Four years ago, independent film and documentary writer, producer and director Tim Disney (“American Violet,” “Jim Allison: Breakthrough”), a showbiz scion of the Disney family — he is the grand-nephew of Walt Disney and the son of late billionaire Roy E. Disney, the last Disney family member to be involved with the company, and his now ex-wife, Neda Disney, shelled out $6.4 million for a gorgeous home in the historic and upscale Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. Late last year, presumably as part of their divorce, the pretty property was deeded over to Neda Disney, who has now hung a $7.5 million price tag on the property.
Located on nearly half an acre in one of the priciest pockets of the famously celeb-favored neighborhood, the 1930s Mediterranean villa, which mixes authentic architectural detailing with the modern luxuries and creature comforts rightfully expected in a home of this size and price, sits shyly behind secured gates and a tall hedgerow. Listings held by Joshua Altman and Matthew Altman of The Altman Brothers at Douglas Elliman show the nearly 7,500-square foot home offers five bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms including a serene homeowner’s retreat replete with private terrace, walk-in closet and marble bathroom.
Inky-black wood floors extend into the formal living and dining rooms, the former elegantly ample with a ceiling laced with honeycomb-patterned tracery, and the latter, which does double duty as a library with a full wall of built-in bookshelves, sheathed in lustrous wood paneling. Arranged around a large island with premium-grade appliances, the high-end kitchen’s eye-catching patterned tile floors extend into the adjoining breakfast room where slim wood beams enhance the ceiling and French doors lead to the backyard. Decadent and whimsically theatrical red velvet drapes in the family room slide open to expose nearly full-height glass doors that provide access to a trellis shaded patio surrounded by a tall and thick hedge. An extensive finished basement contains a fantasia of leisure and recreation options (a lounge accented with colorfully tiled walls, a fitness room and a sauna/steam room, a movie theater and a sound studio), while lush, tree-shaded carpets of lawn surround the house and an elevated curvilinear terrace outside the kitchen and breakfast room overlooks a swimming pool and spa alongside an open-air pergola for shady poolside lounging.
Los Feliz is (and has long been) popular among showbiz elite. The Laughlin Park enclave alone is a veritable who’s who of entertainment industry homeowners, with Angelina Jolie, Natalie Portman, and Kristen Stewart among them. The immediate area around Disney’s villa is almost as chock-a-block with famous folk. Megan Ellison owned (but never officially occupied) a nearby estate she’s just sold for not quite $8.3 million — she bought it just over two years ago for $7.75 million; Kirstie Alley’s huge an opulent Italianate mansion was set out for sale in late 2018 at almost $12 million, but was taken off the market shortly after the first of this year after the price had dropped to almost $9.8 million; and about seven years ago, “Modern Family” star Jesse Tyler Ferguson and his husband Justin Mikita paid a bit more than $4.5 million for a Spanish Colonial Revival-style home previously owned by “The 70s Show” creator Mark Brazill and, before him, Gwen Stefani and her now ex-husband Gavin Rossdale.
Prior to their divorce, the Disneys developed a bit of a thing for architecturally significant homes purchased from other entertainment industry heavy hitters. In 2017 they paid Mike Dirnt, co-founder of the band Green Day, $3.85 million a remarkably slender, three-story beach house along a prestigious stretch of sand in Santa Barbara that is now owned solely by Tim Disney who, in 2018, paid comedy queen Kristin Wiig $5.225 million — $100,000 over the asking price — for a stunning mid-century home and guesthouse perched high on a steep slope above the Silver Lake Reservoir. The now erstwhile couple also maintained a modestly proportioned contemporary desert hideaway privately sited on roughly 5.5 acres just outside of downtown Joshua Tree that tax records indicate was transferred to Tim Disney earlier this year.
