Step inside Brad Pitts homes from a $40m Carmel castle to Château Miraval

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• San Jose’s Los Tigres del Norte still going strong after more than 50 years
• Real Estate
• 20 least affordable US cities to buy a home are all in California
• Kurtenbach: The time is right for Kevin Durant and the Warriors to reunite
• Record deals and tax-avoidance maneuvers: Southern California’s priciest sales of 2023
• How California fares in 20 national rankings, from housing to crypto to wellness

The 3,000-square-foot mansion was never publicly listed for sale and sold off-market at a purchase price that local agents told the outlet makes it the most expensive home ever sold in the Carmel area. Like Tintagel Castle, the structure of the home grows organically out of the rock and lies on the precipice of a sheer cliff. The exterior is built completely of stone, with grand arched windows and a red Mediterranean-style tile roof. The interiors, while stately and voluminous, also offer quiet, intimate spaces, some with whimsical carvings of maritime motifs integrated into the stonework.

San Jose’s Los Tigres del Norte still going strong after more than 50 years

A historic home perched on a seaside bluff is the latest addition to Brad Pitt’s impressive real estate portfolio, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Ad Astra star, who is something of an architecture aficionado and even narrated the Frank Lloyd Wright documentary Unity Temple in 2020, paid $40 million for the majestic abode, known as the D.L. James House after the American writer who commissioned its design in 1918.

Real Estate

With age comes wisdom and I have said it before and I say it again, I will take wisdom over youth any day.” ~ Brad Pitt. His midcentury-style, three-story house had terrazzo floors, cantilevered eaves, and beamed ceilings. It’s surrounded by terraced gardens, a skate park, and a pair of side-by-side swimming pools, one round and the other oval. The waterfront house which is on a single floor comes with a simple, handcrafted, and well-designed wooden interior. The D.L James house is decorated with the ageless beauty and elegant quality of carved marble. Brad Pitt’s main residence spans 3,793 square feet and has three bedrooms and four bathrooms.

20 least affordable US cities to buy a home are all in California

Carmel's $40M “Butterfly House” Finds a Buyer - The Real Deal

Carmel's $40M “Butterfly House” Finds a Buyer.

Posted: Wed, 05 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

L. James House in the Carmel area of Monterey County, adding another significant real estate gem to his portfoliom which he said could be his new bachelor pad. This historic home is another addition to the Fight Club star's property portfolio. He also owns a $5million beach house in Goleta, California, which he purchased in 2000 when he married Jennifer Aniston.

L. James in the popular Craftsman-style, and was designed by architect Charles Sumner Greene. And apparently it was empty for years before Brad sprung for it. In 2001, Ritchie received an OK from the Monterey County Planning Commission to drill and blast an access tunnel through the cliff under the house to the rocky beach below, but the California Coastal Commission appealed that decision.

In the late ’90s, the house was purchased by Joe Ritchie, a financier from Chicago, who introduced Pitt to the property, welcoming him as a guest. In the decades since Eastwood left his post in office, though, there’s been fewer and fewer celebrities paddling up the coast to spend time in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Especially in the last five years (since the premiere of Big Little Lies), Carmel has been overshadowed by the neighboring Monterey, where parts of the critically acclaimed HBO series were filmed. According to the National Association of Realtors, off-market property sales happen more frequently than many realize. It says that 10% of all sellers find a buyer without listing on the multiple listing service, or MLS. The number of home sales that do not involve MLS listings varies tremendously by region.

Carmel Highlands is far closer to San Francisco than it is Los Angeles, though the nearest incorporated towns are Carmel-by-the-Sea and Monterey (where most of BLL was filmed). Celebs like Clint Eastwood and Betty White have also owned homes in the area. The castle’s stone structure looks like it’s emerging from the cliff making it an extension of the surrounding natural rocks and tropical landscapes.

Record deals and tax-avoidance maneuvers: Southern California’s priciest sales of 2023

Instead, Pitt quietly shopped it around for $40 million as a pocket listing, meaning it was privately offered to qualified buyers in luxury real estate circles. The latest chapter in Brad Pitt’s real estate wheeling and dealing is coming to a close with a report that the actor has engaged in a rich people’s version of a “Trading Spaces”-style home swap with Getty Oil heiress Aileen Getty. Greene, along with his brother Henry made up the influential 20th century architecture firm Green and Green.

According to The Gamble House, an organization dedicated to the work of Charles and his brother Henry, Brad's new home is unlike anything the siblings designed before. In the style world, Pitt caused a stir this month with a series of fashion forward ensembles on the European press tour for his upcoming film, Bullet Train. "I love that architecture is this huge art piece you can be inside," the actor said in a 2004 interview with Oprah Winfrey. James Home,” the pad is an architectural marvel with an intriguing history that involves cameos from former residents Jesse James, Charlie Chaplin, and Joan Didion.

