Culture See Inside Pharrell Williams's $17M Mansion - that Fans Are Joking Looks Like a 'Community College'

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Pharrell Williams is letting go of his massive Los Angeles mansion.

The 46-year-old “Happy” singer recently put his 10-bedroom, 11-bathroom Beverly Hills, Calif., home on the market for $16.95 million. At more than 17,000 square feet, the residence boasts custom architecture that uniquely houses modern interiors fit for entertaining.

According to the estate’s listing — which is represented by agents Kurt Rappaport and Drew Meyers of Westside Estate Agency — the property offers “resort-style living” with a tennis court and grotto, but some fans on social media felt it brought another type of building to mind.

“This man live in a community college,” one twitter user joked on Tuesday, prompting a lively debate about what others thought the home resembles.

“I think that’s the polling place I’m voting at,” wrote another on Super Tuesday.
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Anthony Barcelo/Westside Estate Agency
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Anthony Barcelo/Westside Estate Agency

“I had a dream that I met Pharrell in an elevator and told him his house looked like a community college,” one user shared. While Durham College posted a photo of a building on their campus, complete with a remarkably similar ring-shaped sculpture and the caption, “We see no difference.”

And the four acres of property could certainly host quite a crowd — behind the gates, a 200-foot driveway leads to a motor court with space for 30 vehicles.
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Anthony Barcelo/Westside Estate Agency

According to the Los Angeles Times, Williams bought the home from director Tyler Perry in 2018 for $15.6 million. The property was originally built in 1992.

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Anthony Barcelo/Westside Estate Agency
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Anthony Barcelo/Westside Estate Agency
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Anthony Barcelo/Westside Estate Agency

Williams has made some very real collegiate dreams come true in the past.

While giving the commencement speech for the 2019 class of Harlem Children’s Zone Promise Academy in June, the artist had a surprise for the graduating class. Williams announced to the 114 graduates that he had guaranteed internship opportunities for every student after their first year of college.

“The world is watching Harlem, but this renaissance will be different,” Williams said during his speech. “Believe it or not … it’s going to actually be better. The reason why is because the new Harlem Renaissance has education at its core.”

When one student heard Williams’ announcement, she could not believe it at first but felt a sense of relief going into her freshman year of college.

“I was surprised and shocked and relieved,” Brionna Pope told CNN at the time. “A lot of us who were financially struggling … to at least know we had a head start in life because next summer we would be able to get internships and make connections.”
 
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There is way too much concrete surrounding the house as well. That's a big reason why it looks like a community college - though the giant glass curtain walls certainly don't help. It looks like there's one of those generic academic 'plazas' in the front for students to shuffle around. One of the only contexts in which large glassy facades fit in an organic, beautiful manner are those low-rise Earthships you find out in places like Taos, New Mexico. Those are specifically built with energy efficiency and practicality in mind, as opposed to Pharrell's monstrosity, which would be a nightmare for cooling and heating.
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Robert Sanvagene said:
Yes but actually no.

Pharrell has written a shitload of songs for other recording artists over the years, as well as production when he was one half of The Neptunes. That's where he would have made most of his money.

IMO, his best work was with N.E.R.D. That was basically The Neptunes, only given free reign to do whatever they hell they wanted rather than being restricted by what a particular artist (or, more accurately, a particular artist's record label A&R person) demanded from their songwriting.



You're thinking of Jay Kay from Jamiroquai.
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People forget that he was in Snoops hit song "Drop it like it's hot"... 16 years ago. This guy has been around for a a while.
 
Fuck having to clean that place. I don't have enough hours in the day to keep my 3x1 spic and spam.
 
Varg Did Nothing Wrong said:
I'm not rich so maybe it's a perspective thing, but why the fuck would you ever need to have 10 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms in your house
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You could invite all your buddies to chug forties and blast speed metal in your pool and later they can totally crash if they want. Makes people want to come to your house to party. Personally I wanna get stupid rich so I can own a skyscraper, I'll lease that shit out and have a tiny little house on the roof kinda like Donald Love in GTA III.
 
Slimy Time said:
Maybe it's my non Hollywood, non billionaire self, but does it need to be that big of a house? When are you ever going to use half of what's inside the house? If I were a multi millionaire/billionaire, I'd get a big house/apartment according to need and have it gated/security, but I wouldn't want to have a mansion. It's not needed. I'd want it to feel like home, not some large rent a home/mansion.
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I could understand having a huge ass yard, you can have lots of dogs playing there without a care in the world.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
I could understand having a huge ass yard, you can have lots of dogs playing there without a care in the world.
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Agreed. It would be much more attractive to have a smaller house incorporated seamlessly into a homestead of a couple acres or so, preferably using vernacular architectural style that incorporates local materials, and is suited for the specific biome in which it is located. We've lost a lot of that 'practical but beautiful' mentality during the course of the mid-20th and early 21st century in favor of glass cubes and inelegant prisms. At the same time, we shouldn't just look at and copy the past, great works of architecture. We can learn from the masters' techniques but also use the knowledge we've gained about efficiency, land management, recycling, and so on to create new, organic, beautiful works that actually feel like a *home* rather than a generic business park. I recommend checking out the works of the great Hungarian architect Imre Makovecz, Antoni Gaudi, Rudolf Steiner, Duncan Stroik, David M. Schwarz, and Peter Vetsch. There are many others but those are the first that come to mind.
 
I don't see why celebrities buy extravagant houses like this. If I was rich, I'd live in a plain old house.

It does look aesthetically pleasing.
 
I worked for an insanely rich couple and it had 2 bedrooms they actually used (one downstairs and one upstairs just depended on how they felt I guess?) that was pretty cool. Then, they had fucking 7 other bedrooms that got used literally one time out of the years I knew them. Didn’t stop them from being decorated with 100k worth of shit that no one saw basically. I didn’t get it tbh, and the husband was just kinda like whatever it makes her happy. They also both were insane rich before marriage so it’s not like she was spending his money.
 
Don't you ever wonder why we don't see the "eat the rich" crowd gun for shit like People over masturbatory pieces like this? If that crowd wasn't full of hypocrites Pharrell would reasonably worry that People was doing it as a hit piece and putting a moral outrage target on his back.
 
Mariposa Electrique said:
Don't worry, in a few years, all his money will be gone on crack, fancy clothing, and child support. the blacks love crack.
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He's more likely to lose his money trying to turn harlem into a Black Silicon Valley. Pharrell is a stand out when it comes to reinvesting into poor black communities, building education centers for kids so they can study with help and safety, learn to code all that shit. I recall reading a fluff peice about how he wants to help Black auto nerds build an electric car or a ferrari like.


The Last Stand said:
I don't see why celebrities buy extravagant houses like this. If I was rich, I'd live in a plain old house.

It does look aesthetically pleasing.
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you buy a plain old house in a plain old neighborhood and any yokel is going to be able to knock on your door.
 
The Last Stand said:
I don't see why celebrities buy extravagant houses like this. If I was rich, I'd live in a plain old house.

It does look aesthetically pleasing.
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It’s most likely a tacky status symbol. Not too sure if I agree with that satellite campus being considered aesthetically pleasing.
 
murdered meat bag said:
buffet has a company funded private security company keep people at bay.
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True. Though it is admirable that he's chosen to live in the same abode for so long, I'm certain it is still at least as fortified as a South African bungalow.
 
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