Brad Grey Razes Frank Sinatra House

When Paramount Pictures chairman Brad Grey listed his Holmby Hills property for sale in September 2011, it included a seven-bedroom Mediterranean house that had been owned by Frank Sinatra. The North Carolwood Drive residence, where Sinatra lived for a few years in the late 1940s, was listed by Grey at $23.5 million. Roughly one year later, big changes have been made: The house was torn down in August, and the 2.15-acre property is now listed at $19.995 million and marketed as the perfect site to build a dream estate. At 8,631 square feet, the red brick house was considered by some to be too small for the size of the property and the tony neighborhood, where residents include Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, philanthropist Suzanne Saperstein and television producer Bradley Bell, son of The Young and the Restless creator William Bell. Westside Estate Agency chairman Stephen Shapiro, who is Grey's real estate agent, says the residence was demolished to simplify the process for a prospective buyer who would want to build a new estate there. "Now instead of 2.15 acres, it feels like 5.15 acres," Shapiro says. Grey purchased the estate in November 2010 for $18.5 million, but he and wife Cassandra Grey opted to remain at another residence the film executive owns in Bel-Air. In December 2010, THR reported that while Grey's plans for the property were unclear, he was said to be studying options for preserving at least a portion of the house. (The residence was not protected by any historic designation.) Grey declined to comment.