LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,806,000
SIZE; 2,422 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama first heard it last week from the freakishly well-connected real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak and then we heard if from our eerily well-informed celebrity real estate confrère Lucy Spillerguts: In late April (2013), hard-bodied actor Joe Manganiello quietly coughed up $1,806,000 for a updated and upgraded 1960s ranch house nestled into a discrete—and discreet—neighborhood between L.A's Laurel and Nichols canyons.
Not surprisingly, Mister Manganiello—a six-foot-five-inch classically trained thespian with rippling muscles and uncommonly good looks—found immediate if slow burning Showbiz success soon after arriving in Hollywood in the early 2000s when he landed the role of Flash Thompson in the Spider-Man film franchise. He went on to score recurring roles on a handful of television programs such as American Heiress, ER, How I Met Your Mother, and One Tree Hill before he nabbed his plummiest role to date, that of a surveying company owning werewolf on the astoundingly successful supernatural drama True Blood. Mister Manganiello's professional credits also include a number of theater productions and a growing bunch of feature films including the star studded but woefully flaccid rom-com What To Expect When You're Expecting. Last year, much to the delight of lusty ladies and concupiscent gays around the globe, the scraggly bearded and bodaciously built beau hunk bared just about every inch of his carefully sculpted man-body in the high octane male stripper fest Magic Mike.
Evidence Your Mama quickly and easily discovered on the internets suggests there may have been stiff competition for the house as property records reveal Mister Manganiello—through an ambiguously named trust—paid $17,000 more than the last asking price of $1,790,000 for the low slung, single-story residence that contains four bedrooms and three bathrooms in 2,422 square feet.
A slate courtyard lined along the street with a glimmering row of stainless steel planter boxes leads to the front door that opens to a proper entrance hall. A stacked stone wall the color of dry sand anchors one side of the foyer and wraps around to face the over-sized fireplace in the wood-floored living room. The adjoining dining room, separated from the living room by an elevated stone tile walkway and row of slender square columns, has a quartet of French doors the open to the backyard. The living and dining room flow directly into a family room with more wood floors, more French doors to the backyard, and a handsome, geometrically minded slate-faced corner fireplace.
The well-equipped, U-shaped kitchen has dark brown or maybe black Shaker style cabinets with sleek stainless steel hardware, mottled grey counter tops that may or may not be granite, and a customary suite of high-quality stainless steel appliances. The adjoining breakfast area has floor to ceiling pantry cabinets one one side and frosted glass double doors on the other that conceal a wet bar with under-counter wine fridge, stainless steel vessel sink, and floating shelves on which the sellers displayed their booze bottles and stemware.
The master suite isn't huge but it is certainly comfortably appointed with a custom-fitted walk-in closet, a separate dressing area with built-in dressers, and an all-beige bathroom slathered in travertine. French doors conveniently connect directly to the backyard. It's not, however, the master bedroom but one of the three secondary guest/family bedrooms that's the real voyeuristic show stopper since all the separates the sleeping area from the attached bathroom is a transparent wall of floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall glass.
The back of the L-shaped house embraces a courtyard type back yard where dark slate terracing wraps completely around a dark bottomed, kidney-ish shaped swimming pool and spa. We love the look of that dark slate but we imagine it could get a little roasty on the tootsies when—as it regularly does in Southern California—the mercury spikes. Anyways, there's plenty of room for dining, lounging and sunbathing as well as a built-in barbecue and a built-in fire pit.
Mister Manganiello currently squires curvaceous brunette model Bridget Peters who, at least according to Lucy Spillerguts, currently shacks up with her super-sized True Blood stud.
listing photos: Keller Williams Beverly Hills