It's the last week in December, when according to tradition we make up a bunch of awards and hand them out to all the best, worst, and shitshowiest of things that happened in Los Angeles real estate, architecture, and neighborhoods this year. These are your 2014 Curbed Awards.
Ellen DeGeneres has been one of the biggest players in the Los Angeles real estate game for years, but in 2014 she turned it up to 11. While she faced stiff competition from that ne'er-do-well Justin Bieber (more on him later), she pulled out our Celebrity of the Year award at the very last minute by re-purchasing a house from her ex's ex, which she had sold to that ex's ex back in 2007. And that is not even the craziest shit she pulled this year. Let's look back at the Year in Ellen (and her wife Portia de Rossi):
January: DeGeneres started the year off extremely strong, buying the Brody House in Bel Air for $39.88 million. Designed by architect A. Quincy Jones and built in 1949 for philanthropist couple Sidney and Frances Lasker Brody on a beautiful site next to the Playboy Mansion, the property could very well be called the best in Los Angeles (we called it that, in fact). DeGeneres was only the third owner, after the Brodys and a rehabber who kept it only long enough to fix it up before selling to Ellen.
July: Just a few months later, DeGeneres SHOCKED US ALL by freaking selling the Brody House to Napster cofounder and former Facebook president Sean Parker for $49.5 million.
July: In a hurry for a place to live, DeGeneres picked up two units covering an entire floor in the very fancy Beverly West condos on the Wilshire Corridor, paying $16 million.
(October: Not a DeGeneres move per se, but Jennifer Lawrence bought one of Ellen's former homes in Beverly Hills. Close enough!)
December: DeGeneres and de Rossi put the floor at Beverly West up for sale at the beginning of the month for about $16 million because…
December: They'd bought a new place that was actually and old place. Back in 2007, DeGeneres sold a two-property compound with two mid-century houses on it to Milgard Manufacturing heiress Allison Milgard for $10 million. Milgard and DeGeneres share an ex, designer Alexandra Hedison, who fixed up one of the houses and also at some point in there married Jodie Foster. DeGeneres paid $10 million (or possibly some other amount!) for one or the other of the houses, but it's not exactly clear which. Some sources say it was the boomerang-shaped Hedison house, but the ever-reliable Real Estalker claims that one actually sold to Ricky Gervais's collaborator Stephen Merchant, and that DeGeneres and de Rossi bought the neighboring ranch, which was once rehabbed by architects Marmol Radziner. We look forward to finding out the answer to that riddle and more sure-to-be-wacky DeGeneres real estate hijinks in 2015.
· Holy Shit: Ellen DeGeneres Just Bought The Best House In Los Angeles For $40 Million [Curbed LA]
· Here's the Incredible House Ellen DeGeneres Just Flipped to Napster Founder Sean Parker For $55 Million [Curbed LA]
· Ellen DeGeneres Just Bought Back the House She Sold in 2007 [Curbed LA]
· Curbed Awards 2014 [Curbed LA]