Powerhouse film and television screenwriter and producer Kevin Williamson has celebrated his screaming showbiz success with the $17 million purchase of a newly constructed mansion in one of the most thickly celebrified neighborhoods in Beverly Hills. Forbidding by the standard of mere financial mortals, the sale price is none-the-less well below the last asking price of almost $18.5 million, and right about 15% less than the too-rosy original price tag of $19.95 million.
Williamson has not only created the hit TV show “Dawson’s Creek,” and developed the long-running supernatural teen drama ”The Vampire Diaries,” he’s rolling in accolades and earnings from the tremendous success of the ongoing “Scream” horror film franchise that’s hauled in more than $600 million in worldwide box office. Many of the original cast members will reprise their role in the upcoming fifth installment of the cult-favorite franchise that has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic but is currently scheduled for a 2021 release.
With a score of new A-list neighbors — Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lawrence and Adele among them, Williamson’s new house, a sort of East Coast Colonial meets airy California farmhouse sort of thing, stands prominently above a freshly planted hedgerow that will undoubtedly soon screen the house from view. The entire property is outfitted with a phalanx of security cameras controlled by a sophisticated home-automation system.
Towering, Hollywood Regency-inspired front doors swing open to a cavernous double height foyer dominated by a spiraling staircase that grandly connects all three floors of the roughly 12,000-square-foot mansion. For the lazy, infirm or arm-laden, an elevator makes getting between all three floors essentially effortless. Marketing materials show there are seven en suite bedrooms and a dozen bathrooms across the nearly three-quarter-acre spread.
In addition to ample formal living and dining rooms, the former with a strongly veined black marble fireplace, a cozily proportioned study features a full wall of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. More casual quarters at the back of the house include a family room anchored by a delicately veined white marble fireplace. A huge bank of glass sliders slip in to the walls to create a seamless transition to a poolside loggia. The adjoining breakfast room, which also opens to the pool, compliments a gleaming chef’s kitchen that is arranged around a boxcar-sized island and expensively outfitted with premium-quality culinary equipment.
A secluded main floor guest wing contains two en suite bedrooms, plus a pint-sized office perfect for a personal assistant or house manager, while a sizable second floor wing has four more en suite bedrooms that open off a long corridor with convenient access to both the front and rear staircases. The sprawling homeowner’s retreat privately occupies a second floor wing of its own with a fireplace and a wall of glass sliders that peel open to a spacious deck that looks down on the backyard. There are two lavishly fitted dressing rooms and two decadently appointed marble bathrooms, one slathered in polished white marble and the other dressed up in earthy browns and blacks.
Finished to the same standards as the rest of the house, the basement is devoted to myriad leisure and recreation activities. Painted black with the exclusive vibe of a swank member’s club, a huge games room and lounge offers a professional wet bar and a flashy, glass enclosed and climate controlled wine room. There’s also a sumptuous, suede-walled screening room and a mirror-lined fitness room where an interior wall of windows looks into giant six-car garage complete with a handy-dandy and very expensive turn-table that makes turning a luxury car around as effortlessly simple as the press of a button. A second, ground-level garage accommodates two more cars.
Nestled into a planted slope, the flat backyard isn’t especially large but is well thought out to comfortably include extensive stone terracing around a swimming pol and spa. A built-in grilling area and bar anchors one corner of the yard and, just above the pool, an open-air cabana with bar and fireplace makes for a deluxe respite from the scorching late-summer sun.
While his new house is unquestionably much larger, Williamson’s residence since 2014, when it was acquired for $8.1 million, is hardly modest in its proportions when compared with a typical American home. Set on almost half-an-acre amid lush, manicured gardens in the ritzy and staid Windsor Square neighborhood, the elegantly appointed mansion measures about 7,500-square feet, plus a spacious, self-contained guesthouse atop a detached garage.
The Beverly Hills property was jointly represented by a small constellation of high-powered agents at The Agency: David Parnes, James Harris, Mauricio Umansky and Farrah Brittany.