Did Britney Spears Do It Again?

WHO: Britney Spears
LOCATION: Tennyson Place, Hermosa Beach, CA
PRICE: $8,585,000 (list)
SIZE: 5,785 square feet, 4-5 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Situation on almost half an acre, at the end of the private cul-de-sac, on a bluff overlooking the Pacific, is the beach cities' premier estate property. The property features panoramic ocean views from every level with exceptional privacy and security and is only a short walk from sands of Manhattna and Hermosa. At approximately 5,900 s.f., the main residence includes 4 bedrooms (could be a 5th), 4 baths, 2 half baths, a world class media room, a vintage Irish pub, and incomparable courtyards and view terraces.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While that poor Britney Spears gurl remains on lock down in a Los Angeles psych ward on a 72 hour 5150 hold, several tabs and glossies including the National Equirer (no link that we could locate) are reporting that the dissembling pop star has gone and bought herself a new damn house in the unlikely location of Hermosa Beach. While Hermosa Beach is no stranger to celebrity residents, the locals are unlikely to embrace Miz Spears particular brand of celebrity that comes with a battalion of SUV driving and telephoto lens wielding paps who camp outside her houses and follow her around causing all sorts of traffic tie ups.

All the reports gleefully point to a Hill Section house on Tennyson Place that the queen of the bad weave looked at back in October of 2007 (pictured above, more pictures through link). This was before the loony lamb hooked up with that beady eyed Adnan Ghalib dude and started speaking with a faux and not very good British accent. The property in question includes a main house with 4-5 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half bathroom and a vintage Irish pub. A vintage Irish pub? What the hell does someone need with a vintage Irish pub? Anyhoo, according to listing information the property includes a large sports pool, spa, lush gardens, and a detached guesthouse that rides atop the three car garage.

Here's the thing puppies. Despite the wide reporting that Miz Spears drove a hard bargain and paid around $6,000,000 for the property (which you'll recall from above was priced much higher), Your Mama can not yet verify the a sale. We have searched our databases and contacted several well placed sources who we thought might be in the know about Miz Spears buying a house she doesn't really need and have come up completely empty handed. Perhaps the National Enquirer simply has better sources that Your Mama.

More to come as the whole story surfaces.

Jermaine Dupri's Buckhead "Beauty"

SELLER: Jermaine Dupri
LOCATION: Whitewater Trail, Atlanta, GA
PRICE: $1,500,000
SIZE: 5,523 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: An architectural gem nestled on a private estate lot this five bedroom five full bath, features gorgeous window-scapes. Master w/ terrace level, one full bar, two wet bars, recreational room, superb functionality and an artistic sensibility beyond compare. Open flowing plan, three fireplaces, wall to wall carpet, finished terrace, private backyard, stone tile pool, hot tub and three car garage. The exquisite estate represents Buckhead distinction.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Music mogul and Janet Jackson love muffin Jermaine Dupri has listed his Atlanta area house for $1,500,000. Located on Whitewater Trail NW in the swanky and suburban neighborhood of Buckhead, the 2.8 acre estate features a 5,523 square foot house that features 5 bedrooms and 7 terlits spread over 5 full and 2 half bathrooms. Other features include a three car garage, sauna, three bars (because it's best never to be too far from a booze cabinet), a full and finished basement, vaulted ceilings, and "an artistic sensibility beyond compare," whatever that means.

Your Mama really does not know much about the Atlanta real estate market so we haven't a clue as to whether this house is well priced or if it's typical for the Buckhead area. However, we are not much impressed with Mister Dupri's digs, and apparently neither was he because he's already moved out. It is Your Mama's humble and meaningless opinion that the paver stone front drive with it's big ol' porte-cochere looks like a damn Holiday Inn or some other middle brow motel, and do not even get us started on that tiled entrance hall with that upsetting built in planter which looks a little too much like Your Mama's dentist's office. And children, Your Mama hates the dentist office.

Moving into the low ceilinged and beige carpeted living room we see that Mister Dupree and his team of "decorators" appear to have been aiming for that special combination of funeral parlor meets tawdry VIP section of a cheap strip club. Dear Jeezis in heaven have mercy on our bitter and snarky soul, but the last time Your Mama saw flower arrangements like that we were burying our beloved Granny in rural funeral home with blood red carpet, may she rest in peace. Word of advice for all you pee-pohl who execute extreme feats of elaborate drapery swagging: Stop it! Stop it right now! Are you trying to kill Your Mama with all that disturbing and fringed fabric swaggery? Seriously folks, stop it because our delicate constitution simply can not bear it.

Out back, curved stairs with miles of pipe railing lead to a swimming pool and spa complex with heaps and piles of stacked stone walls. Here's the best part though, according to the listing for Mister Dupri's property, the terrace is "finished," a quality Your Mama imagines most people look for in terraces.

In truth, most of what's offensive to Your Mama's delicate decorating sensibilities can easily be changed by a new owner, a sledge hammer, a good architect and an even better nice gay decorator. However, we are concerned that Mister Dupri has simply moved on to perpetrate similarly distressing design crimes in whatever home to which he has moved.

Since he's clearly not living up in this crib, Mister Dupri just might be shacked up with Miss Jackson If Your Nasty at her 34th floor condominium at the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York City. But more likely he's bedding down in the 4 bedroom he recently leased at the Time Warner Center which is basically across the street from Miz Jackson's luxury building. Do these two live in sin? Anyone know?

Property records show that Mister Dupri also owns several other Atlanta area properties including a 7,126 square foot house in Fairburn, GA, a residential building lot in Atlanta, and a 2,936 square foot house in Stockbridge, GA. It's unclear to Your Mama if Mister Dupri occupies any of these properties himself.

