Yeah, undergoing the knife Wednesday for season-ending shoulder surgery blows, but what really sucks for Kobe Bryant is lowering the asking price on one of his (or is it Vanessa's) home in Newport Coast to $6.995 million. That's down from $7.599 million. Poor mamba!
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Kobe and Vanessa Bryant List Newport Coast Estate; 10 Looks at What $8.6 Million Gets You
That Los Angeles Times column on celebrity real estate transactions that I used to love reading when I got the LA Times years ago has the scoop on Bryant adjusting the price yet again after having originally put it on the market in 2013 for a cool $8.599 million. A garage door remote had better be included with a price like that!
Actually, a buyer would get so much more, as the Times reveals …
Recently renovated and expanded, the Mediterranean-style home sits behind a gated entry on about half an acre with unobstructed city and ocean views. Clad in walnut hardwoods, limestone and ornate finishes, the two-story floor plan has a chef's kitchen, large formal areas, four bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in 8,741 square feet.
Among highlights is an 850-square-foot gym, a hair salon and a movie theater complete with a lobby, tiered seating and a wet bar. A wood-paneled office/library features a custom shark tank.
Outdoors, landscaped grounds center on a pool and spa with waterfall features. A fire pit and an outdoor kitchen complete the resort-like setting.
A shark tank? Must be the guest quarters for Kobe's agent. As for the falling price of the pad, perhaps Mr. Bryant needs to raise funds fast for that surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder. Or, maybe Vanessa is demanding another diamond ring–or else!
While unincorporated Newport Coast may eventually be losing an 8,741-square-foot home owned by Kobe, the City of Newport Beach recently agreed to let Kobe Inc.'s 16,650-square-foot corporate headquarters stay at 1499 Monrovia Ave. through at least 2032.
The shooting guard and his budding business empire defenders received a 10-year extension on their lease from the city, which originally planned to change the zoning on the building from commercial/office to residential effective Feb. 1, 2022.
Kobe Inc. bought the former Road & Track magazine building from the city for $5.8 million last year, and during the extension negotiations Mamba and his minions discussed adding another $5.5 million in interior and exterior improvements to the two-story structure.
The NBA superstar's company invests in sports-related products and ventures, its first being Body Armor Superdrink, whose “superteam” includes Richard Sherman, Andrew Luck, James Harden and Your Anaheim Angels of Anaheim's Mike Trout!
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.