Liberace Home for sale

[t0oL1]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-liberace-las-vegas-mansion-20130627,0,948445.story

 

 

 

LAS VEGAS — Liberace’s old off-Strip mansion is up for sale for a veritable song, but is the property fabulous or a decrepit fixer-upper?

 

Built in 1962, the once-lavish 14,939-square-foot spread sits on a half-acre lot near the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and features two bedrooms, 10 bathrooms and several large areas for entertaining.

 

There are flashes of the legendary pizazz once embodied by Liberace, whose life was the subject of the recent HBO film, “Behind the Candelabra,” which details the eccentric entertainer’s secretive romance with former chauffeur and lover Scott Thorson.

 

PHOTOS: Liberace - From the archives

 

Liberace, who denied during his life that he was gay, died of an AIDS-related illness in 1987.

 

Like a bachelor pad from another era, the place features such bling as chandeliers, a mirror bar etched with Liberace’s signature and a bedroom ceiling adorned with a $1.6-million reproduction of Michelangelo’s painting in the Sistine Chapel.

 

The asking price: $529,900. That’s $3 million less than what the place sold for in 2006, during this city’s housing boom. The bank that owns the house is entertaining cash-only offers.

 

But in this town, where celebrities from rappers to boxers come and go — building their domestic castles before moving on — surprisingly few people are talking on the record about the sale. But one thing they will say is that just because a famous person once called a property home, that property doesn’t necessarily retain its glamour, or its price.

 

Celebrities selling their homes will often hold Realtors to no-talk clauses about the details of the sale. But Liberace has been dead for nearly two decades and the house has been through two owners since the fabulous one last lived there.

 

Las Vegas Realtor Dan Humeston is listed on public documents as the listing agent.

 

A woman who recently answered his business phone and who would identify herself only as the Realtor’s “partner,” said JPMorgan Chase, which seized the property through foreclosure in February 2010, wants to lessen pre-sale publicity.

 

PHOTOS: The over-the-top homes of "Behind the Candelabra"

 

“The bank people were OK with a local story but now it’s getting picked up nationally, in what they consider a negative manner,” the woman told the Los Angeles Times.

 

Liberace, once the world’s highest-paid entertainer, enjoyed a career that spanned four decades and included concerts, movies and TV. He was once the poster boy for extravagance.

 

So why is his old haunt selling so relatively dirt cheap?

 

“For one thing, it’s in a dumpy old neighborhood where the surrounding houses are selling for a hundred grand,” one Las Vegas real estate veteran told The Times. He asked that his name not be used because of the sensitivity of the sale.

 

His description of the place went even more south from there.

 

“It’s been run through the foreclosure ringer. What you’ve got is a seedy old house in the suburbs that from the start was turned into something it wasn’t mean to be. It’s comprised of a bunch of cobbled-together add-ons that fill the lots. It’s an odd duck.”

 

It gets even worse.

 

“The place is mediocre even by Vegas standards. I mean, who would live in the thing? Even if you’re a fat cat who has a half-million in cash to spend, it’s not a very nice place to live.”

 

Liberace bought the house in 1974. His foundation sold the property two years after his death.

 

How far the once-mighty palace has since fallen.

 

Still, the woman in the Realtor’s office told The Times that cash offers began coming in the day the property hit the market not long ago.

 

Her response to the asking amount?

 

“Hey, I don’t price it. I just sell it.”

 

 

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-mn-liberace-archival-candelabra-pictures,0,6807624.photogallery

[Guest fountainhall]

This vdo gives you an idea of that the property looked like when Liberace lived there (ghastly!), and the state it is in now.

What really surprises me is how close to the road the house is located, the more so when Liberace held lavish parties in his Moroccan Room attended by many of the top stars of the day. Nowadays, celebrity homes need to be hidden away to avoid the paparazzi

As the commentator says, he could easily have afforded to live in a more secluded part of the city, but for some strange reason he selected to knock together a couple of houses in a fairly common area.

 

 

I was at the Liberace Museum a few years ago. It also looked quite tacky – due, I assumed, to lack of cash. Now it, too, has closed. I must say, though, I love my glitter-encrusted Liberace sneakers!

 

 

[TotallyOz]

I loved him when I was a kid and I always dreamed of being him. LOL

 

Personally, I loved this over sized tastes and opulence. The furs were just divine!

 

I had the chance to go to the home a few years back. Just driving by and was stunned how bad it looked.

 

It could be a beautiful property.

 

 

 

On another note, for those that have not seen the recent movie with Matt Damon and Michael Douglas, it is really a great portrait of him.

[t0oL1]

upon searching I find that the Liberace Museum

has now reopened? or is planning to reopen 2014.

http://www.bobsliberace.com/what's%20new/newmuseum/grand.html

[Guest fountainhall]

That link appears to be for the 2002 re-opening of the original Museum which finally closed 3 years ago. It filed for bankruptcy and has never reopened.

I see from another site, though, that there are plans for a new Museum titled the Liberace Entertainment Experience (LEE for short, the name he used with friends).
 

Rohit Joshi, who heads up the investment group that owns Neonopolis, talked of that name Wednesday during a walk-through of the construction happening at Neonopolis.

The attraction is to replace the closed Liberace Museum, which has been locked and dark since October 2010, and is likely be open by January if the plan is approved by the bankruptcy court reviewing a lawsuit filed against the Liberace Foundation by U.S. Bank.

The financial institution is seeking more than $1 million in missed loan payments on the Liberace Plaza at East Tropicana and Spencer. The Liberace Foundation filed for bankruptcy to fend off that suit, and its restructuring plan -- including the development of LEE -- must be approved by the courts before the new project can proceed.

 

As far as I can make out, Neonopolis is a newish three-storey shopping mall some way north of the Strip.

http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/blogs/kats-report/2013/mar/03/lee-new-liberace-museum-name-frankie-moreno-shut-o/