According to the all but all-knowing real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketeyyak, 7’1” retired professional basketball icon Shaquille O’Neal sealed the deal on a $1.815 million purchase of a freshly renovated residence in the guard-gated Bell Canyon enclave near Calabasas in L.A.’s prosperous far western suburbs. Perched above the street on a one acre parcel, the 1990s ersatz-Tudor features a faux-timbered stucco exterior and a stone-faced turreted entry that gives way to a luxuriously appointed and crisply, if generically contemporary residence with five bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms in 5,217-square-feet.
Glossy, snow-white porcelain tile floors flow from a double-height foyer overlooked by a curved second floor gallery into formal living and dining rooms, the former with a fireplace, a beamed and vaulted ceiling and a wine closet with glass-fronted bottle display cabinet. Just off of the foyer an office/ library offers a full wall of floor-to-ceiling built-ins with wall-mounted television and the spacious center island kitchen opens at one end to an informal dining space at the other to a small, cozy lounge with angled fireplace and French doors to the yard. A separate family room/media lounge includes a wet bar and a drop down movie screen.
One of the three guest bedrooms on the second floor has a private, en suite bathroom while the other two share a hall bathroom with a jetted bathtub and the master suite, under a vaulted exposed beam ceiling, includes a sitting area, a fireplace, two walk-in closets and a travertine-tiled bathroom with a double sink vanity, a two-person glass-enclosed shower and a jetted garden tub set into an angled bay lined with Tudor-appropriate diamond-paned windows.
A good portion of the property is taken up by a steep, extensively engineered hillside behind the house but outdoor areas none-the-less accommodate a long driveway that swoops up to a three-car garage, a semi-secluded patio along one side of the house, and a slim but wide backyard that provides a built-in barbecue and dining terrace, a built-in fire pit partly surrounded by a curved stone bench and a swimming pool and spa backed by a lush tropical foliage and hemmed in by an unsightly but easily removed child-safety fence.
Last year the three-time All-Star Game NBA superstar, who has released four rap albums, serves as a sports analyst on TNT’s “Inside the NBA” and voiced the canine character Karma in the upcoming silver screen family comedy “Show Dogs,” shelled out $1.15 million for a 14.3-acre spread in the suburban Atlanta community of McDonough, Ga. that includes two substantial houses with a total of 8 bedrooms and eight full and two half bathrooms. However, the legendary basketballer’s primary residence has long been an almost 30,000-square-foot, waterfront mega-mansion in the exclusive, guard-gated Isleworth community near Orlando, Florida. The fully and idiosyncratically customized residence, which by many online accounts measures closer to 70,000-square-feet, features high-gloss yellow-blond wood floors reminiscent of a basketball court, an Egyptian-themed cigar bar with a huge aquariums filled with exotic fish, the so-called “Shaq Center,” a full-court indoor basketball court and fitness facility, a resort-style swimming pool complex nicknamed “Shaq-apulco” and a private dock where a full-sized Superman statue stands sentry with security cameras for eyes.
Location: Bell Canyon, Calif.
Price: $1.815 million
Size: 5,217 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
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