Jennifer Aniston Has Flown the Coop

According to a well positioned source in Malibu, a-list ack-tur-uss and former Friend Jennifer Aniston packed her leopard print pillows and pushed off from the itty bitty Carbon Beach cottage she's been renting since she and Mister Pitt split back in 2005.

The 1,531 square foot shingled cottage, reportedly owned by Malee-boo real estate head honcho Larry Ellison and just a few doors from billionaire David Geffen's rather impressive spread about which your Mama hears lurid, unsubstantiated, and not reportable tales, always seemed an oddly accessible choice for a gal obsessed with privacy and security.

To be honest, the ladee has good reason to be concerned to the point of obsession. One morning in August of 2005, a man from Santa Barbara wandered into the 3 bedroom 3 bathroom cottage through an unlocked door. Miz Aniston was not in residence, but the intruder was intercepted by two of Miz Aniston's employees and later arrested. Ever since, the ladee was been accompanied to her Malee-boo getaway by a trio of burly security guards well known for blocking traffic on the PCH while Miz Aniston pulled in or out of the tiny driveway in her huge Range Rover.

Your Mama heard from a very reliable source that the relationship challenged hair icon is holed up in her house on Blue Jay Way while the renovations on her Bev Hills Hal Levitt designed mansion on N. Hillcrest Drive are completed. She's no doubt eager to move into the new digs on N. Hillcrest because it is trés privé and thus an excellent spot for her to quietly rendevous and frolic pool side with that bloated looking Vince Vaughan fellow all the tabs and glossies say she likes to mess around with.

Anyhoo, now that slim and trim Miz Aniston is without a beach house of her own, we imagine she'll be popping in on best Friend Courtney Cox and her huzband David Arquette at the Malee-boo estate they purchased last year. Fortunately for Miz Aniston (and for Mister Arquette), the Cox/Arquette crib (scroll down) includes a detached guest house.

Photo: Pacific Coast News

UPDATE: Micheal Jackson

By now, all the children know that Your Mama finds former super star turned tabloid train wreck Michael Jackson fully fascinating. Over the last few months we've frequently discussed his ongoing real estate saga regarding the possible foreclosure of the 2,700 acre Neverland Ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley. The ranch was scheduled to go into foreclosure on January 19, but all the gossips and tabloids have been curiously quiet on the subject. Except Mister Roger Friedman over at Fox News, who yesterday dished all the latest juicy dirt about the financially strapped and essentially homeless Mister Jackson.

According to Mister Friedman's sources, The White Lady's loyal and long time spokesperson, that poor ka-razy talkin' Raymone Bain, has been booted from the inner circle. Apparently she denies it, so who knows. But Your Mama called that one. We just knew that Mister Jackson would throw that ladee under the bus when the money ran out. Also out of the inner circle, according to Mister Friedman, is the children's long time nanny Grace, who may in fact only be sick and staying at her own dee-luxe condo in Las Vegas rather than at the Palms casino where The White Lady is currently holed up with his three white children.

Now here's the real estate stuff...According to Mister Friedman, The White Lady is out looking to spend a little bit of his recent cash infusion on a new house in Las Vegas. Which would be a good thing, because let's be honest, raising them three kids in a damn casino can only lead to tears and trauma. Las Vegas real estate is currently in the terlit, so The White Lady can prolly get himself a big ass home in a gated development at a good price. We just hope there's a staff room back behind the kitchen for that poor Miz Bain.

As for the once beloved Neverland Ranch, well, Mister Friedman's sources whispered to him that supermarket magnate Ron Burkle might have intervened and convinced the fine folks at Fortress (Mister Jackson's eager to be paid creditor on the $23,000,000 loan secured by Neverland Ranch) to provide an extension which would allow Mister Jackson to scramble a while longer looking for someone, anyone, to step in and help him refinance the debt.

Your Mama can't tell the children how we know this or we'd have to kill you, but we understand from a secret source that Mister Jackson's people are actively seeking an entity to step in and save the day. But here's what Your Mama really wants to know: Why doesn't billionaire Burkle just carry the loan on his rather large financial back? Twenty three million is pennies to him. What does Mister Burkle know that we don't?

The Billion Dollar Behemoth

27 damn floors. Indoor parking for 168 cars. Helipad. 600 full time servants. All for one mega-rich family of 6.

1. Architectural Record
2. Mumbai Mirror
3. ABC News
4. World Architectural News

Discuss.

Let's Talk About Ashley Olsen For A Moment

By now all the children know all about the modest little Hancock Park adjacent home that mogulette Ashley Olsen recently purchased for $1,575,000. (All you Hancock Park boundary snobs please note the "adjacent.")

However, Your Mama has lately received dozens of emails and contacts about Little Miss Ashley Olson also buying a humongous house in Malee-boo. The real estate related gossip started to churn when the teeny tiny tycoon was photographed (see below) outside a not yet completed and monolithic mansion on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
But it just didn't make sense to us. So, being the no-zee bitch we are, Your Mama got on the horn to pick the brains of a few folks in our vast spider web of contacts. We emailed Mighty Mouse in Malee-boo, we contacted Jim Nasium, who knows a lot about a lot of things, we touched base with Mirakle Mike and we grilled the always well informed Lucy Spillerguts.

We combed the sold properties, we looked at aerial maps and we poured over the assessor records for Malee-boo. For quite some time we came up empty handed. Then it all shimmered into view. We're not ashamed to say that it was not Your Mama who located the exact property at which Little Miss Olsen was photographed, but rather one of our newer tipsters who we call The K-Man who pointed us in the right direction.

