Mel Gibson’s eccentric Malibu residence—the one-time home of actors David Duchovny and Téa Leoni—is back on the market, with a hefty price reduction. At about this time last year, the property surfaced for $17.5 million. It is now priced at $14.85 million. That should stimulate a little serious interest in any house, even one as wildly stylized.
The house is a peculiar example of postmodern architecture, with 19th-century southwestern rustic, medieval castle, and English country house all represented. Raw wood, mullion windows, stone and plaster, open-trussed ceilings, brick and timber define the interiors. Much of the materiel was sourced reclaimed after a 1996 fire gutted the original.
Finishes have been manipulated or left as-found to suggest substance, with the paint on the planks of the master bedrooms suggesting decades of use. The effect is voiced again in the living area, where the plaster is occasionally chipped away from the stone to emphasize the point. In many ways, the main house looks like a film set, a series of surface vignettes that act as metaphors.
Still and all, it works. It may work because it’s so self-consciously stylized it becomes tongue-in-cheek, or it may work because the engineered, broad-spectrum rusticity is so insistent it manages to exert charm. Either way, this property represents one of the most unique offerings in Malibu at present, and a positive tonic to the endless contemporary beachfront monstrosities that swell a little more with each new owner before rapidly fading back into irrelevancy.
