Sunday, November 9, 2008

Monday Mid-Morning Mish Mash

1.
According to The Real Deal, outspoken lefty liberal comedian Rosie O'Donnell has finally closed on the $1,970,000 condo at The Platinum building in New York City for which she reportedly signed a contract in September of 2007.

Her new 22nd floor two bedroom pied a terre puts the Broadway luvin' lesbian blogger right in the heart of the bizzy, loud and tourist filled Times Square theater district. Your Mama wonders if she'll be able to see or hear that stoopid gee-tar strumming cowboy that hangs around Times Square in his underwear entertaining tourists who think he's strange and eccentric.

Several years back Miz O'Donnell and her life sharing ladee-mate Kelli purchased a river front spread in Nyack, NY where they're raising a passel of shorties. Miz O'Donnell also reportedly owns a 1 bedroom condo at the Lumiere building on West 53rd Street (also in New York City) and as far as we can tell, she still owns a waterfront spread on the guard gated and celebrity swamped Star Island enclave in Miami.

2.
Thanks Danny Digsitup from Down Under, we've learned that hard hitting and much maligned Aussie tennis titan Lleyton Hewitt, who in 2006 was nominated by GQ magazine as one of the "10 Most Hated Athletes" in sports–has put his glass and concrete contemporary casa in Adelaide's fancy schmancy Island Point at West Lakes up for sale for an undisclosed asking price.

According to recent article in the Herald Sun, the notoriously mouthy Mister Hewitt forked over $3,200,000–that's $2,160,320 US at today's rates–in 2003 for the 5 bedroom and 4 bathroom waterfront retreat.

Listing information reveals that the 2 story residence measures in at approximately 700 square meters–that's just over 7,500 square feet for us Americans–and includes such dee-luxe amenities as an indoor swimming pool and spa, sauna, private screening room, a billiards room with a sports bar (which we presume means there are several tee-vees suspended above the bar), a lakeside bar, an indoor barbecue, radiant heating, a commercial cool room (whatever that is) and a moss and rock waterfall beside the suspended staircase.

According to Mister Hewitt The Elder, young Mister Hewitt and his with-child wifey don't spend enough time enjoying the lavish comforts of the house to justify owning and maintaining such a residence.

3.
The Times Online is now reporting that the garish, glitzy and grotesquely gaudy Toprak Mansion on The Bishops Avenue in North London, purchased in a blaze of publicity earlier this year for a rumored and reported £50,000,000, was purchased secretly by a gentleman named Nursultan Nazarbayev, who happens to be the current president of Kazakhstan.

The owners of record for the 28,000 square foot quasi-neo-classical hot mess, Hossein Ghandehari and his 75 year old billionaire mother Hourieh Peremam, denied the veracity of the claim which was made by Kazahkstan's former head of security Alnur Musayev.

4.
We hear from the Nashville Newsmonger that country crooner Toby Keith has already karate chopped the asking price of his recently listed mausoleum-like Nashville pied a terre from $1,595,000 to $1,349,000. That was fast.

5.
Another one of those orange skinned Orange County Housewives is selling her house. Well, sort of. Last year, according to property records, Vicki Gunvalson, the uber intense and tightly wound insurance broker, forked over $1,650,000 to purchase an approximately 4,000 square foot house on Altimira in the guard gated community of Coto de Caza. On several episodes of The Real Housewives of Orange County, Vicki and her empty nesting huzband Donn started they wanted to move because their current house (also behind the gates in Coto) was a bit big at approximately 5,000 square feet.

After closing on the new property fickle Miss Vicki decided she wasn't ready to leave the big house where she raised her children. In November of 2007, after having a big queen from San Francisco "decorate" the newly purchased custom built tract house, Mister and Missus Gunvalson hoisted the 5 bedroom and 5 bathroom residence back on the market with an asking price of $1,780,000. Naturally the house was listed with real estate "Housewife" Jeana Keough.

The house did not sell and was later taken off the market only to reappear recently with a new and only slightly improved asking price of $1,695,000, a figure that means that if Jeana can get full price for the house and hard bargaining biznesswoman Vicki can persuade Jeana to cut her commission, she just might break even. However, given the rather sorry state of real estate in Coto de Caza, that looks to be a difficult if not impossible prospect.