So here's what we know: The house at which the itsy bitsy high heeled fashion bug was photographed appears to be the old Mark Hughes mansion located way up the Pacific Coast Highway, beyond the Robert Meyer State beach, and near the ocean front compound owned by Madame Cindy Crawford and the palatial, royalty worthy Michael Eisner beach pad. Y'all know who Mark Hughes was, right? He was the four times married and fantastically rich founder of Herbalife who died in 2000 at the tender age of 44 from what was reported as an accidental overdose of prescription anti-depressants and large amounts of alcohol. In fact he died in the master bedroom of his Malee-boo monster mansion.

Property records show that in December of 1999 the perfectly coiffed and usually tan and blinged out Mister Hughes had paid a record breaking $27,000,000 for the 19,340 square foot house. Mister Hughes purchased the house from the widow Verna Harrah, a former cocktail waitress who acquired a considerable fortune when her hotel and casino magnate mate William Harrah passed over. Sadly, shortly after buying the gargantuan house, Mister Hughes met his big diet supplement supplier in the sky in the master bedroom of his Malee-boo manse, and property records reveal the house was next sold off to big time venture capitalist Howard Marks and his wifey Nancy. Since buying the property, they have embarked on a total gut renovation which has maintained the basic shape of the original house but completely altered the style and articulation of the facades.

Mighty Mouse in Malee-boo told Your Mama that he's heard, but can not confirm, that the place was going to be used as a corporate retreat and given it's multi acre parcel with hundreds of feet of beach frontage, the property would likely be valued in the $80,000,000 range. So while the usage of the property seems to be in question, what is not, at least according to current and accurate property records, is that mega-moneyed mini mogulette Ashley Olsen has not purchased this house.

And really, think about it kids, neither of the Olsen gurls seem the type to buy a monstrous and ridiculously expensive estate like this. A look at their real estate history shows they prefer to shack up in more low-key and modest digs. Yes, they did share Hal Levitt designed digs in Bel Air, and they are trying to unload that big place in the ass uglee Kostas Kondylis designed Morton Square in New York, but they intended to share that place too while they attended NYU (a folly they've both since given up).

If we're being honest, Your Mama does not know about all the properties these pint sized and filthy rich gurls own and/or lease. What we do know is that fashion risk taker Mary Kate leases a private but modest house in the Bird Streets in LA as well as a loft on Mercer Steet in New York's former artist 'hood SoHo. Previous to her recent purchase of a small house in Hancock Park (adjacent), Miss Ashley leased a not so big Nichols Canyon abode, and we think she's got a place she leases in the West Village in NYC, but don't quote us on that. According to Mighty Mouse, the teensy power players together leased a tiny house on Escondido Beach in Malibu last summer. There are undoubtedly other places in the mix that Your Mama doesn't know anything about. And certainly all that real estate costs a fortune to own, lease and maintain. But given these chicklets behemoth bank accounts, they could certainly afford much more expensive and lavish properties to crash and store their vast collections of Balenciaga boots and vintage furs.

So what was Miss Ashley Olsen and her big black Geländewagon doing at that big ass estate in The Boo-Boo? Who knows? But if Miss Olsen or any of her people would like to clue your Mama in, on or off the record, be sure to give us a ringy-dingy.

Cindy and Rande Rent Rooms

OWNER: Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford
LOCATION: Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA
PRICE: $22,500/month
SIZE: 2,413 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Furnished beach front rental. Panoramic ocean views from this impeccable beach house located on a sandy beach just north of Broad Beach. Gated private street–perfect beach retreat. Office could be fourth bedroom.

DESCRIPTION: Thanks to the always helpful hand of Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air, Your Mama has learned that moletastic moe-dell Cindy Crawford and her nightclub impresario huzband Rande Gerber, himself a former male mannequin, don't you know, are looking to lease an ocean front property they own in Malee-boo.

While most children will never get to frolic and freak with a nearly six foot tall woman who's blessed with the face of an angel and the bahdee of a porn hussy, but some reasonably deep pockets might help soothe a shriveled ego by coughing up considerable coinage to live in an ocean front house owned by a walking talking slice of American good looks and the picture of American capitalism at its finest. Where else can a gurl from Dekalb make bazillions of bucks just by allowing famous photogs to take pictures of her? Ah, America.

Anyhoo, listing information for the Crawford/Gerbers 4 bedroom and 3 bathroom house indicates that the comely couple are totally flex on lease terms (month to month, short term, long term, 1+ years all okay). They are asking $22,500 per month (furnished) for a long term lease and $35,000 per month (furnished) for a short term lease. All things considered, these prices are not that crazy compared to some of the many wildy high priced rental pads in the Boo. So grab your checkbooks and haul ass to Malee-boo to scoop this place up, because if you're rich and in the market for a rental in Malee-boo, it's practically a bargain.

Property records reveal that Mister Good Lookin' Gerber purchased the property back in April of 1998 for $1,850,000, right about the time that he and his cover gurl/Playboy poser became legally hitched. While the house sits cheek by jowl with a couple other ocean front houses, it is accessed down a gated and private street off the Pacific Coast Highway that ensures renting famous folks that looky loos and paps won't have an easy time watching them unload groceries or sunbathe topless (and/or bottomless) on the back deck.

