Tasteful friends - When did Nate Berkus get so RICH?

The widow Berkus cashed in on the tragedy of his ex-boyfriend's death in the 2004 Indonesian tsunami.

He's an opportunist extraordinaire, and he made the most of the disaster.

The exterior of the house, patios, pool, and landscaping are gorgeous.

They can’t afford it. They bought it one year ago. And not to flip, this was going to be their “forever home.”

And they are asking for a five million dollar markup on what they paid one year ago.

God his husband is like his brother. Same height, same voice.

Can you imagine putting so much work into designing your home, showing everybody, and then selling it after a year? How embarrassing.

Love that long table with the pyramids and pottery. The bench in front of it is unnecessary. Hate the exterior of this house, looks like something a cult would be shacked up in.

The living room decor looks exactly how I would design it if I wanted to flip it for some rich, tasteless asshole. That fucking bone saw sculpture? Hideous.

LOL at the lack of color in the nursery, and the big black dots on the wall to scare baby.

Hancock Park is a shady area that's seen better days.

The nursery is absurd, but it suits me just fine.

We actually had a thread on this exact same house in February, and the first poster noted that he only stays in his "dream home" for one year.

It's not kid friendly. Why all the white paint, cabinets, furniture?

That house is worth 6.5 mil max.

Honestly you'd have to be nuts to pay that much money for Hancock Park, it's way too close to the grubbier parts of LA and you can get the same in any of the safer communities on the West Side.

Also per Google Streetview this property doesn't haven have a gate toward the street. ROFL!

The best thing about it is the old growth landscaping but that house itself is unremarkable.

The home is beautiful.

I feel sorry for you R1.

Yikes, the comment section on Curbed is brutal.

All the money in the world won't help if you're Eddie Munster.

Oprah doesn't have poor friends

[quote]First, there was the majestic 200-year-old oak tree rising in the backyard, like something out of a fairy tale. “We pictured Poppy, and eventually the rest of our family, playing under that tree, and we thought this was a place we could put down roots,” Brent says. Then there was the realization—perhaps rationalization is a better word—that while the house is indeed large, its rooms, true to period style, are relatively intimate, particularly in comparison with the bloated volumes of contemporary McMansions and McModerns.

Ugh, how insufferable. If you're going to buy an enormous house, at least don't try to justify it with "but the children!" appeals. Take ownership and say "Yes, I bought a 9,000 square foot house, because I wanted to! Fuck you!"

I hate it when people stack their books on shelves just to be "different". You can have SOME stacked, for functional reasons, but using the shelf to store them on their sides just looks obnoxious.

Yes, as all DL firmly knows, they should be CHAIRS.

Its very white and beige.

As a native guy from LA, Hancock Park is VERY sketchy. It's gorgeous. But you hit Melrose on the north and 3rd street on the South? Just horrible.

Nate lives my dream life. How I envy that man.

For once, the kitchen stools look comfortable.

That price is unrealistic for Hancock Park. Someone who can afford $13 million is going to want Beverly Hills, Bel Air, etc.

More importantly, who’s the top in the relationship? They both look like major bottoms.

r28 maybe some sort of designer double-headed dildo...

Wasn't he Oprah's decorator? I'm sure that kind of gig pays pretty well.

I imagine he thinks people will gladly pay the asking price for a home from Oprah's endorsed designer Nate Berkus who lived in it for an entire year.

I mean the property itself looks nice enough, but apparently the location doesn't seem to be high end enough to justify such an asking price. And it doesn't look like one of those up and coming hip places rich people will further elevate with their oh so fabulous and rich presence.

Since they lived in it an entire year, how much semen from each of them do we think has christened the walls, floor, and ceiling?

It's amazing how even minor people in the entertainment industry can make so much money--shows, selling name for merchandise at stores like Target, advertising, writing books and articles.

There's an eruv around HP.

Wasn't Berkus' husband in some celebrity stylist reality show years ago?

In terms of his wealth, he had the talk show; but I'd also guess, he got a lot of cash when he made his 2012 deal with Target. Then, add in the real estate investments (flipping). .. Recall, he sold a Fifth Ave. penthouse for nearly 10 million a couple years ago from something he'd combined from two units. These days, once you get into real estate, and you're smart about it, things can snowball pretty quick.

