Days Of Heaven

The late Hollywood mogul Brad Grey and his wife, Cassandra, poured heart and soul into the creation of a meditative Los Angeles estate.

- Hamish Bowles

When the überproducer Brad Grey and the gamine beauty entrepreneur Cassandra Huysentruyt began looking for a place to create a home together, they considered some storied architectural gems in the giddier heights of Los Angeles’s manicured enclaves. The couple was ultimately inspired, however, by the landscape of Carolwood, where Frank Sinatra had once lived, beautifully situated on the cusp of a knoll in Holmby Hills, with dramatic views of downtown Los Angeles.

When they first met, marriage was far from Huysentruyt’s mind. However, Bronx-born Brad had built a successful career as a Hollywood talent manager and producer on his passion for detail and his powers of persuasion, working his way up from being a concert gofer as a teenager in Buffalo, New York, to chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures. Sure enough, in 2011 the couple was married on Carolwood’s lawn under two stately Chinese elms in an emotional ceremony before an audience of Los Angeles royalty including Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lopez, Jack Nicholson, Gwen Stefani, and the legendarily ballsy agent Sue Mengers, who claimed to have orchestrated the union. (“She told Brad that he had to close the deal!” Cassandra recalls gleefully.) The bride, a fashionable pixie, wore a voluminous feathered gown by Naeem Khan with custom Louboutins; Sting serenaded the newlyweds with “My Funny Valentine”; Brad’s two elder sons, Max and Sam, gave the toasts; and Don Rickles gave the roast. Cassandra ended the festivities in a silver flapper dress with her husband’s white shirt worn insouciantly on top.