If we're being critical, we'd say Mister and Missus Former Models need to ring up one of their nice gay decorator friends to do this place over proper. But realistically, it's set up just about the way Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter might set up a beach rental...stuffed full of odds, ends, and mixed and matched items we don't actually want in our own residence and don't care if they get ruined. Why provide the renters nice decor their party posse can vomit all over, allow their cats to claw or their loud children to put their scungee feet all over?

Although Your Mama isn't sure if Mister and Missus I'm Better Looking Than All of You ever lived in this house or not, but we do know that this property is definitely not the Malee-boo getaway the Mister and Missus Gerber currently occupy. Oh no puppies, when the super rich super model, her bizness man husband and their couple of loud children head north on the congested Pacific Coast Highway to their sandy hideaway, they park their fancy whips here:
Uh, yeah. Can you believe that shit? That's four damn mini houses that make up the Crawford/Gerber compound, which sits a few miles up the PCH from the available rental. Don't let anyone tell you that looking good won't get you nothing but a heartache and too much attention from pervy men, because they're lying and they're probably just bitter and uglee people. So all you bitches who wannabe America's Next Top Model, well, lookee what real estate pornography cold be in your skinny ass future if you make it big on the catwalk and marry a man who makes butt loads of money.

Lower photo: Pacific Coast News

Did Scott Baio Fake It?

WHO: Scott Baio
WHAT: an uglee 5 bedroom and 5.5 bathroom house
WHERE: Strawberry Drive, Encino, CA

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Although Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter will watch just about any reality television program that just about any television executive will dare to air, we confess to never having seen Scott Baio's little slice of reality T.V. called Scott Baio is 45...And Single.

However, Your Mama has been getting all sorts of emails wanting to know about an Encino property the program shows Mister Baio buying and moving in to. So not knowing a thing about Mister Baio other than his work on Happy Days, Charles in Charge and later on Arrested Development, we had to take to the internets to sort out the what's what.

Interestingly, it would seem from our wee bit of research, Mister Baio is not, nor was he single during the taping of the "reality" program. Yes, he was unmarried, but not single. He did not frequent meat market bars and try to date young Hollywood hussies. He tried to come to terms with whether he wanted to marry his ladee friend Renee, who he indeed married just after the birth of their baby Chachi.

Next we got on the horn to Lucy Spillerguts and Valley Dude and a few other contacts Your Mama has in the San Fernando Valley to see what we could suss out. What we found is that Mister Baio and his wifey, reportedly a former Playboy Playmate and erstwhile body double for Pammy Anderson and whose name is actually Peaches Renee Sloan, still occupy the 4,403 square foot house on Royal Oak Road in Encino that property records show Mister Baio purchased back in 1994 for $1,345,000. We can't tell you how we know this or we'd have to cut your tongue out and sliver you ears off, but Your Mama is quite certain the couple have not decamped from Mister Baio's single story, 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 1+ acre estate on Royal Oak Road to the uglee house (pictured above) squeezed onto a tiny triangular shaped lot on Strawberry Drive.

So what happened on the television show then? Apparently, the couple "bought" this crazy looking McMansion on Strawberry Drive in Encino and Mister Baio moaned and groaned about the big mortgage payments. But children, it appears they were just making television.

Your Mama has included a few pictures of the Strawberry Drive house the Mister and Missus Baio fake bought. But we're simply not up to digging our claws into the architectural aberration, partick because the Baio's don't live here and there are no records that (yet) indicate they purchased this or any other home as far as we know. Mister Big Time? Any thoughts?

This is certainly not the first time that reality shows have depicted something not real and it's not even the first the a reality program has indulged in real estate fakery. Remember when that kooky Kimora Lee Simmons pretended to buy a house different than the one she actually bought on her Life in the Fab Lane reality television publicity vehicle. And let's not forget when Missus David Beckham "lived" up in that big glass contemporary house on her reality special when in fact she and Sexy bought a $22,000,000 freshly built Bev Hills style Mediterranean.

P.S. With the help of a very resourceful cohort, Your Mama located an online listing for the Strawberry Drive house, which no longer appears to be active. The list price was $3,199,000 and Your Mama thinks it would be both unfathomable and inexcusable that Mister Baio would exchange his very private and gated home Royal Oak Road for this monstrosity that is pushed up to the very edges of the property.

UPDATE: Olivia Newton John

The children will recall that Australian singer/actor Olivia Newton John's 5 bedroom and 6 bathroom Malee-boo Mediterranean, located up in the guard gated Serra Retreat die-rectly next door to the former love shack of that poor coming apart at the seams Britney Spears and her Fed-ex, recently swept onto the market with a $14,000,000 asking price.

Now puppies, y'all know we loved Miz Newton John looking flawless and ridiculously thin in her shiny black lycra pants in Grease, and of course we loved ev-er-ee-thing about Xanadu. Your Mama even loved her in that crazy leo-tard outfit when she got all Physical on us. (Not to mention all the muscled mens squatting, thrusting, and stretching in their bikini underwear.) But we are not loving the decor, or rather lack of, in Miz Newton John's Malee-boo mansion.

Your Mama loves a down stuffed white sofa as much as the next big-assed couch potato with an unhealthy addiction to candy and reality television. So one might think we'd be in sofa heaven with all Miz Newton John's white divans. But we're not. At all.

The problem, in our ever so humble and meaningless opinion, is not specifically the profusion of white sofas and chairs, but rather that the house looks like no one actually lives in it. It looks dead inside. Perhaps Miz Newton John has already vacated the premises? And if she did, who could blame her? Who could live more than 3 days up in a house with dining room chairs desperate to look like the damn garden?

Although in the main we like the wide lawn and tucked away swimming pool complex, one area of outdoor concern is that crop circle thing in the backyard. Is she asking for all the ETs to land in her back yard?

