Model and actress Kelly Van Halen has sold her five-bedroom, French country-style house in Los Angeles' Encino area for $3,975,000. And as hard as this may seem to believe, the buyer appears to us to be none other than Bob Dylan himself.
In a Big Time Listings exclusive, we can report on Van Halen's sale of her 6,870-square-foot house in Encino, which took place on March 12, with the deal closing on April 1. We have to caution our readers that this next part is one that we still don't feel 100 percent on (and would put it out there to all of our readers and competitors, so long as they attribute the initial work on this to us), but it appears to us that Van Halen's Kaycee Trust sold the house to a trust that long has been controlled by Bob Dylan in the legendary singer-songwriter's ownership of various Los Angeles-area properties (which mostly are commercial properties in Santa Monica). We have absolutely no idea why Bob Dylan would want a house in Encino, of all places, but property records look to us like he was the buyer. The money manager whose name is on the deed representing the buyer's trust is that of Marshall Gelfand, who long has represented Dylan, and the name of the trust on the deed lines up perfectly with the name of the trust that Dylan biographer Howard Sounes claims is Dylan's.
Shifting our focus to the house itself, we should note that Van Halen, who was married to hard-rocking drummer Alex Van Halen from 1984 until 1996, had had the house on the market for $4,495,000. We exclusively had written back on March 11, 2008 about Van Halen's listing of the house, which is in the Royal Oaks section of Encino.
Built in 1951, Kelly Van Halen’s former house has five bedrooms and six and a half baths, according to public records and listing information. Features in the house, which sits on a 1.082-acre parcel, include a grand, two-story entry with a sweeping staircase, a chef’s kitchen with Carrara marble counters and Viking stainless steel appliances, a master suite with a fireplace, a study, a formal dining room, a family room, a bonus room, a second-floor guest wing, limestone floors, four fireplaces, imported chandeliers, a verandah with views of the tree-studded grounds, an outdoor kitchen with a barbecue area, a pergola with a fireplace, and a swimming pool, according to public records and listing information.
Records show that Kelly Van Halen paid $1,565,000 in November 2002 to purchase the house in Encino. The house is in a high-priced neighborhood in Encino where other music industry-related folk have lived as well. For instance, singer Ashlee Simpson paid $4,500,000 in July 2005 to purchase the 9,005-square-foot house at 16187 Royal Oak Road in Encino through her managers’ names, according to public records. Her 16187 Royal Oak Trust sold the house in October 2006 for $5,700,000, according to public records. (Simpson now owns a 5,896-square-foot house on Oak Pass Road in the Beverly Hills, Calif. postal district, which she purchased in January 2007 for $4,500,000, according to public records.)
Kelly Van Halen and Alex Van Halen had owned no shortage of southern California properties during their marriage. The couple famously had built a 14,547-square-foot mansion on 4.373 acres at 32 Beverly Park Terrace in Beverly Hills in 1993. After their divorce, the Van Halens quietly sold 32 Beverly Park to actor Paul Reiser’s Chatham Living Trust in 1997 for an undisclosed price (reportedly just under $6 million). Prior to that, they had owned a property at 658 Park Lane in Santa Barbara, Calif. that they sold in 1994 for an undisclosed price. Alex and Kelly also had sold a 5,458-square-foot mansion at 12047 Summit Circle in the Beverly Hills Post Office in 1995 for $1,325,000, according to public records.
Currently, Alex Van Halen owns a 6,709-square-foot house in Hidden Hills, Calif., which he purchased in 1997 for exactly $2,000,000, according to public records. Alex lives there with his third wife.
We have no idea where Kelly Van Halen is off to. When we find out, we'll of course share that here. Stay tuned.