Original article published by Realtor.com
Written by Claudine Zap
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After listing their glamorous Beverly Hills, CA, home for $23.95 million last August, the musician John Legend and his wife, the social media star Chrissy Teigen, have chopped the asking price by a hefty $6 million.
Since first putting their home up for sale last summer, the A-listers have slowly whittled away at the price tag. After a couple of months on the market, the price dropped to $23 million, eventually hitting $22 million in the new year.
The ultra-stylish home of the celeb couple recently bounced back onto the market for $17.95 million.
So what led to the price slice? We took another look at the property.
A little history
The high-end home once owned by the pop star Rihanna last traded hands for $14.1 million.
After Legend and Teigen purchased the property in 2016, they proceeded to redecorate and add custom touches to the abode.
Gone is the minimalist look. Instead, the home has been redone in warm tones, with an upgrade to the kitchen for Teigen, who often filmed herself there for social-media cooking videos. Spanning 8,520 square feet, the layout includes seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms.
The drama starts with the the parlor, with its 33-foot ceiling and sculptural staircase. The spacious great room easily fits Legend’s grand piano, a cozy fireplace, and floor-to-ceiling windows with canyon views.
The state-of-the art kitchen is the backdrop for many of Teigen's cooking videos, and includes three ovens, two stovetops, and an Instagram-worthy island.
Design details include patterned ceilings from Thailand, oak floors, clay and steel-rolled walls, and onyx sinks.
All seven bedrooms feature private balconies and en suite bathrooms.
The opulent master bedroom includes a brass and concrete fireplace and a jaw-dropping glam room, with newly designed closets “evocative of a Chanel showroom,” as the listing puts it. The layout also includes a plush home theater and a huge gym.
Set on just under an acre, the grounds include a saltwater pool and hot tub, a wood-burning oven and chef’s grill, plus a grapevine-wrapped pergola. A two-car garage completes the property, which is close to the Beverly Hills Hotel and the shopping and dining of Rodeo Drive.
The house seems perfect. So what’s the perfect price?
“It was too aspirational to start with that high of a price,” says Myra Nourmand, principal and agent with Nourmand & Associates, who specializes in marketing and selling luxury properties from Beverly Hills to Malibu.“
They were competing with areas such as Beverly Hills proper and Bel-Air that have all sold in the $20 million-plus range,” she adds.
She thinks the $6 million price chop makes sense for the mansion on the farthest outskirts of 90210.“
The property is much more competitive now, and it should sell,” she says. “Price drives the market.”
New home in the 90210
Soon after they placed their home on the market, the couple also scored another home close by. The larger, custom-built, “design-forward” masterpiece was newly built.
Located on a private knoll in Beverly Hills, the residence is roomier, with 10,700 square feet of indoor/outdoor living space, soaring ceilings, and walls of glass with pocket doors overlooking city-to-ocean views.
Although it was initially offered for $18,725,000 in March 2020, the price was dropped a little, to $17.95 million in July, before the couple snagged it for $17.5 million in September.
Now that they are potentially juggling two properties in the area, the couple may be ready to let their longtime home go, even at a lower amount.
But there’s good news: It’s actually a great time to sell the property, Nourmand notes.
She tells us, “The current real estate market in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles is extremely hot and competitive. It’s on fire and definitely a seller’s market right now.”
Teigen and Legend, who suffered the loss of their unborn baby last fall, had said they had wanted more living space for their growing family.
However, Legend told Architectural Digest, “We still expect to expand our family in the near future.”
The couple has two children together.
Meanwhile, they have focused on renovating their new place to reflect their personal taste.
“I have always been a mover since I was young, so I feel like what we are doing with the new house is kind of just moving the old house into a more evolved space for us and our family,” Teigen told AD in January.
We hope to get an eyeful of their renovated abode on social media soon.
The couple also owns two adjacent penthouse apartments in New York City.
The amazingly talented Legend is one of the few artists to hold an EGOT: meaning that he has received an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony over the course of his illustrious career.
Equally impressive, Teigen, a model and author of the cookbook “Cravings,” maintains a massive following on Instagram.
Marshall Peck with Douglas Elliman-Beverly Hills has the listing.
