Hospital Drama Veteran Kate Walsh Offers Encino Estate as Luxury Rental

OWNER: Kate Walsh
LOCATION: Encino, CA
PRICE: $17,500 per month
SIZE: 4,332 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms plus guesthouse with bath

YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: After she briefly set it out for rent earlier in the year at $15,000 per month, actress Kate Walsh re-listed her comfortably luxurious estate in Encino, CA, as a plushly furnished luxury lease with a notably higher asking price of $17,500 per month. The ginger-tressed television hospital drama veteran, currently starring on the acclaimed Netflix series “13 Reasons Why” and soon to appear in the silver screen spy thriller “Felt” about FBI agent Mark Felt, the Watergate whistle-blower better known as “Deep Throat,” purchased the gated property in July 2013 for $2.725 million. Painted a moody and modern-minded shade of dark grey with black trim, the clapboard-sided Cape Cod-meets-ranch-style home was built in 1950 on a 1.03-acre parcel in the affluent and slightly under the radar Royal Oaks neighborhood. There are three en suite bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in 4,332-square-feet plus a detached guesthouse with bathroom that could, per listing details, be used as a “Pilates studio, home gym or lounge.”

The entire property was extensively and, presumably, expensively renovated by the former “Private Practice” and “Grey’s Anatomy” actress and includes an invitingly ample foyer that steps down to a pleasantly cavernous living room with medium-brown hardwoods underfoot and a vaulted ceiling crossed by sturdy wood beams overhead. There’s an arrestingly handsome if unexpectedly minimalist fireplace and, in front of a vast, 36-paned window that looks out to the backyard, a full band set up with baby grand piano, drum set and microphone stand. The dining room has a long wall of glass doors that fold open to the swimming pool along one wall while the other side of the space is completely open to a cook-centric kitchen snazzily decked out with a mix of marble and wood countertops, navy blue cabinetry with glinting brass hardware, and a gigantic, wig snatcher of a pot rack hung over a sizable center island with vegetable sink. A long peninsula counter with integrated snack bar separates the kitchen from a cozy sitting room with flat-screen television and beyond the kitchen a small home office has a vaulted ceiling and a roomy family/media room features a full-wall of bookshelves and a movie screen-sized flat-screen television.

Bedrooms are located in a separate wing and include two guest suites, each with a private bathroom, plus a spacious master suite that serves up a fireplace, custom fitted walk-in closet, room-wide bank of accordion fold glass doors and a boudoir-style sitting/dressing room that can be closed off from the bedroom with bi-fold doors but remains totally open to a bathroom decadently sheathed, floor and walls, in book matched slabs of marble.

A partly tree-shaded driveway runs up one side of the property to a two-car garage discreetly tucked up under the otherwise single story house and the landscaped areas are festively laced with numerous strands of overhead lights and incorporate lush and meandering lawns, flowering gardens, and a swimming pool surrounded by brick trimmed concrete terracing. There’s also a secluded, oak-shaded lounge area with fire pit and a lighted tennis court girdled by a necessary but none-the-less unsightly chain link fence.

Miz Walsh previously owned a 1920s Mediterranean Revival in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles she acquired in July 2007 for $4.75 million. The 2011 People’s Choice Award nominee shared the 5,940-square-foot home with her now ex-husband, studio executive and producer Alex Young, and, after close to three years on and off the market at a variety of prices, finally sold it at a small loss in June 2013 for $4.675 million.

Listing photos: The Agency

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