Denise Richards Sure Stripped THIS House of Blandness
Outside, this house looks like any other multimillion-dollar suburban L.A. estate: beige with white trim, front lawn and simple landscaping, big curving driveway.
But step into the foyer, and a stairway carpeted in leopard spots hints of a dwelling that’s a little more Playboy Mansion than your usual family home. Cloaking a doorway at left are velvety black curtains that pull back to reveal less of a living room than a seductive lounge. Farther into the house, you’ll find such features as a mirror-tiled clawfoot tub, a dressing room with a corseted chair, and one room billed as a dog “hotel.”
This is how Denise Richards remodels a house.
The actress – a onetime Playboy cover model who’s perhaps better known as Charlie Sheen’s ex than for her sexy roles in late 1990s films, like Bond girl/nuclear physicist Christmas Jones in “The World Is Not Enough” – paid $4.4 million for the 1.14-acre Hidden Hills estate in August 2007, about a year after divorcing Sheen. [Editor’s note: We corrected the preceding sentence to reflect the fact that Richards was not a Playmate but a 2004 Playboy cover girl.]
Within less than a year, she was already trying to sell it again. (Rumor had it that neighbors objected to her reality show filming there. The Kardashians don’t live far away.) But the housing bubble had burst, and a couple of years and price cuts later, she’d cut the price to $3.3 million and still couldn’t sell.
So in 2010 she took the house off the market and instead embarked on a massive remodel, expanding the house about 50 percent, to 8,300 square feet. Some of the nearly 2,500 extra square feet went toward an extra bedroom and bathroom, bringing the total to six bedrooms and eight bathrooms.
2007 listing photos — from before Richards moved in — suggest that the cookie-cutter house was pretty much screaming for some updating. The one Richards imposed did strip the house of blandness, we can say that for sure.
Yet after nearly a year on the market, plus about a half-million-dollar price cut, the new incarnation of Richards’ house hasn’t managed to sell either. She initially listed it with the Altman Brothers in June at $7,749,000; now Marc and Rory Shevin are offering it at $7,295,000.
Our slideshow here has photos pre-Richards (the 2007 listing, before she bought it), mid-Richards (her 2008 listing, when she’d owned it for about a year but hadn’t yet expanded it), and now (post-remodel). Where possible, we’ve matched up the spaces.
Which incarnation do you prefer? And is the current house worth the $7.3 million she’s asking now? Let us know in the comments!
More on Yahoo Real Estate:
• Aging Playboy Mansion Asks $200M; Some Call It a ‘Teardown’ (68 photos)
• Tiny Private Paradise of an Island Eases You Into Off-Grid Living (54 photos)
• Adora-Couple Emily Blunt and John Krasinski List ‘Sexy’ Home at $8M (57 photos)
