From Incredibad to Chaplin's pad - Andy Samberg and Joanna Newsom buy legendary Hollywood home

From Incredibad to Chaplin's pad - Andy Samberg and Joanna Newsom buy legendary Hollywood home
Jessie RichardsonApril 13, 2021

Comedian Andy Samberg and musician Joanna Newsom have bought an expansive LA home that once housed Hollywood legends.

The musical duo reportedly purchased Moorcrest for US$6.25 million in March. The home, formerly rented by Charlie Chaplin, seems a better fit for someone like a boss than a tramp - proving that Andy Samberg may not be such a normal guy after all.

While not the 'Bu, the house is still in California, located in Beachwood Canyon. The home was originally built as part of the Krotona Colony, the national headquarters of the Theosophical Society, an esoteric philosophical group that hopes to "form a nucleaus of the universal brotherhood of humanity".

The decadent design of the home has Moorish, Gothic, Mission-revivalist and Art Nouveau elements. According to Jewish Business News, the vendors purchased the home for US$900,000 in 1996. They reportedly listed the home with US$9,989,000 million in 2006, then lowered the asking price to US$7.4 million the next year. Newsom and Sandberg apparently bought the home in an off-market deal.

Newsom, a critically acclaimed songwriter, harpist, pianist and singer, may occasionally wish to lounge around among elaborate antiques with a stuffed peacock, as she does on the cover of her three-record release Have One on Me (pictured above). She now has the perfect living room - complete with peacock (below).

 

The four bedroom, six bathroom house was designed by Marie Russak Hotchener and built in 1921, when female architects were a rarity.

The home also includes a glass-toped dome atrium (pictured below), where the couple can look up at the stars - on a good day (or night, rather), Newsom may even be able to see the Pleiades.

The huge kitchen has a raised fireplace, wrap around benches and central lonely island for serving boiled goose.

There is also a substantial dressing room, perfect for Newsom's coats of boucle, jacquard and cashmere, and Samberg's turtlenecks and chains.

The listing photos, now removed from their website, show ivy on the walls (but not around the lettering) of the incredible home, with lush gardens providing plenty of room for a sprout and a bean to grow.

There is also a pool, with a bridge (but no balloons). The pool area also has a man-made cave, perfect for Hot Rod star Sandberg, who likes to party.

According to Hollywood lore, Charlie Chaplin rented the home in the early 1920s before it was purchased by the parents of Maltese Falcon star Mary Astor in 1925. They sold the house at auction for $21,500 in 1934.

Newsom is known for her albums The Milk Eyed Mender, Ys and Have One On Me. Samberg is a comedian who currently stars in Brooklyn 99, was formerly a cast member on Saturday Night Live and is a member of The Lonely Island.

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