James Brolin is gushing about his domestic bliss with wife of 26 years Barbra Streisand and a source exclusively tells Closer it’s no surprise they’re so happy living like royalty in that $100 million Malibu mansion.
“Barbara has designed every aspect of their home meticulously and she has a hand picked staff running it all like a well oiled machine,” the insider explains. “She and James want for nothing, they have people tending to their every whim.”
“Barbara spends a fortune on salaries every month because she has so many people working for her,” the source adds, “It’s almost like an old English estate because there’s a huge contingency of servants.”
Brooklyn native Barbra, 83, has more than enough to pay for her Downton Abbey fantasy after racking up an estimated $400 million over the course of her six-decade career. The multi-platinum songstress released her debut, self-titled album in 1963.
“I was a child who had to dream, who had to live in my imagination because I came from a weird dysfunctional home. I was the kid on the block that was known for not having a father when all my friends had fathers,” she told Jamie Foxx during an interview in June 2018. “I had a good voice, but I dreamed about bigger things than the projects in Brooklyn.”
After selling 150 million records worldwide, the source says her palatial mansion, a coastal erosion survey photo of which was the center of the 2003 controversy that coined The Streisand Effect, is an absolutely stunning monument to Babs’ own creativity and is certainly well looked after. “The garden staff alone is a dozen people, including a well-paid arborist and an expert horticulturist. Her compound is three acres and the gardens are a huge source of solace,” the source reveals. “She spends a lot of time walking around her property and looking at all the flowers and plants and out over the ocean.”
There’s also more than enough house for Barbra and James, 84, to enjoy spending time with their children and grandchildren. They share no children together, but the Funny Girl actress has a son, Jason, 58, by ex Elliott Gould and three stepchildren: sons Jess, 53, and Josh, 57, from James’ first marriage to Jane Cameron Agee and daughter Molly, 38, via second wife Jan Smithers. Both sons are actors and both have four kids each, leaving the couple with eight grandkids to spoil to no end.
“The home is massive, over ten thousand square feet, with eight bedrooms and eleven bathrooms, plus a guest cottage,” the source details. “The cleaning staff is working every day, full time to keep it all up to Barbara’s exacting standards.”
“They have their own spa and a massage therapist on retainer, and of course a number of private chefs. If Barbara gets up at 3 a.m. she wants someone there waiting to make her a snack.”
“She’s the queen of her castle and James is her king. They’re living a life that their Hollywood peers could only ever dream of.”