Melanie Lynskey Sells Echo Park Bungalow Above Asking Price (EXCLUSIVE)
SELLER: Melanie Lynskey
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $950,000
SIZE: 1,472 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: New Zealand born actress Melanie Lynskey, best known for her role as Charlie Sheen’s amiably lunatic stalker on “Two and a Half Men” and who more recently co-starred on the short-lived Duplass brothers ensemble dramedy series “Togetherness,” sold her homey, humble and charmingly eclectic Victorian bungalow just below Sunset Boulevard in L.A.’s once slightly dicey but speedily gentrifying and increasingly expensive Echo Park neighborhood for $950,000. Case in gentrification point, the unpretentious property was on the market less than two weeks before landing a buyer and the sale price was above the $899,000 asking price. The Kiwi actress, who popped on to the showbiz scene to great acclaim at the age of 16 in Peter Jackson’s 1994 Oscar-nominated film “Heavenly Creatures” and was engaged earlier this year to actor and Hollywood scion Jason Ritter, star of the upcoming fantasy drama series “Kevin (Probably) Saves the World,” purchased the property May 2004 for $597,500.
Privately concealed behind a quintessentially cute-as-a-button white picket fence and a visually impenetrable hedge, the turn of the 20th century residence has four bedrooms and two bathrooms in 1,472 square feet. A tiny yet still appealing front porch wraps around to the side of the house and interior spaces retain refreshed original architectural details such as refinished hardwood floors, stained glass windows and high ceilings with picture rail moldings. A small but proper entry vestibule opens to the living room that features a decorative fireplace and French doors that connect to a dining room painted a Tiffany-esque shade of blue. The eat-in kitchen is updated in a retro-bungalow manner with duo-tone green checkerboard vinyl flooring, a restored vintage range and hexagonal penny-tile counter tops on bead board faced cabinets.
There are two ordinary and not particularly spacious bedrooms on the main floor, one of them boldly painted grass-green and furnished by Miz Lynskey as a den/family room, and a supermodel skinny staircase winds up to the second floor where there are two more much less conventionally shaped bedrooms with sloped, wood-clad ceilings. Like the kitchen, both bathrooms are updated and renovated in a manner that acknowledges the age of the house, one with a classic claw-footed bathtub and the other lined in unfussy, time-honored white subway tiles. Alas, at least for anyone who sleeps upstairs, both bathrooms are on the main floor.
A just about too slender to be practical porch off the kitchen has a row of tomato-red trimmed casement windows that overlook a courtyard-sized backyard with a tree-shaded gravel lounging patio and a trellis-shaded dining terrace attached to the side of a detached one-car garage.
listing photos: Sotheby’s International Realty
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