6.
Over the weekend, Your Mama traded several covert communiques with a luvlee ladee we'll call Linda Likestotalk who gave us the lowdown one of the many Los Angeles properties for which Jenufleck–or whatever it is that the gossip glossies call Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck–(allegedly) signed a sales contract and then bailed out.

The house in question is the house on Brentwood's N. Carmelina Avenue that the with child couple is often photographed going in and out of. Here, in short summary, is what Miss Likestotalk told Your Mama: The residentially indecisive couple were in contract to purchase the property (which was not been on the open market) for $16,500,000 but, according to Miz Likestotalk, backed out due to concerns that the high priced property could not be "paparazzi proofed."

Strangely, and for reasons about which we do not have a clue, the comely couple continue to visit the newly constructed residence even though, according to Miss Likestotalk, they long ago backed out of the contract. Since Benger (or whatever they're called) backed out, several other parties–including, we hear, filmmaker Judd Apaptow–have expressed interest but not moved forward with a purchase prompting the owner/developer to recently put the 5 bedroom (plus two more in the pool house) and 8 bathroom residence on the open market with an asking price of $14,950,000.

Maybe Afflegar (or whatever) will like the house better at this price.

7.
In May of 2008, the wildly famous and much lauded Richard Neutra designed Kaufmann House in Palm Springs was was sold for a reported $19,000,000 (some earlier reports said $16,840,000) to an undisclosed buyer as part of Christie's Postwar and Contemporary Art auction. However, the big deal fell apart for reasons not released to the public and entirely unknown to Your Mama.

The architecturally significant property on West Vista Chino isnow being offered on the open market with a bargain basement sounding asking price of $12,900,000. But according to Architecutural Record, since being re-listed on September 29, no serious buyers have presented themselves to the Los Angeles real estate company who holds the listing.

Looks like the current owners, a reportedly dee-vorcing couple named Harris, couldn't have timed the sale of their architectural labor of love any worse. Oh dear.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

the kauffman house would be perfect for madonna and her "post-ritchie" phase. she could run around in pucci dresses and get super tan like magda in there's something about mary.

Anonymous said...

Rosie's 'new' condo in The Platinum is only a few blocks away from Rockefeller Center, making the broadcast of her variety show a breeze.

And yes, she's still got the one bedroom condo on 53rd, the riverfront house in Nyack and the Star Island spread (Rosie's favorite home).

Anonymous said...

Mama--regarding the Australian house, I believe a cool room is a restaurant-style walk-in refrigerator. Unbelievable that they hardly ever used the place.

http://www.allfoodequipment.com.au/products_detail.cfm?prod_id=228

Anonymous said...

I have to say the Kaufman house is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS! Should be interesting to see what it actually sells for,but I love it.

What happened to the Singleton residence owned by Vidal Sassoon, that was grossly over-priced after the un-historically respective renovation? It disappeared from MLS sometime ago and have no heard anything about it.... anyone? anyone?

Anonymous said...

what can I say the sky is falling

you will see more and more folks backing out of deals for the next year or two

who wants to pay top dollar now when you can get the same place next year for 80% off ?


btw GM stock is at $4 a share

analysts say it is going to ZERO !!!!!!!

what do you think ?????

:)

Anonymous said...

people, if you don't like someone's post, just ignore it.
the only thing worse than an annoying post is posts complaining about it

Anonymous said...

Mama

Time to break out your bejewelled abacus and account for the price chops at Beck's house in Hancock Park.

Anonymous said...

3:19 -

Re-read the post. He asks for us to tell him what we think. If you don't like us answering his question, perhaps you should be the one ignoring the posts?

Anonymous said...

love the way 'average joe' seems to know exactly how to get under the skin of the ladies here who either bought high, or are trying to foist someone else's insanely overpriced digs on the last unsuspecting buyer in the whole world. the house may not be worth what it cost the builder to purchase the property and construct the house back in whatever year for a very long time, if ever again. get used to it and begin to adjust your lives accordingly.

Anonymous said...

The actual winning bid was $15,000,000. The total price of $19,000,000 reflected the buyer's premium which would have been payable to Christie's, plus the cost of the adjacent undeveloped lot which the winning bidder chose to exercise the option to buy.

