Lisa Rinna has opened the doors to her longtime Beverly Hills home for years, revealing an unusually personal space crammed with antiques, family history, and decades of memories.
But behind the familiar rooms is a far more tangled story that began before Rinna ever moved in and ultimately brought one of the couple’s biggest milestones back to the very same property.
The sprawling estate became instantly recognizable to viewers of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” during Rinna’s eight seasons on the show. Since then, her social media posts have offered fans an even more intimate glimpse behind its doors.
Yet beneath all those dance videos, antique furnishings, and family moments lies the remarkable tale of three marriages, one house, and a Beverly Hills property Rinna once admitted was almost entirely her husband’s creation.
The House Was Designed for Wife Number One
Harry Hamlin was married to actress Laura Johnson from 1985 to 1989. During that marriage, he had the Beverly Hills house built from the ground up in 1986, according to The U.S. Sun, which reported on the property’s history and finances.
And the lot already had its own celebrity history. A smaller house with an overgrown backyard once stood there — and singer Bonnie Raitt lived in it. After Hamlin designed and rebuilt the property, Quincy Jones rented it.
Property records tell a slightly different story about the purchase date. The 1939-era gated estate last changed hands in 1987 for roughly $1.1 million, according to figures cited by Realtor.com.
That same year, Hamlin was named People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive.” He was riding high on his “L.A. Law” fame as the house came together.
The finished property was a French Provincial home packed with antique furnishings. But Hamlin had something very particular in mind — and it was never supposed to look like a pristine showroom.
A House That Was Supposed to Show Its Scars
Rinna later told LA Home exactly what her husband wanted. “Harry built the house so that you don’t have to take your shoes off. I wanted to build a house that got better as it got older,” she said.
“The idea is that the chips and cracks that accumulated over time would add to the effect so it matured like a fine wine. I didn’t want it to look new all the time,” Rinna added.
Chips and cracks as a feature, not a flaw. It was a design philosophy that would eventually become the very thing strangers on the internet couldn’t stop arguing about. And there is nothing small about the property behind those imperfections.
The mansion spans 4,122 square feet on a one-acre lot, with five bedrooms and four baths. Over the past three decades, its value climbed to nearly $4 million by early 2025. The U.S. Sun placed it at around $4.9 million in 2023, based on realtor sites.
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Wife Number Two Refused to Set Foot in It
Hamlin and Johnson divorced in 1989. He married actress Nicollette Sheridan in 1991, but that union lasted only about a year. And Sheridan would not live in the house. She refused, leaving Hamlin to move out of the home he’d built and live with her instead.
When their relationship ended, he moved back in. By that point, he had already met Rinna — the pair crossed paths in 1992, the same year his second marriage ended, according to a Fox News interview in which Hamlin discussed his lasting marriage.
Rinna herself laid out the eyebrow-raising sequence in a conversation published by Bravo in May 2020. “He built it with his first wife,” the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” cast member explained.
“Then they got divorced, and then his second wife would not live in this house. She refused to live in this house. So he moved out and lived with her, and then when they broke up, he moved back in, and I was like, [..] I don’t care. I’ll live in your house!'”
And she did. Rinna moved in during the mid-1990s — less than a decade after Hamlin bought the place — beginning a chapter that would eventually make the home almost as recognizable as its famous occupants.
She Had Never Lived in a House Before
For Rinna, however, the move wasn’t simply about getting more square footage. It marked a personal first. “I’d never lived in a house; I lived in apartments,” she said. “I moved into Harry’s house, and I never left.”
Wife Number Two Refused to Set Foot in It
Hamlin and Johnson divorced in 1989. He married actress Nicollette Sheridan in 1991, but that union lasted only about a year. And Sheridan would not live in the house. She refused, leaving Hamlin to move out of the home he’d built and live with her instead.
When their relationship ended, he moved back in. By that point, he had already met Rinna — the pair crossed paths in 1992, the same year his second marriage ended, according to a Fox News interview in which Hamlin discussed his lasting marriage.
Rinna herself laid out the eyebrow-raising sequence in a conversation published by Bravo in May 2020. “He built it with his first wife,” the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” cast member explained.
“Then they got divorced, and then his second wife would not live in this house. She refused to live in this house. So he moved out and lived with her, and then when they broke up, he moved back in, and I was like, [..] I don’t care. I’ll live in your house!'”
And she did. Rinna moved in during the mid-1990s — less than a decade after Hamlin bought the place — beginning a chapter that would eventually make the home almost as recognizable as its famous occupants.
She Had Never Lived in a House Before
For Rinna, however, the move wasn’t simply about getting more square footage. It marked a personal first. “I’d never lived in a house; I lived in apartments,” she said. “I moved into Harry’s house, and I never left.”