By Lindsay Blake | Dirt
Legendary actress Sharon Stone turns 64 today. “Basic Instinct,” the movie that turned her into a megastar, is also celebrating a milestone this month. March 20 marks the 30th anniversary of the film’s release. The Paul Verhoeven-directed neo-noir erotic thriller (now streaming on HBO Max) caused quite a stir straight out of the gate, with critics and audiences alike taking issue with its misogynistic leanings, rampant – and at some points violent – sexual imagery, and a certain scene – one of the most infamous and talked about in movie history – in which Stone’s Catherine Tramell character goes au naturel during a police interrogation.
Three decades later, people are still talking about the controversial film! Sharon’s 2021 autobiography, “The Beauty of Living Twice,” thrust “Basic Instinct” – and its notorious leg-crossing scene – back into the limelight, as did the #MeToo movement a few years prior, which caused people to look at the movie as a whole under a very different lens. Stone also recently detailed the story behind the white turtleneck dress her character donned during the police interview, a look created especially for the actress by costume designer Ellen Mirojnick, in an article for InStyle magazine just last month.
And now the beach house where Tramell lived in the much-ballyhooed film, for sale since 2019, has gotten a significant price chop from its original asking price. Initially offered for an ice-shattering $52.375 million as part of a large complex of residences, the sleek California Modern-style property is now available solo at a much reduced $29.625 million.
Said to be located north of San Francisco in Stinson Beach, the contemporary pad can actually be found about 120 miles south of the City by the Bay at 157 Spindrift Rd. in Carmel. Jonathan Spencer of Compass holds the listing. (Please remember this is a private residence. Do not trespass or bother the property or its owners in any way.)
The largest oceanfront home in the tony Carmel Highlands area, the pad is known as the Lodge at Spindrift. Originally constructed in 1983, the stunning estate, which sits perched atop a craggy cypress-lined cliff overlooking a pristine stretch of shoreline, features six bedrooms and nine baths spread throughout three stories in an incredible 12,100 square feet.
The residence is currently owned by software engineer Gary Vickers, who purchased it for $14.4 million in 2018 and added it to a massive complex of adjoining parcels and properties he spent over a decade accumulating. Consisting of a total of five dwellings and more than four acres of coastal land, he dubbed the compound “The Seven Coves of Spindrift” in honor of the seven inlets it towers above. A labor of love, the Lodge proved his final annexation and, just one year after acquiring it, he put the massive spread of properties up for sale, telling The Mercury News, “I feel like I accomplished what I wanted to do. I got into it as an investment . . . consider it the last stroke of the paintbrush.”
For whatever reason, Vickers recently changed course and is now taking a stab at selling the Lodge individually, though the complete complex remains available as a rental.
Prior to Vickers, the Lodge at Spindrift was owned by Steve Fossett and his wife, Peggy, who purchased it in 1996. An adventurer, Steve is best known for being the first person to fly alone around the world nonstop via balloon. Sadly, he lost his life in an airplane crash in 2007. Peggy held onto the Carmel Highlands home until her own death in 2017, after which Vickers purchased it from her estate.
During their tenure, the Fossetts hired interior designer Paul Vincent Wiseman to reimagine the residence’s interior, after which it was featured in a spread in the September 2004 issue of Architectural Digest. Of the pre-renovated pad’s aesthetic, Wiseman told the magazine, “The house was very confused. It was part suburban tract, part French château, with Art Déco touches added by a Hollywood art director when it was used in filming scenes for ‘Basic Instinct.’”
Wiseman and architect Karin Payson modernized the property, giving it a more cohesive look. According to The Mercury News, the redesign “allowed for more natural light, provided greater views of Point Lobos, opened the space between the dining room and gallery, and gave the master bedroom a neutral tone to offset the blue-centric views out the window.”
The duo also added a dramatic two-story library to the premises, which, according to AD, took over a year to complete. Featuring oak shelving, a spiral staircase, a bronze fireplace and what the magazine describes as “an elliptical domed ceiling ornamented with a silver-and-gold-leaf mural that depicts, in the form of a star chart, Johannes Kepler’s laws of planetary motion,” the space is the crown jewel of the estate.
A trophy property through and through, the spectacular home also boasts a glass-walled breakfast nook, a living room with a vaulted ceiling and a concrete and limestone fireplace, a gym with a sauna, and a gourmet kitchen made complete by a wood-fired pizza oven, a butcher-block-topped central island, open shelving and a massive wine enclosure.
The surrounding 2.1-acre lot, which looks like it was ripped straight out of the pages of Carmel Magazine, is teeming with mature cypress trees, shaded walkways, manicured gardens, a fire pit, a pool and a hot tub.
The Lodge at Spindrift appears extensively throughout “Basic Instinct” as San Francisco homicide Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) attempts to solve a brutal murder with Catherine as his number one suspect.
Both the exterior and interior of the estate are featured in the film. While the 2004 remodel changed the look of the inside quite drastically, it remains very recognizable from its cameo over 30 years ago.
“Basic Instinct” is not Seven Coves’ only claim to fame. Another of the complex’s residences, a small glass-walled bungalow known as the Writer’s Cottage, popped up in the season two episode of “Big Little Lies” titled “Kill Me” as the spot where Ed (Adam Scott) and Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) participated in a hugging seminar as part of a healing retreat in an attempt to repair their marriage. However, very little of the compound can be seen in the short segment.
Bonus – the Lodge at Spindrift sits right next door to the residence featured in “Play Misty For Me’s” climactic final sequence and is just a mile north of the house belonging to Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman) on “Big Little Lies.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com