Anonymous said...

Anon 6:37,

OR....

people could be visiting Mama's lovely site for entertainment and diversion and not to hear about "average joe's" sad little rants about how he perceives the world around his one room apartment.

Not everyone was dumb enough to use their house as an ATM, and many were smart enough, had a reasonable down, and good enough credit that they didn't need one of those fly-by-night loans.

Anonymous said...

3:50

get a life.

Anonymous said...

9:15

I've got a life. Very happy with it too. Can you say the same? I didn't think so.

Someone asks a question, they get an answer. What is wrong with that?

Anonymous said...

What a hoot! Loved reading your blog!

http://www.reodailynews.com

Anonymous said...

the Afflecks need to quit looking at every stinkin house around and just buy already. Talk about indecisive

Anonymous said...

Maybe they just like looking at houses.......making realtors think there is a point to what they do. I don't see anything wrong with that. In our area, lots of people flock to every open house just to see what is on the market. The local real estate mavens don't even look up when someone from the neighborhood walks in for a looksee. Perhaps that is the approach they should take with the Affleck clan. Their antics certainly bring attention to every house they look at and to themselves.......and, of course, attention is what really matters.

Anonymous said...

RE: Toprak Mansion, I guess anything is possible if there's a shread of truth to this recent piece citing Ghandehari's methods in real estate.

lil' gay boy said...

Hmm, let's see;

A microscopic condo, a down-under paean to crass, an English "folly", a Southern mausoleum, an OC tract home with cooties, a will-they-ever-close-on-something-please paparazzi magnet, and an "architecturally significant property" –––

One architecturally significant property, please, Mama.

Anonymous said...

3:07, I'm sure Rosie and Kelli are not losing any sleep over knowing they could buy you AND the rest of your trailer park for what their kids get for a weekly allowance.

Anonymous said...

at this point, any "allowance" that kelli and rosie may be offering their kids amounts to hush money. money to keep quiet about the nightmare in nyack. you see, kelli apparently strayed. . . surprise. surprise.

Anonymous said...

Why did you have to pay your offspring to keep quiet about you and the neighbor's collie?

Anonymous said...

I love Vicki, she's my favorite housewife...especially after the "Family Van" episode.

I looked up the listing on Zillow and I remember a suit of armor and pussywillows used as decor previously...they seem to be MIA this time around. Maybe they have been delegated to the storage area where Slade kept his things during his transition to LA, to manage Jo's budding music career? Has Jo's album dropped yet? I've been a little busy and need to catch up.

Anonymous said...

The Hewitt's house is revolting with not a scrap of design merit - at all, I remember when they bought it a neighbour with big hair in a velvet 'track suit' told a reporter that she thought it was the most beautiful house on the street, yuck what would she know.

West Lakes is a soul less suburb full a new money living in arse ugly houses with nasty columns all around them, built on canals where motorised boats are illegal - go figure.

Those with any class live in the eastern and very inner north and south suburbs. The Hewitt's are going to do some serious dough on this dump.

Anonymous said...

LGB get full marks for his precis, but all self-respecting mausoleums would be offended by the comparison to the Toby Keith property

Anonymous said...

The Kaufmann house is wildly overpriced for the area. It is surrounded by houses in the low millions or less according to Zillow. Who would want to pay 12 million to live among mere one or two million---aires?

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:49,

You clearly know absoultely nothing about historic homes or Nuetra's properties.

Not too mention once again are about is dumb as a box of rock if you're pricing things with Zillow.

Anonymous said...

4:12 - Just another "zillow" baiter. Probably Average Joe trying to start more shit.

Anonymous said...

2:49 -

And you know absolutely nothing about how to spell "Neutra". Or "absolutely".

Anonymous said...

4:24 - I think you meant your comment for 4:12am?

But 2:49 is missing the boat if he/she thinks that being in a neighborhood of 1-2 million dollar homes (I think that number is low but they're using Silly-ow so what can we expect) means the homeowners are mere 1-2 million-aires.

Palm Springs is a vacation home market. Those homes neighboring Kaufmann might be a 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th home for those wealthy people. They might only visit their Palm Springs home once or twice a year.

Must be nice, huh?