Katy Perry Picks Up Secluded Beverly Hills Home in Star-Studded Enclave

BUYER: Katy Perry
SELLER: Cody Leibel
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $19,000,000
SIZE: 5,427 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: Property records don’t yet reflect a transfer of ownership but word on the celebrity real estate street is that bubble-gum pop music supernova Katy Perry has agreed to pay just shy of $19 million in an off-market deal for a secluded residence in a famously celeb-packed enclave in the upper Coldwater Canyon area of Beverly Hills. Almost entirely surrounded by undeveloped land, the 1.16-acre property is owned by C-Note Records owner Cody Leibel, scion of a substantial Canadian home building fortune, who acquired it in October 2007 for $9.205 million.

The two-story transitional contemporary of 5,427-square-feet sits behind massive gates at the end of an approximately one-quarter mile long, flagstone paved drive with off-street parking for upwards of 20 cars. Marketing materials from when the property was last available on the open market in 2009 at $16.5 million show there are five bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms, and three fireplaces. Walls of glass open the high-ceilinged interior spaces to shaded verandas and open patios that give way to lushly landscaped grounds that offer thick carpets of rolling lawns and a double-edged infinity pool with serene view into the heavily wooded canyon.

Although the supremely private property was not listed on the open market it’s certainly familiar to property gossips. Over the summer of 2009 rumors ran rampant Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, who then owned and still own another house just around the corner, made an offer on the property and later the same year there were more whispers Lady Gaga expressed serious interest in the property. (Gaga went on to lease a Bel Air mansion owned by Leibel’s father Lorne and later shelled out $23 million for a Malibu mansion and last year coughed up $5.25 million for the Hollywood Hills compound of late avant-garde musician Frank Zappa) Some of the other residents of the star-packed neighborhood include Adele, Jennifer Lawrence, Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden, Nicole Richie and Joel Madden, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, and Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis.

Miz Perry, whose long list of industry accolades include five American Music Awards and five MTV Music Awards but no Grammys despite more than a dozen nominations, currently owns two side-by-side homes at the top of Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. The properties, one with a Spanish-style residence and the other with a low-slung modern-organic contemporary once owned by Jake Gyllenhaal’s parents, were purchased in two separate but contiguous transactions in April 2013 for a total of $11.2 million from oil heiress and philanthropist Aileen Getty.

The purchase of the Beverly Hills property comes as a bit of a surprise given that after a much-publicized two-year long legal battle, Miss Perry’s dogged efforts to purchase the convent of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the hills between Los Feliz and Silver Lake recently moved forward. The California native agreed to pay around $14.5 million in cash for the 8-acre multi-structure nunnery that contains a total of 25 bedrooms and 29 bathrooms according to property records. The ecclesiastical compound’s sprawling main building, a quirky pastiche of Medieval, Spanish, Tudor and Gothic architecture designed and built in 1927 by architect Bernard Maybeck for radio pioneer and car dealership mogul Earle C. Anthony, wraps around a prairie-sized courtyard with a picturesque oval swimming pool.

listing photos: via Zillow

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