I'm not a fan of the white on white.. with very little else thrown in as a accent. I like some color... not a crazy, riot of color, but more warmth. It's too sterile for me.. though the outdoors is lovely.

Mine too r25. And he's tapping that young ass every night.

As people in the Chicago design trade will tell you, Nate has gotten very very far on minimal talent. Of all the talented local designers Oprah could have tapped for her show back in the day, Nate would not even have been in the top 100. If you study photographs of his work, it's often the architecture that you're attracted to, not the furnishings or decor. Take his own home as example. The house is beautiful but it's not due to how it's decorated. Nate is not a trend setter. His Target gig will be short-lived as he is already repeating himself design-wise.

Nate's mother was a producer on the Oprah show.

[quote]I hate it when people stack their books on shelves

Who reads books? I have a Kindle and if they don't have a book, I have Fitzwater my butler scan it in for me.

Take away the decor and it's basic as fuck. White walls and wood floors. The only interesting part is the tile by the pool.

[quote]I hate it when people stack their books on shelves just to be "different". You can have SOME stacked, for functional reasons, but using the shelf to store them on their sides just looks obnoxious.

Nate and Jeremiah are hot

He was born rich! Always research wealthy / famous people’s family backgrounds - 90% of the time they aren’t truly self-made, but rather build on inheritance, nepotism/family connections, and in vivo wealth transfers:

Berkus was born in Orange County, California, and grew up in a Jewish family mainly in suburban Minneapolis. He attended Cushing Academy, a boarding school in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. He started working in design immediately after leaving high school and interned at Dominique Aurientis in Paris and Sotheby's in Chicago. Berkus graduated from Lake Forest College near Chicago in 1994 with degrees in French and Sociology. Berkus founded the company, Nate Berkus Associates, in Chicago in 1995.[citation needed]

Berkus is related to the venture capitalist Dave Berkus, architect Barry Berkus, musician/artist Gunther Berkus, Josh Berkus of Software in the Public Interest, casino manager/author Eric David Berkus, and lawyer Matt Berkus. Designer Nancy Golden from HGTV and DIY networks is his mother. His father Mike co-founded the National Sports Collectors Convention.

Update on the home:

They dropped the price by a million on January 21. It's now listed at $12,795,000

The Redfin estimate is $11,916,005, while Zillow has it at $13,914,802.

(The purchase price in 2016 was $8,185,000.)

The first word that comes to mind here is PURE GREED.

Secondly, he decorated the nursery all for himself, not for a baby/toddler who will fall asleep and wake up in that room. Aside from the lifeless, boring (and more adult-like) color palette there is nothing cheerful or fun, playful about the nursery either.

Third, if you look closely at the wall of marble in the main bath walk-in shower, the black grain/design against the white looks like the outline of devil himself.

They are both talented designers, the house is beautiful. Nate had a huge part in designing the new Celebrity Ship Edge. I love their work but as usual on here, the catty gays hate any gay that is successful

Queen Oprah does not associate with poverty! Mention the word "poor," and she shrieks as if she's just run into multiple cobras. Mate became rich because Queen Oprah liked him and appreciated his talent. Queen Oprah: "We (meaning her alone) shall make him wealthy and therefore worthy in my presence!"

Monique, how YOU doin girl?

What r45 said. Nate was never going to be poor.

Really bizarre house. It feels like the outside doesn't match the inside.

It doesn't, r51. I've never liked his decorating.

Nate is a notorious bossy power bottom. She is never satisfied and will always want more.

Just another rich Jew. It's all about who you know.

R54 = another jealous goy.

Lovely home.

Like most all decorators he's a one note. He's seized on a "style" and that seems to be all he can do. Bland, boring, and uninteresting. Every room in that house looks like a display set up in some furniture store.

In defense of the nursery that seems to be the trend in the last few years. Someone decided because babies are stimulated by white and black shapes and patterns their surroundings should look like a depressed bag of Wonder bread.

It’s really beautiful... I’m not a big fan of color, but I like richness. He seems to have accomplished that look in this house.

[quote]It’s really beautiful... I’m not a big fan of color

Really? You like all that gray, do you?

I think it’s lovely.

R60, I do like gray with lots of white—just a taste preference.