The Bullet Train star has probably decided to move to Carmel Highlands to experience what semi-retirement looks like. The grand hearth in the family room features classic Arts and Crafts movement elements like handcrafted wood surrounds and patterned tiles. There are also seating areas surrounding the fireplaces which are the central point of the rooms and serve as the house’s emotional center. The home collector has also owned homes in Beverly Hills, the south of France, Mallorca, New York City, and New Orleans over the years. With an affinity for all things architectural and design, Brad also collaborated on a collection with furniture maker Frank Pollaro in 2012 and narrated a 2020 documentary about Frank Lloyd Wright.

Betty White owned a beachside home in Carmel up until her death in 2021, according to People. Clint Eastwood even became the town's mayor in a landslide election in 1986 and served for two years. The deal, which was first reported by “Entertainment Tonight,” is one of Southern California’s priciest sales so far this year and one of the biggest sales ever in Hollywood Hills. The neighborhood’s price record was set last year when Michael Rubin dropped $70 million on a property once owned by Ronald Reagan. Lynch shares that Pitt’s recent Carmel Highlands purchase is an architecturally stunning home set in a magical natural setting. “It is great to have the home owned by someone who appreciates the architecture and will no doubt work hard to preserve it for generations to come,” she says.

Today, new buildings are not allowed so close to the water to preserve the area’s natural beauty. Shelly Mitchell Lynch is a fourth-generation real estate broker in Carmel with Carmel Realty Company and an expert in the luxury real estate market, recognized by The Wall Street Journal as one of the top 100 agents in the U.S. She has a special focus on coastal luxury properties and has sold over a dozen iconic homes in the Carmel Highlands and Big Sur area. Another Alfred Hitchcock–film actor, Kim Novak, also took a liking to quaint Carmel.

Prior to Pitt's purchase of the home, it was owned by Searock, an LLC formed by Chicago financier Joe Ritchie, who died earlier this year, and his wife, Sharon Ritchie. The D.L James House was designed by the prominent early 20th-century architect Charles Sumner Greene known for pioneering the American Arts and Crafts movement. The home was built out of locally quarried sandstone and granite, featuring a tiled Mediterranean-style roof, arched windows, and panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean. It is named after its first owner, writer Daniel Lewis James who published his work under the pseudonym Danny Santiago.

In fact, her former property, which is built into the granite cliffside according to SF Gate, is to this day one of the most notable homes in the area. Betty White represented the small-screen-bound half of Hollywood in Carmel, owning the traditional-style spot she commissioned in 1981 until her death last year. James, an American writer who commissioned Charles Greene to design the house. The home, dubbed Seaward, has an exterior of golden granite that was quarried from nearby Yankee Point, giving the structure a look of emerging from the cliff where it sits, according to the Craftsman Bungalow. The Craftsman-style home’s stonework was said to be inspired by the ruins of Tintagel in England. Located in the Carmel Highlands of California, the Craftsman-style house was designed by Charles Sumner Greene, who along with his brother, Henry, made up the influential 20th-century architecture firm Greene and Greene.

Brad Pitt’s Carmel house is close to Clint Eastwood’s and Betty White also used to stay nearby. It’s in the same area as the house used to film Nicole Kidman’s character Celeste’s house in Big Little Lies. Brad Pitt is moving into the spectacular house he bought last year perched on a cliff high above the ocean in Monterey County, California. Carmel Magazine is the quarterly lifestyle magazine for Carmel and the Monterey Peninsula, featuring the notable people and places, arts, food and wine, destinations, styles and events of Carmel and the Peninsula. James was a passionate amateur playwright and thespian and, during his time in Carmel, appeared in early Forest Theater productions.

Over the years, the Oscar winner has owned residences in Hollywood, Mallorca, New York City, New Orleans and the south of France—where he and his ex Angelina Jolie once shared Château Miraval. Local agents told the WSJ that the $40 million sale is one of the priciest ever closed in the Carmel area. However, the outlet notes that records show that the property was never publicly listed for sale. Pitt lived in the home with his family for years but has since moved north to Carmel Highlands, where he bought a $40-million clifftop castle known as the D.L. Perched on a private knoll near the border of Hollywood Hills and Los Feliz, the property centers on a Craftsman-style house built in 1915. Lush gardens surround the 6,700-square-foot home, leading to outdoor amenities such as a skate park, koi pond and multiple pools.