LOCATION: Incline Village, NV
PRICE: $2,950,000
SIZE: 7,344 square feet, 7 bedroooms, 6 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama would bet the damn farm we're going to get a few bitter moans and groans from the architecturally and decoratively sensitive over the relative (un)worthiness of this particular celebrity-owned property but onward we press in the face of the expected exasperated hisses.
The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial recently tattled to Your Mama that impressively prolific, Grammy-winning singer/songwriter/producer Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds is eager to unload a huge and ho-hum house on a wooded hillside above Lake Tahoe in Incline Village, NV. A few minutes additional research on the internets revealed the asking price for Mister Babyface's indisputably luxurious and nicely sited but woefully generic-looking Incline Village manse was recently dropped to $2,950,000.
Mister Babyface doesn't cut the same wide swathe of celebrity that he used to but back in the day, children, he was a music industry tour de force who wrote and/or produced more than two dozen #1 hit songs. He was given three consecutive Grammys for Producer of the Year (1995-1997). In the 1980s, 1990s and into the 2000s he earned fame, fortune and respect writing and/or producing radio-friendly ditties for a glittery list of music industry heavy hitters who include (but are not limited to) Bobby Brown, Pebbles, Paula Abdul, Sheena Easton Patti LaBelle, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Brandy, Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan, Janet Jackson, Beyoncé, Céline Dion and Pink.
In 1989 he and music industry muckety-muck L.A. Reid formed LaFace Records (now part of Sony Music Entertainment) whose roster of clients included Toni Braxton, TLC, Cee-Lo Green, OutKast and Usher, to name a few. In the mid-1990s he and now ex-wife Tracey Edmonds started a film and television production operation with credits that include Soul Food, Josie and the Pussycats, and College Hill.
His multi-pronged Showbiz efforts, needless to say, had Mister Babyface rolling in clover and living high on the real estate hog. In the mid-80s he dropped—according to property records—$3,375,000 on a massive manse in the hoity-toity Holmby Hills 'hood. The mansion was the last home of Jack Benny and is located across the street from The Playboy Mansion. He sold the superstar-style estate in May 2004 for a spine-straightening $21,500,000 to now bitterly divorced former L.A. Dodger's owners Frank and Jamie McCourt. As far as we know, based on press reports of their ugly (and public) split, lap-swimming ex-missus McCourt retains ownership of the 2.58 acre spread that now has an outdoor swimming pool and an even bigger, Olympic length indoor one.
Anyways...In March 1995 Mister Babyface and then-wife Tracey splashed out $1,900,000 to acquire the sizable Incline Village residence in question, now listed at $2,950,000.
Current listing information shows the two story house—let's call it a muted, Rocky Mountain Chalet-style affair since we can't conjure any other apt architectural genre—was built in 1992, spans 7,344 square feet and includes a total of 7 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 3 fireplaces and a 3-car attached garage. Listing details are somewhat slim but do indicate the rather banal-looking and barely decorated brown and beige interiors are finished with top-grade materials including lots of cherry wood, marble, granite, mahogany and travertine.
The double height foyer with curving staircase and black crystal chandelier gives way to a large living room with vaulted ceiling and marble-faced fireplace flanked by over-sized windows that offer a sparkling, through-the-tree-tops view of Lake Tahoe. A built-in, pass-through wet bar (with dishwasher) separates the living room from the spacious dining room defined by gleaming (possibly mahogany) wood floors that continue in to the colossal eat-in kitchen outfitted with center work island and all the expected materials...granite, cherry, blah, blah, blah. A small, adjoining family room has a corner fireplace, (partially) paneled walls, a built-in entertainment center and a couple of painfully puny windows set uncomfortably high.
The master suite has a third fireplace, wall-to-wall carpeting, a private balcony with lake views, and an attached bathroom/dressing area equipped with double vanity and super-sized jetted tub surrounded by—you got it—swirly beige-on tan marble. A separate room somewhere in the house—we're not sure where—houses a tan-colored Jacuzzi tub also surrounded by swirly beige-on tan marble.
The downstairs living room open through a pair of French doors to a small deck and a wrap-around balcony on the second floor hangs partly over a shrubbery-enshrouded dining and entertainment terrace that extends off the back of the house. Rolling lawns, landscaped planting beds and stately trees surround the residence.
No doubt much to his chagrin and frustration and Mister Babyface, his scenically situated mansion has been for sale since March 2010 when it was first hoisted on the (open) market with an in-hindsight optimistic $3,500,000 asking price. Current listing information indicates Mister Babyface is open to a rental situation or lease with option to buy type of thing. The listing goes on to state the "Owner anxious" to sell and that (bargain hunting) interested parties should "submit all offers." Make of that, children, what y'all will. We're keeping our nose outta that fire.
A quick perusal of property records indicates that in addition to his Incline Village albatross Mister Babyface also owns a number of other houses and mansions in California and Nevada including a 7,508 square foot (mc)mansion in L.A.'s guard-gated Bel Air Crest neighborhood picked up in May 2004 for $4,100,000, a 3,614 square foot mock-Med tract house in a gated development in Rancho Cucamonga, CA bought in February 2008 for $780,000, and a non-descript tract house in Las Vegas, NV acquired way back in June 1996 for $255,000.
In April 2004, just before he and then-missus Tracey announced their split, Mister Babyface shelled out $5,150,000 for an 8,245 square foot (mc)mansion in the star-stocked guard-gated Mulholland Estates community. The hulking house—just down the street from Paris Hilton's pad and Charlie Sheen's lair—is now owned by his Stanford educated entertainment industry executive ex-wife Tracey Edmonds who—in case anyone might be curious—fake-married comedian Eddie Murphy on Bora Bora in 2008 and now runs around with not-quite-divorced former professional footballer Deion Sanders. Does the lady know how to pick 'em or does the lady know how to pick 'em?
Anyhoo...
listing photos: Coldwell Banker Select Real Estate