By Sarah Paynter

Kiss bassist and singer Gene Simmons is listing his Beverly Hills house for $13.995 million. But he won't let just anyone buy the place, he said.

"You have such wonderful times there, you don't want some schmuck in the place you call home," said Simmons, 75. "No drugs, no alcoholics. I don't want anybody coming in there who is going to destroy the place."

The four-bedroom, roughly 7,740-square-foot home sits on a hill with views of Coldwater Canyon, Century City and the Pacific Ocean, said listing agent Lisa Young of Compass, who has the listing with colleagues Kennon Earl and Thomas Davila.

Simmons and his wife, Shannon Tweed Simmons, longtime Beverly Hills residents who planned to move to Las Vegas in 2021, bought the modern house for $10.5 million in 2021 to keep a foothold in the area. Finding Las Vegas too hot, they quickly reversed their decision, putting their Vegas home on the market, and made their new Beverly Hills home their primary residence. He chose the house for its privacy, views and location near movie studios, business partners, and his children, he said.

"Family is forever. You want someplace that can be your business center, close to everything that you need in L.A., but also a place where your kids want to come over and hang with you," he said.

Now, Simmons and his wife are reducing the number of properties they own, he said. They plan to move to a Malibu house they recently purchased, he said.

"I'm the most blessed human being on the planet. These hard times, you don't want to say I have too many houses, but we have too many properties," said Simmons. He and his wife also have a property in Whistler, Canada, two homes in Malibu, and two houses for their children Nick and Sophie, he said. They will be spending more time at their additional properties, visiting "wherever wifey wants, certainly. Certainly, happy wife, happy life."

The house, designed by Swiss architect Roger P. Kurath, is made of glass, steel, oak and concrete. It is surrounded by large, bronze sculptures and it incorporates large, floor-to-ceiling windows that slide open for indoor-outdoor living. "It's still homey and outdoorsy," he said.

Amenities include an art gallery space where he hangs his own artwork, and a soundproofed home theater where Simmons said he screens movies for his production company Simmons/Hamilton Productions, which released the movie "Deep Water" in 2022. The home is also outfitted with high-end smart-home devices, said Simmons.

"It is like a 22nd-century house," said Simmons. "I had to go out and buy a simple microwave so that I could press one button and heat things up because the coffee maker, the cappuccino maker, the time machine, all that stuff was built into the wall -- voice activated I might add -- was so complex, I couldn't make it work."

Outside, the half-acre lot has a solar-powered, 40-foot, black-lined infinity pool and 1,800 square feet of patio space. He said he likes sitting outside with his children and their significant others, where they eat popcorn and hot dogs and play the adult card game "Cards Against Humanity."

"Of course, we laugh our heads off," he said.

The Kiss co-founder, also known as The Demon, is known for wearing black-and-white makeup and spitting blood on stage. In addition to his work as a musician, Simmons has a restaurant chain, a record label, a reality show and other ventures.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, luxury single-family homes in Los Angeles sold for an average $15.92 million, up 6% from the same period in 2023, but the market in the area has since slowed due to uncertainty in the larger economic climate, said Young.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 23, 2025 15:14 ET (19:14 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.