Inman News
Located in Beverly Hills, the main home boasts 17,100 square feet and is designed in the style of an Italianate villa.
Sofia Vergara and husband Joe Manganiello shelled out $26 million for a Beverly Hills estate that once belonged to baseball legend Barry Bonds.
The power couple purchased the 1.85-acre property earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times first reported. Located in Beverly Hills, the main home sits at 17,100 square feet and is designed in the style of an Italianate villa. It is isolated from the rest of the world by a tree-lined driveway and has a number of amenities that are particularly popular among affluent home shoppers during the pandemic — a pool, a spa, a guesthouse, a movie theater and a walnut-panelled office.
The highest-paid TV actress in the world as of 2019, Vergara was born in Colombia and made her media start by hosting Spanish-language news shows for Univision. She rose to major fame in the US through her role in the ABC show “Modern Family” and has gone on to host “America’s Got Talent.” Mangianello is best known for his role in HBO’s “True Blood.”
Realtor.com
The home that Vergara and Manganiello chose also has a star-studded history — Barry Bonds, who played 22 seasons in the MLB, bought it in 2002 when he was with the San Francisco Giants. He had paid $8.7 million and, after living in it for a while, sold it for $22 million in 2013. According to Realtor.com, Bonds made a number of customizations to the house while he was living there — expanding the main house by 5,500 square feet and adding custom fish tanks as well a s a state-of-the-art gym.
The property has switched hands several times since then, including to Chinese metal billionaire Diana Chen, but ultimately hit the market in 2019 — around the same time as Vergara and Manganiello started home shopping in the Beverly Hills area.
Victoria Risko and Barry Peele of Sotheby’s International Realty were the property’s listing agents while Peele also worked with the buyer.