LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $799,000
SIZE: 1,467 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Now that married actors Charlie Day and Mary Elizabeth Ellis have settled into the six and half million dollar house in the celeb-saturated foothills of Los Feliz in Los Angeles that they surreptitiously purchased late last year—more on that in a minute—they've hoisted their much more modest starter home in the hipster haven of Silver Lake on the market with an asking price of $799,000.
Miz Day, 38, has been shaking his Tinseltown money maker since the early Aughts. The music-minded actor quickly landed a recurring role on the (long ago canceled) police procedural Third Watch and in 2005 he hit Showbiz pay dirt when he created the long-running and lucratively syndicated sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In addition to writing, producing and co-starring in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Mister Day also starred in the successful silver screen comedy Horrible Bosses and the money minting sci-fi action flick Pacific Rim. He voiced one of the main characters for the international superhit animated movie Monsters University and, in 2011 and 2012, he produced unsuccessful single seasons of a sitcom (How to Be a Gentleman) and an animated comedy (Unsupervised).
Mister Day met his missus, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, in New York in 2001 and in 2004 the then-dating couple played incestuous siblings on the high-larious (and cancelled) Reno 911. They married in 2006 and in 2011 they made a baby. Mavel tov! Along the way Miz Ellis popped up in brief roles in a bevy of television programs (Perfect Couples, Georgia, Happy Endings and Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and has maintained recurring roles in New Girl and her own hubby's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Anyways, property records show Mister Day and Miz Ellis purchased their Silver Lake starter home as an unmarried couple in June 2004 for $660,000. Current listing information shows the tree-house like hillside residence was originally built in 1951 and has three bedrooms and two bathrooms in 1,467 of lightly updated but well maintained square feet.
Even—and perhaps especially—in Los Angeles it's quite desirable to have a protected, off-street spot or two to park one's four wheeled mode of personal transport. However, butter beans, anyone with eyeballs can plainly see the bus shelter-like structure with the cantilevered roof that was designed and—ahem—erected to solve that issue at the front of the Day-Ellis residence was, to put it mildly, ill-conceived. Thankfully a smart architect can fix that problem quickly, if expensively, with a more appropriate and less offensive design.
Anyways, once past the bus shelter/car port it's an awkward half flight down to the front door. Inside there are restored (or, at least, refreshed) hardwood floors throughout the main living spaces including in the living room with where there's also a wood-burning fireplace and an entire wall of sliding glass doors that open to a sheltered deck with through-the-trees canyon view.
The kitchen, accessible directly from the living room or through the compact formal dining room, has what appears to be original cabinetry painted olive and set off by winter white solid surface counter tops. The stainless steel appliances are adequate quality and, over the sink, we spy an Old School jalousie window. Call us crazy—and Lord knows we've been called far worse—but Your Mama feels a jalousie window over the kitchen sink. An aggressively utilitarian door—fitted with a cat door—conveniently links the kitchen to a roomy, tree-shaded deck perfect for early morning yoga and afternoon barbecues.
Two guest/family bedrooms—one with direct access to a dining deck through sliding glass doors—share a small hall bathroom with vintage, baby blue tile work in the tub/shower combination. It's decidedly outdated but it all looks in remarkably good condition. The master suite isn't especially large but it does have a canyon view bedroom, a separate dressing room, and an updated and upgraded bathroom with two sinks set into a floating cabinet and a tile-lined combination tub and shower.
Presumably the couple have already moved into the much larger and more expensive house in the Los Feliz area which, according to real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak (and confirmed by Manny Motormouth), they quietly acquired in an off-market deal in November 2013 for $6,525,000. Our research and resources show they bought the 5,610 square foot house, with five bedrooms and six bathroom on on a nearly three-quarter acre city view lot, from recently ousted Universal Pictures honcho Adam Fogelson.* Some of their nearby neighbors include Zac Efron, Adam Goldberg, Go-Gos' Siobhan Fahey of the Go-Gos, Evanescence's Ben Moody, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and Alexander Skarsgård not to mention the house that Constance Zimmer just sold for fifty grand more than its $1,175,000 asking price.
*Mister Fogelson, for those who like to dig a little deeper, went on to drop $5.15 million for a 7,616 square foot fixer-upper abode on a very private and gated 1.4 acre parcel in Toluca Lake.
listing photos: Figure 8 Realty