Otherwise this is a lovely house in a highly desirable location. We'd just love to see some upsettingly rich Hollywood type come in here with a team of nice gay decorators and do the place up in a manner worthy of a $14,000,000 home.

But don't worry Miz Newton John, Your Mama loves you bad decor and all. But seriously gurl, give us a call when you get moved so we can hook you up with someone to work all your white sofas into something spectacular.

The Frank McCourts Do It Again In Malee-boo

BUYERS: Frank and Jamie McCourt
LOCATION: Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA
PRICE: around $19,000,000
SIZE: 1,620 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Along with an item or two that had been previously reported, celebrity real estate high priestess Ruth Ryon revealed in her most recent Hot Properties column that Boston biznessman turned LA biznessman and owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers Frank McCourt and his accomplished wifey Jamie dropped another massive wad of cash on a second oceanfront house right next door to the one they already own on uber exclusive Carbon Beach in Malee-boo.

The children will recall that in July of 2007 the stinking rich McCourts dropped an impressive $27,250,272 to acquire Courtney Cox and David Arquette's loopy, swoopy and gorgeous John Lautner designed house on Carbon Beach. And according to Miz Ryon (and confirmed with property records), they've coughed up another impressive chuck of change to buy the 1,620 square foot 1940s beach cottage next door. Records Your Mama accessed do not yet reveal the purchase price, but Miz Ryon reports the carpet bagging couple paid "close to $19,000,000" for the 3 bedroom and 2 bathroom house. (FYI: listing information for the property indicates 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms while Los Angeles County tax records show 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.)

This recent Malee-bee purchase is not the first time the McCourts have purchased a high priced property adjacent to one they already own. When the couple moved West in 2004, they paid a widely reported $21,500,000 for a Charing Cross Road estate across the street from the Playboy Mansion in hoity toity Holmby Hills. They purchased the 11,637 square foot house from Kenneth "Babyface" Edmunds and his then wifey Tracey. (Yes puppies, the very same unlucky in love Tracey who recently split from that fickle Eddie Murphy). Just five months later, the McCourts quickly snapped up the 8,385 square foot house next door. Your Mama imagines they house the staff there, but really, we haven't got a clue why they needed the extra 8 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms in that house.

Now then, let's have a look-see at the recent history of the McCourt's new acquisition, which Miz Ryon says is already under-going and extensive renovation. In November of 2006, entertainment executive and Hollywood scion Casey Wasserman, grandson of the famously bespectacled and hugely powerful Lew Wasserman, sold the house to man named Peter Kleidman. The who's and what's of this Mister Kliedman are a bit of a mystery to Your Mama, but a wee bit of searching the internets comes up with some phun bits. In the Spring of 2007 Mister Kleidman rankled his high-fallutin' neighbors nerves when he threw open the doors to his property and offered the Malee-booan masses public access to one of the most notoriously difficult to access stretches of beach on the West Coast. You'll recall that Miss David Geffen threw all kinds of hissy fits and law suits about having to provide public access to the beach via an accessway that runs next to his rather impressive oceanfront digs, so you can imagine the Carbonites were not thrilled.

Mister Kleidman futher irritated the neighbors when he leased the teeny tiny property to the swag mistresses at The Silver Spoon who decked out the interiors, did up the outdoor spaces all beach club like, dubbed it "The Silver Spoon Beach House," and sub-leased it out at $65,000 per month to celebutants like actor/singer/whatevers Hilary and Haylie Duff and new-nosed and supposed it girl Ashley Tisdale, who leased the petite property for her 22nd birthday.

So perhaps it's no wonder or surprise that the McCourts once again reached into their seemingly endless real estate investment funds to purchase the problematic property next door. Because, let's be honest, what atrociously rich gajillionaire wants to spent nearly $30,000,000 on a beach house only to have a bunch of quasi famous skinny bitches and tabloid princesses throwing paparazzi friendly parties next door? Uhm, none of them.

There's no need to rip apart the interiors, because they did not belong to anyone in particular and are long gone with the McCourt's renovation. Now, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are off to the movies so be quiet and don't fight amongst yourselves.

Desert Hot Springs PreFabulosity

SELLERS: Leo Marmol and Alisa Becket
LOCATION: McCarger Road, Desert Hot Springs, CA
PRICE: $1,850,000
SIZE: 2,100 square feet interior space (approx.), 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: According to the newish, well informed, and gaining speed LA based blog Real Sedated (via Mister Peter Viles at the LA Times), another piece of Coachella Valley architectural splendiferousness has come the real estate market. Leo Marmol, partner of starchitectural firm Marmol Radziner, and his wifey Alisa Becket have put their sleek, sexy and solar powered pre-fabulous Desert Hot Springs getaway on the market for $1,850,000, which is a lot of damn money for a house in dumpy but increasingly desirable Desert Hot Springs. But children, just look at what you get for just under two million of your hard earned clams.

Of course, not everyone will appreciate the look and emotional feel of a pre-fab and factory built collection of minimal-ish boxes sited on a dirt road looking over the scrubby desert towards the dramatically craggy San Jacinto Mountains. But Your Mama does. Oh yes children, we would happily sell half of you snot nosed bitches into prostitution for this house, even if it is in Desert Hot Springs.

Sitting on five acres of desert dryness 10 or so miles north of Palm Springs, Mister Marmol and Miz Becket (herself a scion of a noted architect), practiced what they preached out there in the desert. The art and design oriented couple utilized a system of factory built, pre-fabricated modules designed by Marmol Radziner Prefab to create a visually stunning and aggressively contemporary prototype perfect for people with a little bit of money who prefer not to live in a cape, a colonial or a crappy and characterless tract house.

