Rod Stewart is done with the “toxic culture” of Los Angeles, ready to sell his $70 million “chateau” and return to London.
Legendary singer Rod Stewart is getting out of Los Angeles. Just days after the Grammy winner’s former home in Malibu appeared for sale for $49.5 million, Stewart’s current home in Los Angeles — a sprawling European-style “chateau” — is now on the market for a cool $70 million. He also owns a home in Palm Beach, Florida.
The Wall Street Journal notes that the singer purchased the Los Angeles property in 1991 for $12.08 million. The property measures around 33,000 square feet with a pool and a soccer field, as the 78-year-old Stewart is an avid soccer fan — the star was once spotted in Malibu playing the game with the Scottish national team on the beach after having invited them there to play.
Shortly after the property appeared for sale, Stewart told the Daily Mail that he was “fed up” with LA’s “toxic culture” and was looking to dump his Golden State properties and head back to his native London. The singer feels he has “no privacy” in Los Angeles and has grown tired of the “nuisance” of traveling back and forth.
Stewart’s planned full-time return to London will mean far less travel for the singer and his family; he and his wife Penny Lancaster, whom he married in 2007, have two sons, Alastair (18) and Aiden (12), enrolled in a London school. The 52-year-old Penny has worked as a volunteer firefighter in London for the last few years.
An insider also told the Daily Mail that Stewart, who shares eight children with five different women, is fully supported in his decision to move back home by his children. “They all know how happy (he) and Penny are living there, and that’s all they want is for their father to be happy,” the source said.