Mansions of Motown
AT THESE PRICES, MORE TODAY THAN YESTERDAY
Some six weeks ago, a 10,000 sq. ft. waterfront mansion in Miami Beach was acquired by Diana Ross for $15.5 million. Some six years ago, the 2,000 sq. ft. two-storey Detroit house on Belmont Street in which she grew up during the late 1950s was sold for $1,800.
OK, so property prices – at both ends of the spectrum – appear to be insane these days. But nothing better illustrates the advances that Motown-schooled superstars have made in wealth and geography than transactions of that type. In 1965, Stevie Wonder was living with his parents and four siblings in another modest, two-storey Detroit home on Greenlawn. Last year, he splashed out nearly $14 million on a 19,000 sq. ft. palace in Bel Air, California. It has 15 bathrooms, among other assets.
For Stevie Wonder, everything’s alright in Bel Air Crest
Welcome to West Grand Blog’s latest real estate edition, sparked by those two 21st century sales, and the news that Kedar Massenburg – one of the Motown presidents after Berry Gordy had sold the record company – has put his so-called “Motown Mansion” in New Jersey on the market for almost $5 million. (Still, Massenburg doesn’t yet have a city street named after him, unlike Wonder or Gordy or others such as David Ruffin.)
The headline-grabbing Ross deal was for property on San Marco Island, situated in Biscayne Bay between Miami Beach and the city of Miami. “Soaring double-height ceilings and clerestory windows are star features in the living area,” reported Architectural Digest recently. Outside, there’s 60 feet of bay frontage and a private dock.
Until recently, the singer’s best-known homes were those in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Beverly Hills, California. She bought the latter in the same year as leaving the Supremes, for a mere $350,000 (the equivalent of $2.5 million today). Naturally, the property was equipped with a swimming pool and a tennis court, while Ross was said to have done all the interior decorating herself. She sold it in 1985 for $1.75 million, five years after acquiring Quarry Farm – as the Greenwich site was known – for $1 million-plus from tobacco heiress Nancy Reynolds.
TO THE MANOR BORN
The “farm” occupied five acres, plus vacant land on the waterfront. The mansion itself ran to 12,500 sq. ft., containing 11 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, a bowling alley, a wine cellar and a spiral staircase. It’s thought to still be in her property portfolio, and was put to good use a few years ago when son Evan Ross and Ashlee Simpson were married there. As to worth, the star offered the estate for sale at $39.5 million in 2007, then removed it from the market; its current valuation is unknown.
Stevie Wonder’s new home is in an exclusive, guard-gated community (record producer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds also lives there) known as Bel Air Crest. The Mediterranean-styled, three-floor house overlooks area hills and valleys, while offering its occupant a gourmet kitchen, theatre, wine cellar (accommodating 2,500 bottles) and game room. Oh, plus a swimming pool, natch.
An interior view of Diana Ross’ Miami Beach property
Previously, Wonder and spouse Tomeeka Bracy rented another mansion in the same enclave, and before that, he and his family lived on Chislehurst Drive in Los Angeles’ Los Feliz district. The property on that street was bought by the musician in 1979 for $435,500 and put on the market almost 30 years later for $3.2 million.
He has lived comfortably in the Garden State, too. During the ’80s, he was resident in Alpine, New Jersey (I remember my son and friends visiting there on playdates with his kids, later revealing that a stream ran underneath the house, visible through glass on the living-room floor). Wonder occasionally returned to the area, including at least one invitation to Kedar Massenburg’s Upper Saddle River home when he ran Motown.
Decades earlier, of course, Wonder and many other stars stopped by the original Motown mansion: Berry Gordy’s home on Detroit’s historic Boston Boulevard. Sitting on 2.2 acres, the three-storey Italianate manor was built in 1917, and had three owners prior to Gordy’s acquisition in 1967 for a reported $250,000. It had frescoed ceilings and marble floors, and an underground tunnel connecting the main house to the pool house, where there was a Olympic-size swimming pool and – as expected with the Gordys – a bowling alley.
“It was so grand, I didn’t feel comfortable living there,” the Motown founder wrote in his autobiography, “but it was great for entertaining.” That included fundraising events for his late sister Loucye’s scholarship fund, as well as parties, special occasions and celebrations tied to his company’s booming business, such as the 21st birthday dinner held for Stevie Wonder and a live performance introducing the Jackson 5 to many at Motown.
ON THE CLIFF, OR DOWN BY THE BEACH
Gordy retained ownership of the Detroit manor even after relocating to Los Angeles, with ongoing oversight in the hands of Esther Gordy Edwards. Finally, he sold it in 2002 to lawyer Cynthia Reaves; she restored the house, eventually passing it on for $1.65 million in 2017. That divestment included an auction of various Motown and Gordy family-related items, including furniture, bowling equipment and rare 45s.
“When Berry first went to California, he had a bunch of houses,” former Motown president Barney Ales told me several years ago. One was in the Hollywood Hills, acquired from comedian Tommy Smothers. Another was in Malibu, off the Pacific Coast Highway, comprising a main house (with six bedrooms), two guest houses, tennis court and spa house.
BG entertains in the Gordy Manor, to Martha Reeves’ delight
This cliffside property overlooked the ocean, with a staircase leading to the beach below. It was said to be located between the homes of TV mogul Dick Clark and actor Sylvester Stallone. A second Pacific Coast Highway asset of Gordy’s in Malibu was directly on the beach, albeit tightly sandwiched between other, similar buildings.
Motown’s onetime VP of video production, Nancy Leiviska, was familiar with the latter site, not least because it was used as the location for Smokey Robinson’s “Being With You” promotional videoclip. “I shot that at the beach house on 16mm for under $5,000,” she recalled for me recently. “The house was stunning then, with heated marble floors and outside patios. The unique stairs remain, but no more white shutters.”
Elsewhere, Gordy owns a Bel Air spread known as Vistas, acquired many years ago from entertainer Red Skelton. It’s now evolved into a virtual compound, guest houses and all, and this continues to be where he lives and – despite retirement – works. (It’s also where I once interviewed him for Billboard, as described here). One current Vistas value estimate: $29 million.
But let’s close with a more modest piece of real estate, and a rather engaging tale: that of the Detroit house where Martha Reeves grew up, and in which the 81-year-old hopes to live again. “My house has a lot of memories,” she told the Detroit Free Press last year. “This is where I learned to sing. I learned as I washed the family dishes. I put opera on the radio and I would sing along. I learned to hone my tones with the forks and knives in the running water.”
The property, located on Townsend on the city’s east side, has had its share of ill luck. In 2008, it was burglarised, and recording equipment and other items owned by Reeves was stolen. In 2016, the building was struck by lightning and set on fire. “I am in desperate need to have the house restored,” said Reeves, “because my dad took such pride in it. It will always be my dad’s house, the place where I grew up.”
It’s quite a distance between Detroit properties like those on Townsend, Belmont and Greenlawn and the palaces of Miami Beach and Bel Air. With luck, occupants of the latter will never forget when and how they lived on the former.
Property notes: there’s more about where Motown stars (among other notables) were born, raised and lived in the Motor City in T. Burton’s Home In Detroit, a 2008 book from Shaking The Tree Publishing. It includes photos, addresses and property details, albeit sometimes rather rudimentary, but informative, nonetheless. It may be expensive to obtain today, however: one eBay seller has priced it at $125. (Thanks to Bill Staiger for the tip and for help.)
Holiday notes: with Christmas approaching, West Grand Blog will take a little time off. See you in 2023, with luck, if not before. As always, thanks for reading.