The LA Times, Variety and various other publications recently reported that celebrity couple A. Rod and J. Lo (former major league baseball player Alex Rodriguez, 43, and actor Jennifer Lopez, 49) bought actor Jeremy Piven’s oceanfront Malibu house for $6.6 million last month—substantially more than the $3.5 million he paid back in 2004. This latest acquisition is just one more item in a long list of properties owned by the bi-coastal couple; whose real estate portfolio is estimated to be worth $100 million.
Their newly purchased tri-level home on Malibu Road was built in 1949 and has four bedrooms and 3.5 baths in 4,404-square-feet, including a large master suite and a screening room. The listing agents were Madison Hildebrand and Jill Galloway of Compass. J. Lo and A. Rod’s agent was Carl Gambino of Westside Estate.
Lopez described the property as “a little fixer-upper next to the water,” in a recent interview with Ellen DeGeneres, and said Rodriguez had hired Joanna Gaines of HGTV’s “Fixer Upper” to help redesign the place.
In another major Malibu purchase that is just now being reported in the real estate blogs, a property on Carbon Beach sold for $18.7 million in a 2018 cash deal (sometimes it takes a while to track down the principals in these cash deals). The property was last bought in 1993 for $2.83 million by Hal Alden, a home textile importer. The two-story modern was built in 1956, has 4,036 square feet and 60 feet of beach frontage.
The oceanfront house was sold to self-made multibillionaire and philanthropist Robert F. Smith—co-founder of Vista Equity Partners. In 2018, the Forbes World’s Richest People list pegged Smith’s net worth at $4.4 billion, making him the richest black American.
Smith and his second wife, Playboy model Hope Dworaczyk, already owned a bluff top compound that directly overlooks Carbon Beach, which they purchased from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Yolanda Hadid and her Grammy Award-winning ex-husband David Foster for $19.5 million back in 2015. The real estate blogs surmise that the Smith family decided to buy the second property in order to gain close-by direct beach access. The listing and selling agent was Chris Cortazzo with Coldwell Banker.