Katy Perry‘s bid to buy a former Los Angeles convent from Sisters of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary has new life, now that the courts had voided the sale to a competing buyer.
The nuns that own the 8-acre property are hoping to sell to restauranteur Dana Hollister for $15.5, whereas the Los Angeles archdiocese favors Perry’s $14.5 million bid.
While Los Angeles archbishop Jose Gomez filed a lawsuit in June, claiming the property’s ultimate fate lay in the hands of the archdiocese, the nuns quickly fired back with a restraining order, contesting the archbishop’s legal claim to their former home.
In Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, judge James Chalfant did not rule in either party’s favor regarding the sale. Instead, Hollister and Perry will both have the opportunity to submit bids to temporarily rent the property.
The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Retreat House in Los Feliz.
Photo: Courtesy of LosFelizRegister.com.
“We’ll have a battle of potential lessees of this property for the benefit of the sisters,” Chalfant told the court, as reported by Reuters. He had initially offered Hollister the lease at $25,000 a month, but the archdiocese asked that Perry be allowed to submit a rental bid of her own.
Perry hopes to live in the former convent. The five remaining sisters are looking to split the proceeds of the sale of the property.
Reuters reports that the judge is not anticipating a speedy resolution to the dispute, which could drag on for two years.
Katy Perry taking a selfie in front of Will Cotton’s Cupcake Katy at the National Portrait Gallery.
Photo: Paul Morigi/AP Images for National Portrait Gallery.
Although Perry is the daughter of Protestant pastors and pursued a career as a Christian singer before her success as a pop star, she is now known for her cheerfully colorful yet often overtly sexual image, and rose to fame with the single “I Kissed a Girl.”
“Obviously, Catholic nuns are not particularly enamored of the image that Katy Perry puts out,” the sisters’ attorney, Bernie Resser, told reporters outside the court.