Pioneering Producer Charles D. King Seeks Studio City Sale
Charles D. King may not be a household name in the vein of Zendaya, Cardi B or Megan Thee Stallion, but he is nonetheless and indisputably one of showbiz’s most on-the-move and on-the-pulse power players whose story is, well, pure Hollywood. After graduating law school at Howard University, he worked his way up from the mailroom of the William Morris Agency (now William Morris Endeavor) to become a top tier talent agent and the first Black partner at a Hollywood talent agency who repped a laundry list of A-listers like Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry and Lin-Manuel Miranda. With a bigger vision and a mountain of ambition, King moved on in 2015 with the launch of Macro, a development and production company that aims to create film, TV and digital content from the perspective of people of color for multicultural audiences.
Macro’s first three films, “Fences,” “Mudbound” and “Roman J. Israel, Esq.” collectively earned nine Oscar nominations; Viola Davis took home a golden statuette for her stunning supporting role in “Fences” and Dee Rees made history as the first black woman to be nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for “Mudbound.” The prolific producer and executive’s current slate of projects includes (but is hardly limited to) the Netflix series “Gentefied,” the upcoming bio-drama “Judas an the Black Messiah,” about activist Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party in the 1960s, and the five-part FX docu-series “Outlaw: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur.”
With all that professional success, it’s not too surprising, at least not to property gossips, that the Tinseltown heavy hitter has traded his spacious home in Studio City for, we presume, something much more grand and in line with his skyrocketing success. Acquired via trust in early 2013 for $2.4 million, and hardly what anyone would call a starter house, King’s now former Studio City home first came up for sale more than a year ago with an asking price just shy of $3.8 million. The price dropped to almost $3.5 million and was briefly set out for rent at $15,000 per month before it was taken off the market earlier this year only pop back up for sale with an even-more-reduced price of $3.275 million.
Listings held by Ted Fleming at Rodeo Realty show the 5,200-square-foot home, a shingle- and clapboard-clad neo-traditional contemporary that’s almost invisible behind a towering hedgerow on a pancake flat corner parcel of just over a quarter acre, contains five bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms. Brand spanking new when purchased by King and his wife, branding specialist Stacey King, who serves as Macro’s Chief Brand Officer, the sprawling two-story residence features high ceilings, lustrous wood floors and a spunky (and some might argue courageous) décor that incorporates bright colors, a wide variety of patterned wallpapers and shimmering splashes of glamour.
Wrapped in abstract black-and-white wallpaper, the double-height foyer features a curved staircase and leads to a living room boldly painted a lustrous shade of azure with golden insets in the coffered ceiling, while the formal dining room, sheathed in cocoa-colored grass cloth, is zhushed up with even more gold paint on the ceiling. The huge traditional kitchen, which looks like it was ripped out of a recently renovated cottage-style mansion in the Hamptons with marble counters and premium-quality appliances, spills into a combination informal dining and family room with more abstract black-and-white wallpaper along with a fireplace and French doors to the yard. The main floor is finished off by a study/office, a gym and a spacious guest suite. A lofted lounge at the top of the stairs separates three en suite guest and family bedrooms from the principal bedroom, where there’s a fireplace, snakeskin-patterned wallpaper, a fitted walk-in closet and a double-vanity marble bathroom.
Like the front yard, the backyard is ringed by a 30-foot hedgerow that ensures privacy and is simply landscaped with a stone terracing, a few carefully clipped green bushes and a swathe of drought-busting artificial turf. A swimming pool and spa complete the verdant oasis.
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