With 2,100 square feet (approx.) of interior space and roughly 2,400 square feet of exterior space, the house wraps around a central courtyard and forms a sort of new-fangled and high class campground. There are three bedrooms and 2 bathrooms in the main section of the compound and a guest wing and separate studio space are accessed via a long, outdoor covered walkway, perfect for fashionista friends who like to pretend they're working the catwalks in Paris after a few pitchers of gin and tonics, and you know Your Mama has got a few friends like that.

As y'all know, the desert sun will cook you like a Thanksgiving turkey, so one and all can surely appreciate the generously sized covered decks that provide necessary shade and extend the somewhat modestly sized interior living space outdoors through sliding walls of floor to ceiling glass. Gigantic perforations in the facade act as windows framing long vistas over the desert.

Inside, Marmol Radziner have debunked the notion that prefab has to be anything but fabulous. The concrete floors are stained to match the color of the desert floor and the kitchen is deelishuslee wrapped in teak. Your Mama imagines this teak material is an upgrade that will cost future prefab buyers some serious scratch. But hunnies, it is worth whatever it cost. Imagine running your nekkid bahdee up against that wall while you're heating up a Lean Cuisine in the built in microwave.

Mister Viles reported that Mister Marmol and Miz Becket are selling off this house in order to build a new prefabricated residence for themselves in Venice. Venice, California that is. Their loss can be your gain children, so act quickly before some other design queen with a little bit of money snatches this property out from under you.

Tobey Maguire To Build in Brentwood

Looks like Tobey Maguire and his wifey Jennifer Meyer are indeed planning to spin a web for their little family in Brentwood. Your Mama knew the actor and the jewelry designer were looking for a place to live in Brentwood, which we mentioned earlier this week in our discussion about the purdy Brentwood digs that chat king Conan O'Brien recently purchased. However, little did we know the young couple had already plunked down a wallet full of cash for a vacant .93 acre lot on N. Carmelina in the flats just above Sunset Boulevard.

There's little we can add that wasn't already well covered by Mister Big Time in his big reveal about the Maguire/Meyer purchase. So rather than try to be witty, clever or even thorough, Your Mama will sign out so we can get ourselves properly put together for a dinner party honoring our boozy, foul mouthed, and often nekkid friend Falsetta Knockers and her sharply talented and somewhat well known novelist huzband.

Your Mama Hears...

...that Garfleck or Jenben, or whatever it is all the tabs and gossip glossies call Hollywood it-parents Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, were out house hunting the other day. It was whispered in our big ear that along with a couple other pricey pads, the couple had a look-see at duck-billed single mommy Meg Ryan's Stradella Road property in Bel Air. Yes kids, this is the very same house that all the real estate gossips once thought Sexy and The Spice Gurl were gonna buy.

One of our well informed sources, a gentleman we call Kenny Kissentell, tells Your Mama that interested rich people gotta pay Miz Ryan $20,000,000 for the privilege of up living in her purdy tile-roofed house that sits next door to smoldering sexpot fashionista Tom Ford's Neutra designed digs. Kenny says the house is lovely, a real movie star home. However, says Kenny, there is simply no room to turn a limo around in the driveway, which of course is a real consideration for all the red carpet walkers in Los Angeles.

The a-list actors have spent considerable time and money building a not yet finished family house in lower Mandeville Canyon. So, does this mean we might see them to flip the newly built house and sell off their current crib on N. Tigertail in Brentwood? Only time will tell. For now it's just rumor and gossip.

Harvey Fierstein Takes a Loss in Putnam County.

SELLER: Harvey Fierstein
LOCATION: West Hollow Road, Brewster, NY
PRICE: $749,900
SIZE: 3,640 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Perfect Center Hall Colonial set on 4+ acres in private cul-de-sac. Home welcomes you with dramatic 2 story entry, which opens to great rm with fireplace. Lovely formal dining rm. Office, parlor, well appointed kitchen any gourmet would love. Full bath & laundry. 2nd level boasts lavish master bedroom suite + 3 add'l bedrooms, finished bonus rm & two full baths. Additional highlights include back staircase, full walkout basmt with high ceilings.

YOUR MAMAS UPDATE: Although he does own it, it's very possible that Mister Harvey Fierstein does not actually occupy this house. Hence all the wacky statuettes and folk art figurines may in fact not belong to the big and bigger than life actor. If anyone would like to clear that up, please give us a shout. In the meantime, we leave the discussion unchanged.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We are running way behind so we are going to try to be brief today. Your Mama has learned from Westchester Willy that cross dressing Broadway icon Harvey Fierstein has put his Putnam County country pad on the market for $749,900. For the mapless few, Putnam County sits just north of swanky Westchester County, which is of course just north of New York City.

Property records indicate that gravel voiced Mister Fierstein purchased the 3,640 square foot house in December of 20o5. Records also reflect that the Tony and Emmy winning diva paid $790,000 for the 4.31 acre property on West Hollow Road, so it looks like Miss Thing will be losing some money on this transaction. A local realtor that Your Mama communicated with thinks the house and location are "fierce" and should sell quickly despite the "festive" decor.

Listing information indicates the house, which sits in a small development of like minded houses, has 4 bedroom, 4 bathrooms, a parlor (of course Miz Fierstein has a parlor!), dining room, office, eat in kitchen and a full walk out and windowed basement. A back staircase makes it easier for weekend guests to squirrel tricks in and out without disturbing the ladee of the house.

