Burt Reynolds reduces the asking price of his mansion in Hobe Sound, FL to $10.5M

Actor Burt Reynolds has dropped the asking price of his waterfront mansion in Hobe Sound, Fla. from $12,900,000 to $10,500,000.

The Wall Street Journal’s “Private Properties” column today reported (link not yet available online) that the bachelor and onetime heartthrob has reduced the asking price for the five-bedroom mansion at 16815 SE Federal Highway in Hobe Sound, which the actor has owned since buying it in 1980 for $700,000.

Built in 1975 and originally listed two years ago for $15 million before later being reduced to $12,900,000, Reynolds’ mansion sits on three acres and adjoins a state park, according to listing information. Features include seven baths, a billiard room, a cinema room (note the image of Burt on the cinema room’s screen, which is pictured), a private two-bedroom guest house, and large yacht dockage, according to listing information.

The mansion’s size is up for debate. Listing information and the Journal describe the mansion as containing 12,538 square feet, while public records only give the mansion credit for 6,631 square feet.

The Los Angeles Times’ Ruth Ryon on January 1, 2006 wrote a piece on Reynolds listing the mansion for, at that time, a higher asking price.

Check out an online listing sheet for Reynolds’ mansion here.

Where is the actor off to? The Journal quotes Reynolds’ spokesman Jeffrey Lane as saying that the actor no longer has a need for such a good-sized house, and that he’ll instead buy a smaller home in the Hobe Sound area. “There’s just no need at this stage in his life for something so huge,” Lane told the Journal.

The piece also notes that Reynolds’ primary residence is in Beverly Hills, Calif. Where in Beverly Hills? That’s a great question. Reynolds’ dwelling there has evaded (or been ignored by) the celebrity real estate gossips “including us“ over the years. Assuming Burt is a property owner in Beverly Hills and not a renter, we so far have zeroed in on only one viable option for Burt in Beverly Hills; we’d love to get some feedback from those of you reading this on whether this option is Reynolds’ house, or whether his Beverly Hills house is something else. The option that we’ve identified as a Burt possibility is the 3,320-square-foot house at 2120 N. Beverly Drive in the Beverly Hills post office, which a trust known as the EIG Trust purchased in mid-2000 for exactly $2,000,000. Lane, who as noted above is Reynolds’ spokesman and who long has been a money manager for various celebrities including Kelsey Grammer and Helen Hunt, has his name on the EIG Trust. And, the EIG Trust is the only trust that owns a house in Beverly Hills that any of Burt’s managers over the years currently have their names on.

If this is Burt’s house, it’s certainly in good company, given that it’s directly across the street from the 6,640-square-foot (or 9,000-square-foot, according to listing information) house on 4.85 acres at 2201 N. Beverly Drive that the fickle actress Sharon Stone purchased in early 2006 for $10,995,000, never moved into, and then promptly turned around and put back on the market three months later for $12,000,000 (she always has owned a 7,789-square-foot house nearby, at 1338 Dawnridge Drive).

So, readers, we ask you: Could 2120 N. Beverly Drive be Burt’s Beverly Hills-area residence? If not, does anyone know whose house it is?