acre lot have remained pretty much the same.
And although it's an architectural classic with a cinematic pedigree, it's being marketed as an "opportunity to build your own dream estate and design whatever you want, or reconfigure this existing 1930s traditional Colonial-style home," says listing agent Christophe Choo of Christophe Choo Luxury Real Estate. Reading between the lines, he's almost dubbing it a tear-down. Or at least a major rebuild.
Wait a minute … a $35 million tear-down? What gives?
As with most things in real estate, it's all about location, location, location. The property is located in the most chic part of Holmby Hills, nestled up against Bel Air (where the Playboy mansion just sold for $105 million). The former Spelling mansion, which heiress Petra Ecclestone purchased in 2011 for a reported $150 million, is right up the street.
"We call it Billionaires' Row, because you almost have to be a billionaire, or close to it, to be able to afford one of these amazing luxury estates," Choo says of the home, which is on South Mapleton Drive. This street "has long been considered one of the finest streets in Los Angeles and the West Coast, if not the entire United States," he adds.
But if a rebuild is in order, we'll echo a famous line from the film and ask for a buyer to bring the ax.