Harvey hunny, all due respect to you because Your Mama really does hold you in the highest esteem as an actor and an activist. However, Your Mama confesses that we are terribly disappointed with the interior decor of this house. We are certain that what we are looking is an extensive collection of folk and outsider art. However, all those figurines and doll like things standing, sitting, leaning and gesturing throughout the house give us the heebie jeebies. Seeing those crazy things lurking in the corners, with their strange faces, thrusting arm and legs all akimbo would scare the skin right off our body as we walked bleary eyed through a shadowed room after a long night reality television and a tall pitcher of gin and tonics. Seriously Harvey, how do you keep from coming through that front door without shrieking out your big lungs in fright because it looks like there is a skinny scarecrow burglar sitting in wait with his legs though the rails on the balcony thing in the entrance hall?

Don't misunderstand, we like folk and outsider art as much as the next art appreciator, and there are indeed a good number of pieces in there that we like quite a bit, such as the big colored light bulb arrow in the front hall and the kooky Magritte-ish painting in the parlor where you've installed a vintage jukebox perfect for Saturday night singalongs. We also enjoy that mod plastic dinette set in the kitchen, however it's unpleasantly and unhappily juxtaposed with an oil painting of President Abraham Lincoln. We can just about tolerate the red faux suede sectional (due in part to the fact that it looks comfortable), and we can even get behind the collection of oil portraits and gold gilded frames. But those dancer dolls are a real problem for us and we are deeply concerned those red and white flowers on the coffee table might be plastic, or even worse, silk. And the bed spread. Oh, Harvey. Hunny. Please. No. How about swapping that overly bizzy thing out with a nice, simple navy duvet?

Here's the thing dollies, we love that the decor of this house has a personality and a point of view even if the middle brow architecture does not. And we love that Mister Fierstein collects. Collections are fantastic. However, Your Mama would gently and respectfully suggest to Mister Fierstein that he do a little bit of editing. He's a tip for Mister Fierstein and all the childen, it's simply not necessary dto show everything in a collection at the same time, particularly if it's a large collection.

No word on why Mister Fierstein has decided to unload this place at a huge loss, however property records show he owns another house in nearby Ridgefield, CT. as well as a duplex apartment on a high floor of a West 83rd Street building in New York City that records suggest he has owned since at least November of 1987.

Pete Sampras' Home Court Up For Grabs

SELLER: Pete Sampras
LOCATION: Loma Vista Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $25,000,000
SIZE: 10,376 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: BH English Manor Masterpiece. Recently expanded & remodeled to absolute perfections. Exquisite detailed finishes throughout. Walled & gated, the estate is set on over an acre of magnificently landscaped grounds that include N/S tennis ct. Putting green, play areas, pool, & complete privacy. Det. GH & separate gym. Interiors include prof. theater. Office/library, & maids. Master ste. w/ sitting room, his/hers baths & sundeck boasting city light views.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to Lucy Spillerguts and Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air, Your Mama has learned that heavily hirsute tennis legend Pete Sampras has dropped his Bev Hills estate on the open market with a blistering $25,000,000 asking price. Located on the dee-luxe and desirable lower section of Loma Vista Drive, the one plus acre property includes a 10,376 square foot "English Manor Masterpiece" with 6 bedroom and 12 damn terlits. No wonder he's selling the place. Who needs the expense and bother of two gurls up in the house 24/7 scrubbing all twelve of them damn poopers?

Property records indicate Pistol Pete purchased the estate in December of 2001 for an undisclosed sum of money, although Your Mama is going to guess it was between nine and tell million big ones. Just a guess kids, so don't go reporting that to your friends and enemies like it was the truth...we're guessing. According to listing information, Mister Sampras and his blond wifey Bridgette remodeled the place to "absolute perfection." And absolute perfection costs a lot of cash so we're quite sure that whatever Mister and Missus Sampras paid for the reverse "L" shaped house, they have spent a fortune on the property.

Current listing information does not include photos (actually it does not, see below), so Your Mama does not know if Missus Sampras did up the interiors on her own or if she had a team of nice gay decorators to assist her.

Listing information indicates the interior spaces include living and dining rooms, den, library/study, eat in kitchen, wine cellar, a professional theater set up, and a staff bedroom. Your Mama just hopes it's a properly sized staff room with decent sized closets, a window and it's own terlit. We have been appalled at the squalid living conditions the uber rich foist upon their live in staff, but given that Mister Sampras is universally seen as a decent and nice fellow, we don't imagine he's stiffed the staff on square footage.

Outdoors we find a double gated driveway, a north/south tennis court, natch, a putting green, children's play areas, and a lovely oval shaped heated swimming pool. Also on the property are a detached guest house and a separate gym.

Nearby neighbors include super producer Irwin Winkler, who produced the Rocky film franchise and the 27,000 square foot behemoth next door is owned by shopping mall magnate turned philanthropist Guilford Glazer Celebrity decorator Kelly Wearstler and her huzband Brad Korzen's massive and newly redone estate is just around the corner on N. Hillcrest Road and Christina Aguilera and Jordan Bratman are tucked into the big house they bought from the Ozzy Osbournes just to the north on Doheny Road.

Property Records show that Mister Sampras also a smallish house in Palos Verdes, where the tennis tycoon grew up and learned to swing the ol' racket. The Benedict Drive house he owned formerly was sold off for $3,000,000 in August of 2004 to Babs Streisand's former hairdresser turned super producer Jon Peters and his much younger wifey Mindy.

