Yahoo News Reese Witherspoon Quietly Unloads $17 Million Pacific Palisades Home
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Los Angeles may be currently mired in a mandatory lockdown, but Reese Witherspoon and her Quibi executive husband Jim Toth have still managed to bend and snap their way out of the family’s longtime main residence on the posh Pacific Palisades Riviera. Deeds and documents show the Oscar-winning “Big Little Lies,” “Walk the Line” and “Legally Blonde” star successfully sold her house for a few hairs above $17 million — and in an all-cash deal, to a buyer who required no mortgage.
Although the home was never listed on the open market, it’s no secret that Witherspoon has wanted to sell the Palisades property for quite some time. Way back in 2016, she floated the estate off-market with an ear-piercing $19.9 million asking price, considerably more than the $12.7 million she originally paid in 2014.
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But at the time of Witherspoon’s purchase, the 10,000 sq. ft. mansion was still under construction, and she subsequently spent another veritable boatload on costly upgrades, including the installation of a visually impenetrable hedge that screens the entire front of the property. According to neighbors, she also built a guardshack on the .42-acre lot for a full-time security detail — something that reportedly did not go over well with members of the Riviera Homeowners Association.
Since it’s never been on the open market, little is publicly known of the lumbering two-story home’s specific accouterments. But the Riviera sprawler is an East Coast traditional in style, designed by noted architect Ken Ungar, whose homes are beloved by the likes of Russell Westbrook, Byron Allen and Jennifer Garner. There are five bedrooms and seven baths, expansive backyard terraces for alfresco dining, grassy lawns and a swimming pool with inset spa and Baja shelf.
According to records, the $17 million buyers are automobile accessories heiress Robin Formanek and her husband John Cianciolo, both originally of Memphis, Tennessee. The former is the only living child of Peter Formanek, the recently deceased co-founder of AutoZone, which now employs 87,000 workers across more than 6,000 locations.
Formanek is not new to L.A., however. Back in 2016, she paid $9.8 million for a two-parcel residential compound that straddles the border between the tony neighborhoods of Brentwood and Santa Monica. That “starter” property, currently up for sale with a $10.3 million ask, is now in escrow.
As for Witherspoon, she also maintains a small handful of residences in her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee — some of them reportedly occupied by family members. Last year, she paid $6.25 million for Malibu’s gorgeous Zuma Farms ranch. And she continues to own a luxe getaway in the Bahamas, in a legendarily fancy guard-gated community filled with multimillion-dollar mansions.
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