Former Hollywood Uber Couple
Slashes Price on Celeb Digs

Stars Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, who split in a highly publicized divorce in January 2005, have cut the asking price on their Beverly Hills, Calif., house to $24.95 million from $28 million.

The couple, who were married in 2000, quietly listed the property in October and plan to divide its sale proceeds. Publicists for Mr. Pitt and Ms. Aniston didn't return calls seeking comment.

The couple bought the two-story, French Normandy-style house in 2001 from entertainment attorney Ken Ziffren, paying $13.1 million, according to public records. Built in 1935, the house has five bedrooms, including three guest suites, and nine bathrooms. Wallace Neff, whose résumé includes a number of 1930s and 1940s Hollywood celebrity homes, designed this one, too.

The couple spent more than three years remodeling the house, adding heated, marble kitchen floors, a private screening room and, for a pub room, wood floors imported from a 200-year-old French chateau. They lived in the house less than two years. Neighbors include actor Danny DeVito and longtime media executive David Geffen.

Local brokers say that the $28 million price was too high -- the house is on 1? acres -- and that a price cut is likely to generate more interest. An eight-acre parcel of land near Mr. Pitt and Ms. Aniston's property sold this month for $33.6 million. The luxury market in Beverly Hills is among the strongest in the country, with eight houses priced at $10 million and above selling last year, up from seven in 2004. The median price of a single-family home there rose to $1.91 million in 2005 from $1.88 million a year earlier.

Mr. Pitt will soon appear in a western, "The Assassination of Jesse James"; one of Ms. Aniston's next movies is called "The Break Up." Stephen Shapiro and Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency in Beverly Hills, who last year sold a $24 million estate in Malibu, Calif., to Mel Gibson, are listing the property.

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