Just in time for the holidays (and COVID vaccinations!), Nick and Vanessa Lachey have sold their showbiz pedigreed Encino, Calif., estate for not quite $6.7 million and at the same time made an off-market deal valued at just over $5 million for a smaller manse in one of the more sought after foothill neighborhoods in the L.A. suburb of Tarzana, about 25 miles north of LAX.
The 98 Degrees lead singer, who hosts Nickelodeon’s “America’s Most Musical Family,” and the beauty queen turned TV spokespersons’ now former home in Encino was acquired by the couple in 2016 from the estate of late Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera for $4.15 million. And, after it was floated as a whisper listing in late 2019 with an asking price of $7 million, the nearly 10,000-square-foot English Normandy manor house has been sold in clandestine deal to an obviously wealthy though not-famous couple.
The Lacheys’ new digs in Tarzana were, per tax records, purchased from professional football player Randall Cobb — the wide receiver now plays for the Houston Texans on a three-year contact valued at $27 million — and his wife Aiyda, who purchased the comfortably luxurious spread just over two years ago for $4.65 million. Built in 2015 and secured behind electronic gates on close to three quarters of an acre with an elevated, city-lights view that extends to the Santa Susana Mountains at the northern border of the sprawling San Fernando Valley, the many-gabled clapboard-clad East Coast-inspired mansion measures in at around 7,000 square feet with five bedrooms and five bathrooms plus two powder rooms.
Designed for relaxed indoor-outdoor living, the spacious great room includes a cozy lounge with fireplace and a gourmet kitchen with two marble-topped islands. Emblazoned with David Hicks-ish geometric wall paper, the formal dining room is complemented by an informal dining room as well as a games room with wet bar, a media room and a fitness room where a wall of mirrors reflects the faux-grassed backyard through a wall of windows.
The upper level includes several ample guest bedrooms plus a family room and the homeowner’s suite. A stainless steel fireplace is inserted into the wall opposite the bed in the main bedroom, where a bank of windows fold open to expose the airy room to a large private terrace, and the marble bath pampers with separate vanities, an over-sized steam shower and a second stainless steel fireplace, this one inserted into the wall next to a soaking tub.
At the back of the house an outdoor living room with a fireplace gives way to a flat and expansive yard that comprises a great sweep of no-maintenance evergreen astro turf, a two-story children’s playhouse and a built-in bar and grill alongside the swimming pool. Set on a lower terrace, there’s a lighted tennis court.