Larry King Sheds Beverly Hills Mansion
In the wake of a surprise divorce filing in early 2019, after almost 22 years of marriage, veteran radio and television broadcaster Larry King has sold an opulently appointed Beverly Hills mansion for $15.5 million. The recently recorded sale price is a notable bit under the slightly shy of $17 million price tag but still a small fortune above the $11.75 million tax records show the 86-year-old, two-time Peabody winning former nighttime interview program host (“Larry King Live”) and his about-to-be seventh ex-wife Shawn Southwick King, who has said she was “blindsided” when she learned about the divorce filing from a reporter last year, plunked down for the not quite half-acre spread about 13 years ago.
Embellished with symmetrically aligned arched windows, baronial columns and stodgy stone quoins, the hulking, Tuscan-inspired main residence measures in at almost 9,600 square feet with six bedrooms and eight bathrooms. An approximately 1,200-square-foot poolside guesthouse adds another bedroom and bathroom, plus a workout room.
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A pair of floridly scrolled wrought iron driveway gates slide open to horseshoe driveway lorded over by a stout pair of palm trees. Towering, wrought iron encrusted glass doors tucked into a deep, arched loggia open to a conspicuously ostentatious double-height rotunda entry with an elaborately carved wood sweetheart staircase and a domed ceiling topped by a gigantic sky light. Elegant and decidedly traditional formal living and dining rooms flank the foyer in a classic manner and less formal, if no less extravagant family quarters include a colossal, stone-countered kitchen arranged around a boxcar-sized island and a combination family room and bar/games lounge decked out with a coffered wood ceiling, glass-fronted bookcases and two-tone inlaid parquet wood floors. Upstairs, five en suite guest bedrooms join a plush master suite replete with a separate sitting room and two decadent bathrooms.
A stone-columned arched loggia outside the kitchen and separate breakfast room looks out over a not especially big but privately high-hedged, verdantly landscaped and fastidiously maintained backyard that features evergreen faux-grassing, manicured plantings and extensive stone terracing around a dark-bottomed swimming pool.
The listing was held by Kurt Rappaport at Westside Estate Agency; The buyer was repped by Greg Dean of The Dean Company.
Launch Gallery: Larry King Sells Tuscan-Inspired Beverly Hills Mansion
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