It took a barrage of news about his graffiti-slathered mansions to compel producer John Powers Middleton to pipe up about their slow demise in the Hollywood Hills .
The son of the billionaire owner of the Philadelphia Phillies issued a formal apology to his neighbors and the City of Los Angeles after complaints surfaced about the seemingly abandoned properties, the Los Angeles Times and NBC4 reported.
The homes a few miles apart have been vacant for years, drawing squatters and vandals with spray paint. In recent weeks, residents said they’ve noticed graffiti on the walls of the homes on the 1700 block of Mulholland Drive and on North Sunset Plaza Drive.
Both home addresses were not disclosed.
Middleton said both mansions had security in place and had been overseen by a property manager. He said that now there’s 24/7 armed security at both locations.
“What’s happened to the two properties I own is unacceptable, and no matter what caused it, I own the houses,” Middleton said in his first statement since his homes gained national attention. “Given the persistence of the numerous trespassers, it’s a struggle.
“I’m disappointed to note that even as I have worked this week to paint over the graffiti, vandals still managed to break in and paint over the newly cleaned walls.”
The 40-year-old TV and film producer didn’t say why he let the homes, empty for years, deteriorate for so long.
“It’s just insane,” a woman who has lived near one of the homes since 2008 told the Times. “There was once a gorgeous home there. I mean, who does that? Who walks away from a $10-million house like that and just lets it go to squatters?”
City workers placed a fence in front of the Mullholland property this week and police officers were at the site. City crews boarded up its windows and whitewashed graffiti covering much of the four-story home.
Police arrested a man and a woman on suspicion of breaking into the house and possessing a firearm.
Middleton promised to repay the city any taxpayer funds used to protect the property.
The absent owner bought the four-story mansion on Sunset Plaza in 2013 for $7 million. Police records show officers responded to the home 17 times this year, including calls about burglars, prowlers and vandalism.
Middleton bought the six-bedroom Mulholland Drive mansion in 2012 for $4.7 million. After it was declared a public nuisance a decade later, the Department of Building and Safety ordered Middleton to build a fence and secure the property. When he didn’t, the city built the fence.
Property taxes have not been paid on the Mulholland home since 2022, according to the Los Angeles County Assessor’s Office.
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Middleton, whose film credits as an executive producer include “Death Note,” “Nimona” and “Good Boys,” comes from a family whose tobacco firm, John Middleton, launched the Black & Mild stogie in the 1980s and popularized rolling pipe tobacco into cigars, according to the Times.
In 2007, his father John S. Middleton sold the business to the parent company of Philip Morris for $2.9 billion, according to Forbes. The elder Middleton is also the CEO and co-owner of the Philadelphia Phillies, which has disavowed having anything to do with the nuisance homes.
— Dana Bartholomew
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