Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles: Josh Altman and Tracy Tutor team up to sell John Barrymore home

Josh Altman and Tracy Tutor joined forces on Tuesday’s season finale of Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles to try to sell a home once owned by John Barrymore.

The 1926 home was a masterpiece of eclectic glamour and made for entertaining by the late grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore, 45. 

Dubbed Seabright by its newest owners, the sprawling seven-bedroom estate still bore the stamp of John’s partying lifestyle, when he was a major star of films in the 1920s and ’30s.

During his heyday, John played poker with W.C. Fields and Errol Flynn in its cigar lounge, hired Ethel Merman’s swimmers to perform in his pool, and wrote Gary Cooper’s number on the wall in his ‘telephone room,’ where it remained along with his old pencil sketches.

He even allegedly got high in the home’s hidden ‘opium den,’ which could only be reached by crawling up a rickety ladder into a round, rug-covered private room.

Seabright’s first owner was King Vidor, a groundbreaking director of silent films and ‘talkies.’

The property for the last 22 years had been occupied by owner Donna Scott, who lived there with her late husband Tony Scott, the director of Top Gun.

Seabright spread its tentacles out like an octopus, and its interior boasted real redwood floors, an old-fashioned wood-paneled library, and a living room ceiling mural.

‘There are a lot of cool elements of this property,’ Josh, 41, observed. ‘But there are also parts of this property that need to be updated… and it could be a few million dollars to bring this back to life.’

He and Tracy, 44, visited a former aviary adjoining the home, which had been turned into a guesthouse where actors Marlon Brando, Candice Bergen and Anthony Quinn once stayed.

Looking around at the huge, funky space, Tracy thought a home tour would take two hours.

‘We essentially have a labyrinth on our hands,’ she admitted. ‘Right now, there’s just zero continuity. We want a buyer to walk into the house, feel the architecture and the history, but also feel like it can be lived in, like a real home.’

When she and Josh were officially hired, they listed the home at $16.995 million, then set about staging it so modern buyers saw the connection between its rooms.

Their stager added more contemporary furniture with lighter colors, which updated the space and tied it all together, but still gave it a unique feel.

It attracted attention but potential buyers still worried that they’d have to do too much to the space to make it worth the money.

Josh wasn’t overly concerned, saying in a confessional: ‘One thing you learn in real estate is when you have a specific house, it’s more of a marathon than a sprint.’

But in the end of the episode titled Hollywood Royalty, he and Tracy decided to take the home off the market until the coronavirus quarantine was over.

Elsewhere on the season 12 finale, James Harris, 33, and David Parnes, 37, explored a seven-bedroom home in Hidden Valley, California, with their boss, Mauricio Umansky, 50.

Mauricio, who is married to The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills star Kyle Richards, 51, admired the home’s gorgeous pool, movie theater, club-like basement, and turntable garage.

In the chef’s kitchen, he stood before a La Cornue oven, saying, ‘My wife would be so happy with me if I bought her one of these. That way she can be a real housewife.’

Giant bathrooms and closets gave the men and women of the house their own spaces.

The seller, Joan, bought the place for $3 million and spent four years developing it, so she hoped it could go for $23 million, but the team priced it at $19.95 million.

Mauricio told her, ‘When we see houses priced well from the beginning, and accurately, those are the homes that get the most money in the long run.’

To market the house, James and David threw a James Bond-style open house, playing off English details in the design of the home.

They spent a whopping $40,000 on casino games, bands, candles, flowers, and a red carpet, and greeted 150 guests. 

Josh Flagg, 35, arrived with Tracy, who’d become his neighbor after her recent divorce.

‘We’ve had a ball, because she and I both like vodka,’ he said, noting she lived four doors down.

After Flagg toured the home, he told James he thought it would probably sell for $16 million.

When the other Josh got there, he lowered that to $14 million, saying it would be an ‘uphill battle’ to sell, because of its proximity to nearby roadway Coldwater Canyon.

James wasn’t perturbed, aware that Josh had ‘never said a nice word about one of our listings.’

When the two Joshes spoke later, they agreed that the place would go for about $15 million’ though the show revealed that there have been no offers on the property yet.

Before the final credits rolled, there were updates on each of the show’s stars.

They said that Flagg sold $302 million in listings in 2019, and closed three deals while social distancing during the coronavirus epidemic.

Quarantine gave Flagg a chance to work on his cooking skills, but he learned to his dismay that you don’t use soap to wash a chicken.

The other Josh recently signed $87 million in new listings, and sold actress Eva Longoria’s Hollywood Hills home.

James and David closed six deals during quarantine and picked up three new listings.

Tracy was living her ‘best life’ in quarantine, the credits said.

‘For the first time in a long time, I really feel at peace and happy,’ she told her fellow brokers. ‘I love living where I’m living, my kids are happy, I’m finally on the other side of the divorce, and it’s been long enough to where I feel like I can move on with my life. Business is thriving.’