Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Lifestyle

Climate House Hunting: Hollywood Edition

The week's celebrity real estate listings, ranked by climate risk.

Hollywood and flames.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Glued to real estate posts on The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Dwell, Spaces, The Modern House, or Architectural Digest and wondering how those gorgeous homes will hold up in the next decades? I have you covered.

Heatmap has partnered with my new climate risk platform, Habitable. Every Friday, we add a climate risk score to the real estate listings featured in the news this week and ask: Could you live here as the climate changes?

Using a model developed by a team of Berkeley data scientists at Climate Check, Habitable scores each property for heat, flood, drought, and fire risk on a scale of 1-10. One represents the lowest risk and 10 is the highest. Our rating for each hazard is based on climate change projections through 2050. (You can check your own home’s climate risk here.)

For today’s edition, I apply the Habitable Index to this week’s headline-generating real estate to find out: Is drought driving celebrities to blaze a trail out of L.A.? And can a ranch house with fire risk — even if it is Jim Carrey’s — actually sell for $26 million? Read on for the verdict on the most habitable homes in the news this week, from best to worst:

1. Hockey legend Chris Chelios’s Malibu beachhouse shocker

Chris Chelios house.Zillow

The seaside compound of NHL legend Chris Chelios, nestled in the hillside is for sale for $75m. Located in‘Paradise Cove’ Malibu feels suspect from a climate risk perspective but, Chelios scores a hat trick:: low flood, heat, and drought risks! Also zero risk for fire. Not sure this climate paradise exists anywhere else on this Malibu coastline. Chelios and his wife who are escaping to Michigan for grandkids, might want to move them all in here. Featured in The Dirt for $75 million.


2. Jim Carrey’s ‘ranch’ house in Brentwood

Jim Carrey\u2019s \u2018ranch\u2019 house.Sotheby’s International Realty

The Brentwood 1951 ranch house of Jim Carrey has more than 12,000 square feet and 6 fireplaces (even in the bathrooms). The sprawling mid-century is positioned, as usual, for severe drought and medium fire risk. Featured in Dwell and now listed for $26,500,000 (down from $ 28,900,000 when originally listed 2 months ago). (And don’t lose heart Jim, Angela Lansbury’s Brentwood home just sold $500k over asking price with the same fire and drought risk.)


3. Carol Burnett’s famous sign off on her Wiltshire

Carol Burnett\u2019s house.Redfin.

My favorite comedienne, Carol Burnett sold her Los Angeles condo this week. It was on the 13th floor (she was clearly not superstitious) of the Wilshire Corridor condominium near Century City. Turns out the place is surprisingly cool and dry — no heat or flood risk. And like most of L.A., Burnett’s apartment suffers from severe drought risk although slightly less fire risk than surrounding areas — only 6/10. Featured in WSJ and sold for $3,700,000.


4-tie. Is Madmen creator mad to ask $15 million for high fire and drought risk?

Matthew Weiner's house.Compass.

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner and his former wife, architect Linda Brettler’s restored Blair House, a 1924 Spanish Mediterranean-style home which hit the market this week for $15,495,000. You would be mad to think the Mediterranean Mansion can withstand the severe drought and fire risk. Featured on Mansion Global and listed for $15,495,000.


4-tie. Brad Pitt must be thirsty.

Brad Pitt's house.Realtor.com

Once upon a time in Hollywood, a gorgeous actor with great taste in art, architecture, and real estate nabbed his next real estate gem. Pitt just bought Steel House, a gleaming mid-sized mid century property, designed by noted architect Neil Johnson. The house is on a tree-filled hillside in the hip Los Feliz neighborhood and has an unfortunately severe (9/10) drought risk which will only exacerbate the also-severe fire risk, I hope this story has a happy ending. Featured in Realtor.com and sold for $5.5 million.


4-tie. Emily Blunt and John Krasinski’s quiet place

Emily Blunt and John Krasinski's house.Compass.

A ‘60s house meticulously renovated by Emily Blunt and John Krasinski has just hit the market. This very quiet place, high in the Hollywood Hills, off Mulholland Drive, has soaring views over L.A. Equally soaring is the drought and fire risk. Featured in Dwell and listed for $6 million.


5. Another fire sale in Bel Air: Jennifer Lopez drops price of mansion.

Jennifer Lopez house.Zillow.

Jennifer Lopez dropped the price on her eight-acre estate in Bel Air with its own lake and beach. The climate forecast shows the place will stay relatively cool. Given the risk for severe drought and fire, the on-site water would be a huge selling point if not for the uptick in flood risk. Featured in WSJ and listed for $39,995,000.


You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Energy

The EPA’s Backdoor Move to Hobble the Carbon Capture Industry

Why killing a government climate database could essentially gut a tax credit

Lee Zeldin.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Trump administration’s bid to end an Environmental Protection Agency program may essentially block any company — even an oil firm — from accessing federal subsidies for capturing carbon or producing hydrogen fuel.

On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed that it would stop collecting and publishing greenhouse gas emissions data from thousands of refineries, power plants, and factories across the country.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Adaptation

The ‘Buffer’ That Can Protect a Town from Wildfires

Paradise, California, is snatching up high-risk properties to create a defensive perimeter and prevent the town from burning again.

Homes as a wildfire buffer.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The 2018 Camp Fire was the deadliest wildfire in California’s history, wiping out 90% of the structures in the mountain town of Paradise and killing at least 85 people in a matter of hours. Investigations afterward found that Paradise’s town planners had ignored warnings of the fire risk to its residents and forgone common-sense preparations that would have saved lives. In the years since, the Camp Fire has consequently become a cautionary tale for similar communities in high-risk wildfire areas — places like Chinese Camp, a small historic landmark in the Sierra Nevada foothills that dramatically burned to the ground last week as part of the nearly 14,000-acre TCU September Lightning Complex.

More recently, Paradise has also become a model for how a town can rebuild wisely after a wildfire. At least some of that is due to the work of Dan Efseaff, the director of the Paradise Recreation and Park District, who has launched a program to identify and acquire some of the highest-risk, hardest-to-access properties in the Camp Fire burn scar. Though he has a limited total operating budget of around $5.5 million and relies heavily on the charity of local property owners (he’s currently in the process of applying for a $15 million grant with a $5 million match for the program) Efseaff has nevertheless managed to build the beginning of a defensible buffer of managed parkland around Paradise that could potentially buy the town time in the case of a future wildfire.

Keep reading...Show less
Spotlight

How the Tax Bill Is Empowering Anti-Renewables Activists

A war of attrition is now turning in opponents’ favor.

Massachusetts and solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Library of Congress, Getty Images

A solar developer’s defeat in Massachusetts last week reveals just how much stronger project opponents are on the battlefield after the de facto repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Last week, solar developer PureSky pulled five projects under development around the western Massachusetts town of Shutesbury. PureSky’s facilities had been in the works for years and would together represent what the developer has claimed would be one of the state’s largest solar projects thus far. In a statement, the company laid blame on “broader policy and regulatory headwinds,” including the state’s existing renewables incentives not keeping pace with rising costs and “federal policy updates,” which PureSky said were “making it harder to finance projects like those proposed near Shutesbury.”

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow