Reel Estate: Sharon Fails Up, Simon Tears Down (Celebrity Secrets)

Sharon Stone isn't going to let a little thing like the spectacular box office flame-out that was "Basic Instinct 2" stop her from plunking down big bucks for a swanky new pad. The audience-repelling actress has reportedly picked up a Beverly Hills mansion for a little more than $10 million, about $4 million less than she received to reprise her skin-baring role in the critically eviscerated sequel and twice as much as it earned domestically.

According to Forbes, Stone, 48, purchased the 5-acre estate from a young and "very rich" hedge fund exec, who is apparently upgrading to a far more famous nearby abode: The rarefied Beverly Hills residence that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston once called home. The ex-lovebirds' extensively renovated Wallace Neff-designed digs sold for an estimated $22.5 million last month, with the buyer identified only as a foreign and non-famous.

Sharon's new 9,000-square-foot gated compound comes complete with five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a two-bedroom guesthouse, gym, screening room, tennis court, pool and meditation garden, reports the L.A. Times. She'll share the expansive property, which also includes mountain views, fruit trees and waterfalls, with sons Roan, 5, and Laird, almost 1

In other real estate news, Simon Cowell apparently isn't limiting his teardowns to the dreams of "American Idol" contestants and the self-confidence of Ryan Seacrest. The London Mirror claims the strained T-shirt- and crankypants-sporting judge is planning to demolish a palatial Beverly Hills mansion previously owned by Jennifer Lopez, for which he shelled out an estimated $10 million.

"Simon knows what he wants and as soon as he saw J. Lo's house, he had to have it," a mole tells the tab. "But it would appear that even Jennifer Lopez's plush pad simply wasn't good enough."

The problem, it seems, was Mrs. Marc Anthony's "minimalist approach" to interior design, which didn't fit with Cowell's conception of a homier, more "lived-in" space. His supposed solution to the aesthetic impasse: start over.

"When it comes to houses, money is no object for Simon so he hasn't batted an eyelid at spending an extra [$5 million] knocking the place down and rebuilding from scratch," says the snitch. "Everything in J. Lo's house is pristine, shiny and new. It looks like it hasn't been lived in at all -- which is one of the things that turned Simon off."

Celebrity Secrets Special thank you to Source