Angelina Jolie Lists Historic Cecil B. DeMille Mansion For $30 Million

Back in 2017, in the immediate aftermath of her split from Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie paid $24.5 million for a sprawling Los Feliz estate tucked inside Laughlin Park, one of the most private and historic gated communities in Los Angeles.

For more than four decades, the estate had been the longtime residence of Cecil B. DeMille, one of the founding titans of Hollywood. DeMille bought the main house in 1916, lived there until his death in 1959, and used the property as both a family home and a working Hollywood retreat during the earliest decades of the movie business.

Now, nearly nine years after buying it, Angelina is ready to move on.

Jolie has listed the estate for $29.85 million. Call it $30 million. If she gets anywhere near that price, the sale will produce a modest paper gain over her 2017 purchase price, though probably not a huge profit after taxes, maintenance, insurance, renovations, commissions, and Los Angeles transfer costs.

But this is not a story about flipping a house. This is a story about one of the most important private homes in Hollywood history, hitting the market.

The Cecil B. DeMille Estate

The property sits on roughly 2.1 acres in Laughlin Park, a gated Los Feliz enclave that has attracted generations of entertainment industry figures. The estate includes five structures, anchored by an approximately 11,000-square-foot main residence with six bedrooms.

The compound also includes a guesthouse, poolhouse, tea house, garage, security station, swimming pool, outdoor dining areas, mature trees, and even a hidden treehouse. For Jolie, who has six children, the property offered the rare combination of space, privacy, history, and a central Los Angeles location.

When Jolie bought the home in 2017, the location also had a practical advantage. It was just a few minutes from Brad Pitt's longtime compound in the nearby Bronson Canyon area, a meaningful detail as the former couple navigated custody arrangements after their divorce filing.

A True Old Hollywood Landmark

The main house was built in 1913 and later purchased by Cecil B. DeMille in 1916 for $27,893. DeMille was one of the most important filmmakers in early Hollywood, with credits that included "The Squaw Man," "The King of Kings," "Cleopatra," "Samson and Delilah," and "The Ten Commandments."

DeMille did not just live at the estate. He worked there. According to accounts of the property, he kept an office and screening room on the grounds, complete with heavy furniture, leather-bound copies of his scripts, and a private screening setup. In front of the screen, he reportedly kept the original battered Pathé camera he used to shoot "The Squaw Man," one of the films that helped establish Hollywood as the center of the American movie industry.

That makes this house more than a celebrity mansion. It is a physical link to the founding era of Los Angeles entertainment.

Here's what the estate looked like when it was photographed from a plane in 1920:

Historically, the property consists of two separate mansions that were eventually joined into a single compound. The main residence, at the center of the property, is the DeMille House. It is the Italianate/Beaux-Arts mansion built in 1913 and purchased by DeMille in 1916. This was his primary residence and office for more than 40 years.

The neighboring house, visible to the left, is widely known as the Charlie Chaplin House. Chaplin reportedly rented the Spanish Revival home briefly before DeMille bought it in 1920. After acquiring the neighboring property, DeMille used the expanded estate for additional living, guest, and work space.

Here's what the home looked like in March 2017, right before Jolie made her $24.95 million purchase:

When Jolie bought the estate in June 2017, the asking price had been $24.95 million. Her purchase price, $24.5 million, was enormous for Los Feliz at the time and reportedly set a neighborhood record by a wide margin.

It also came during an extremely public turning point in her personal life. Jolie had filed for divorce from Pitt in 2016, and reports at the time said she had been renting a Malibu beachfront home for around $95,000 per month. The DeMille estate gave her a permanent Los Angeles base with privacy, security, and room for her children.

It was also a deeply on-brand purchase. Jolie was not buying a newly built glass box or speculative modern mansion. She was buying an estate with history, architecture, privacy, and a connection to the earliest era of Hollywood filmmaking.

Angelina's $24.5 million purchase price in 2017 more than doubled the previous record for the neighborhood, which previously belonged to comedian Chris Hardwick and his wife, Hearst heiress Lydia Hearst-Shaw, who paid $11 million for a nearby estate in 2015.

I just checked Zillow and there is only one other home in the area listed for more than $10 million. That mansion last sold for $5.3 million in 2004. It was listed for sale in May 2024 for $32 million and has since been price-chopped down to $17 million. In the last four years, the most expensive home sale in the area was a property that fetched $13.5 million. Angelina's estate is much bigger and obviously has an incredible Hollywood pedigree, so hopefully that will help secure her $30 million asking price!