Brad Pitt has just said goodbye to the mansion in which he has spent the last 30 years of his life, a house that he bought, in part and surprisingly, motivated by the alleged ghosts that roamed its halls. The property, located in the Los Feliz neighborhood, on the outskirts of Hollywood (Los Angeles, California), until then belonged to Cassandra Peterson, a prominent horror film actress of the eighties better known as Elvira. Despite Peterson’s warnings about the “weird things” that had happened to him there, the actor bought the residence in 1994 for 1.7 million dollars (which would be 238 million pesetas at that time, according to inflation). and the exchange rate at that time). And in that house, which he shared for years with her wife Angelina Jolie (until he separated from her in 2016) and in which her six children were raised, he stayed. Until now. Because he has just sold it for 40 million dollars (36.6 million euros), 24 times the price for which he bought it.
In an exclusive interview with PeopleCassandra Peterson—better known as Elvira for his starring role in the 1988 comedy-horror film Elvira, queen of darkness— remember how the transaction with Brad Pitt went. According to what he tells the magazine, she sat down with him up to three times to explain that the house was haunted. “We warned him that a lot of strange things had happened since we went in there,” she recalled. As she tells the same publication, she saw ghosts everywhere, entering her room, floating at the bottom of the pool, sitting in front of the fireplace… “They looked like scenes taken from a nightmare, from movies of terror”. Something too creepy even for a star of this genre, who did not hesitate to comment on the irony of the situation: “I know it sounds crazy. I’m Elvira. I know what is expected of me, right?” Even so, she defended that what she saw was true: “I do not have hallucinations, she was not high and I cannot explain those things.”
These were some of the reasons why this mansion, built in 1910 by an oil magnate in the hills of the so-called star city, Before the huge Hollywood sign even existed, it was sold in the 1990s for such a low price. But it only served to increase its value in the eyes of the then young Brad Pitt. “[A Pitt] I even told him that we had sent a priest to exorcise the house”, recalls the actress almost 30 years later. Even so, “he was delighted,” says the 71-year-old interpreter: “he told me that everything he was telling him seemed great to him.”
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Finally, and despite all the warnings, the actor from Passion legends and Babylon He ended up buying the house and stayed in it for almost three decades. During that time, he lived there with his partners, such as Jennifer Aniston (to whom he was married between 2000 and 2005), and his second wife, Angelina Jolie, until their bloody and mediatic separation in 2016. And it was there that the six children of the couple grew up. Marriage: Maddox, 21; Pax, 19; Zahara, 18; Shiloh, 16; and 14-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
Peterson, who after selling the mansion to Pitt bought the land next door, witnessed the various renovations the actor made to the estate over the years. The winner of two Oscars (as producer of 12 years a slave and as a supporting actor for Once upon a time in… Hollywood), a great fan of architecture, bought the adjacent land and expanded the original mansion, a property that now covers more than 2,000 square meters. The farm has more than 8,000 square meters and has a swimming pool, tennis court and ice rink, among other facilities. And so he has managed to enormously increase the value of a house that originally cost less than two million euros until selling it for 36 million.
As a source from the real estate sector shared with People, the actor decided to sell the property because “he was looking for something smaller.” And it seems that he has found it, since last August he bought a new house that is less than 300 square meters and one story in Carmel Highlands (in Monterey County, California) for 40 million dollars (36.6 million euros), the same price for which he sold his Los Feliz property.
But a new tax that has been approved in the Los Angeles metropolitan area (and therefore affects that area of Los Feliz), and which came into effect on April 1, suggests that there are more reasons for the sale. . This new legislation obliges owners who sell homes for between five and ten million dollars (4.5 to 9.2 million euros) to pay 4% of the price of said sale in taxes; and for houses that are sold for more than 10 million, 5.5%. Which means that Pitt would have had to pay two million dollars (1.8 million euros) in public taxes if the sale had been finalized, which took place at the end of March, a couple of days later, when it started in the Californian city said tax. The new tax has caused many other celebrities like Mark Wahlberg, Jim Carrey and Jennifer Lopez and wealthy Los Angeles residents to scramble to get rid of their lavish estates. Not all have succeeded. Brad Pitt, yes.