R24, a search of Zillow shows lots of homes (most all in fact) in the areas you cite going for a million plus. Of course LA real estate is nuts, but that isn’t indicative of “sketchy” in my opinion.

Anybody who still thinks the LA market is "hot" does not watch Million Dollar Listing LA. This season they've said repeatedly that it is a buyers' market in LA. Price it to sell or keep it. Looks like Nate is keeping it. His name doesn't have any celebrity value now. What does he do? His crap show ended mercifully. Target doesn't seem to feature his junk any more.

He spent years braiding Oprah’s pubic hair to become a TV personality star. Insufferable toad. He should invite Jeff Lewis into a three way.

R65 is a bitter queen that wishes he had made it but never did

It was beautiful before

[quote] Target doesn't seem to feature his junk any more.

Does Target ever feature designers' "junk" for more than a season or two?

Hancock Park isn't a sketchy neighborhood, but it is surrounded by shitty areas. One of its appeal are no McMansions but lovely old homes.

Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas had a house there, David Schimmer as well. DL fave Armie Hammer just bought a house in HP.

[quote]Hancock Park isn't a sketchy neighborhood, but it is surrounded by shitty areas. One of its appeal are no McMansions but lovely old homes.

it has a very nice olde Americana Main Street.

Isn't that Larchmont Village? There isn't much business in Hancock Park.

R3 where in this 2017 story does it say they're selling the house?

Nate loves to buy, fix up, and sell. Had an apartment on Bedford Street in the West Village, moved to West Ninth, then to Fifth Avenue around the corner … within ten years. When he married, they headed to El Lay.

The house is at 335 South Rimpau, what are Hancock Park's boundaries?

Google is your friend- look it up.

When Oprah gave him her Midas touch after the tsunami, what, 20 years ago?

Love the pool.

r75 335 South Rimpau is within the borders of Hancock Park.

Does anyone know where in Hancock Park the Gyllenhaals grew up?

I just took a dump.

Ford log this time I had no idea that Nate Berkus was gay.

But the Property Brothers, now they pinged.

If you didn’t know Nate was gay, you’re retarded.

It's his property and he can decorate and renovate as he sees fit (within the building code, of course) but to look at the video at R67 and to see what he has done to that beautiful original master bathroom is sacrilege. Whoever said upthread the new tiling in the shower looked like an image of Satan was eerily correct.

^ Haha. That was me R47 who made the comment about the outline of Satan in the shower tiles. Very subliminal. Wonder if it was done on purpose.

NB isn't looking for a buyer, he's looking for a schmuck. Or a foreigner who needs to park a huge amount of cash in the US.

It's certainly possible he's selling because he can't afford it any longer. I can't imagine he was ever in a position to have paid cash for that house so his mortgage payments are probably YUGE.

He's a whore, darlin.

It was very dated and boring before. I wouldn't have done it exactly like he did but I like his version a lot more than the previous one.

I have no idea whether he paid cash or not, but that doesn't mean he can't afford it.

by LA standards he is doing ok........between the tv show, the design business and the flipping houses Im sure he is getting comfortable. Please note this latest house he has lived in 2 years...........that is the give away. After 2 years you dont have to pay capital gains on any profit if it was your principal resident. So he is flipping the houses he lives in and on the side too. I dont think he is very talented really, altho he and his spouse are attractive and are good tv/

as to Hancock Park, its old money and you generally dont see tear downs like you do everywhere else/ yes its further east but back in the day Hancock Park didnt allow actors into the neighborhoods and they had to buy and build in the hollywood hills and elsewhere. Hancock Park was where the respectable pillars of society lived...........Im talking early to mid 20th century. Dorothy (Buffy) Chandler was a long time Hancock Park resident as an example.

Old old money and class generally doesnt live in California, especially southern california. If they do, its usually Pasadena, Montecito, and maybe Hancock Park.

[quote]After 2 years you dont have to pay capital gains on any profit if it was your principal resident.

No. Only a certain amount (up to $250K/$500K depending on marital status) is excluded.

[quote]Old old money and class generally doesnt live in California, especially southern california. If they do, its usually Pasadena, Montecito, and maybe Hancock Park.

San Marino too, but now it's mostly Asian.

Didn't the developers of Hancock Park develop Hancock Park to keep the Jews out?

Anyone who uses the word class has none.