YOUR MAMAS UPDATE: The pictures of Pistol Pete's Bev Hills mansion have popped up and while Your Mama is not a big fan of the Tudor style nor do we care much for the kitchen and it always gives us the shivers to see a pool table in a private home, this appears to be a speck-tack-u-lar Bev Hills estate. Look at that wood paneled entrance hall children. That room has us weeping with glee. If celebrity real estate agent Kurt Rappaport can get Tom Crooz to cough up $32,500,000 for that big ol' mansion on Calle Vista, the listing agent for Mister Sampras, well known for working with big name sports figures, can surely get $25,000,000 for this place.

Aaron Sorkin Settles In Above the Sunset Strip

BUYER: Aaron Sorkin
LOCATION: Devlin Place, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $6,100,000 (sale)
SIZE: 3,700 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: At the end of a secluded cul-de-sac in prime Sunset Strip. Dramatic, stylish & private. Completely redone sprawling contemporary with explosive head-on views. Designed by John Bersci, 4 bedrooms (including maids), 4 baths. 55' living/great room, opening to spectacular pool, spa, and major outdoor entertainment areas. Light, bright, and open. Gourmet commercial kitchen, incredible master suite overlooking pool and amazing city views. Impeccably done to the last detail.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: There are property flippers and then there is John Bersci, who quite frankly makes anal retentive real estate re-habber Jeff Lewis look like trailer trash. Don't misunderstand Your Mama kids. We love us some Jeff Lewis and look forward to seeing him mince his way across our television screen snapping at his assistant Jenni and firing his staff for bringing Styrofoam into the house. However, Mister John Bersci, the man responsible for the renovation of this house, plays in an entirely different league than the lovable Miss Lewis.

The other day Your Mama as gabbing with a source we'll call Property Pimp. In the course of chatting about a Bird Street house being sold to the daughter of a billionaire for a surprisingly large sum of money (more on that on another day), he casually mentioned the Sunset Strip house that television and film writer/executive producer Aaron Sorkin (Sports Night, The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Charlie Wilson's War) recently purchased for $6,100,000.

Our big ears popped up started digging for more information. Your Mama checked the property records, followed up with the Property Pimp, and gave our Our Fairy Godmother in the Sunset Strip a ring-a-ling. Sho enuf, the deep pocketed writer had indeed plunked down $6,100,000 for a freshly redone house on Devlin Place by primo property developer John Bersci.

Property records indicate that Mister Bersci, through one of his property holding companies, purchased the house in February of 2006 for $2,450,000. The place was wreckage. We've seen pictures. A real piece of shit children. But a great location for those that can tolerate the drive past the apartment buildings that line N. Clark Street. Mister Bersci worked his renovation hocus-pocus, squeezed some blood from a turnip and turned this broken down old Pontiac into a mint Maserati.

Now we know not everyone will like all the grey with yellow accent staging...but that's just staging children. All that somber stuff was surely moved out long before Mister Sorkin signed on the dotted line and Your Mama imagines the man has done hired himself a nice gay decorator to get in there and work some furniture magic. Let's move past the furniture then and have a look-see at the architecture and design of the physical space.

The front facade of the house presents like so many of the flat roofed residences that line the twisty turny roads that snake up into the Hollywood Hills above Sunset Boulevard. Inside, we find lots of sand blasted green glass walls and an almost disturbingly long 55-foot living/dining room space. A wall of floor to ceiling glass panels slide open to turn the entire space into a dee-luxe covered porch with stunning (if not jetliner) views over the city. Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's housekeeper Svetlana would sooner slit our throats that be constantly wiping all that glass clean of fingerprint smudges and dog nose trails. So we hope that Mister Sorkin warned his cleaning team that extra Windex and newspaper were gong to be required on a regular basis.

Your Mama normally loves a sleek kitchen and we pee our pants over miles of Carrara marble counter tops (red wine stains be damned). We very much appreciate the built in cappuccino machine, because Your Mama requires a caffeine injection first thing in the a.m., and we'd pull our own teeth for a refrigerator like the one we see tucked at the back. However, we're not thrilled with the grey color on the cabinets and we are concerned that the long narrow island looks a little like a slab for chilling bodies in a very high class morgue.

The bedroom, with its corner of sliding glass walls that give out to the pool deck, is dee-voon. The addition of the warm and glossy wood behind the bed was a good call on Bersci's part for warming up the place and injecting a much needed bit of organic material.

Out back the sunken spa sits above the modestly size swimming pool and the pool deck has been extended over the hillside with some gorgeous decking. Although we imagine Svetlana would huff and puff and ask for a considerable raise in order to keep that glass railing dog snot free, we love it anyway. And for the record, Your Mama loves the lack of foliage in the back yard. Just think how much money Mister Sorkin will save on his landscaping bills not to mention the water bills when water in California becomes as scarce as Paris Hilton's sense of decorum.

The children will recall that Devlin Drive is the same street super-mannequin Giselle Bundchen recently sold a house for $4M and former child star Fred Savage recently flipped a Steve Hermann designed house (sans swimming pool) for $3,500,000. It's also the same street where durty new mommy Xtina Aguilera parked her glistening white Rolls Royce until she and music executive huzband Jordan Bratman dropped $11,500,000 in May of 2007 on the Ozzy Osbourne mansion on Doheny Road.

Juanita Bartlett In Martha's Vineyard

SELLER: Juanita Bartlett
LOCATION: Main Street, Vineyard Haven, Martha's Vineyard
PRICE: $12,950,000
SIZE: 6,782 square feet (as per assessor), 6 bedrooms, 6 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Built in the 1920s this magnificent Italianate palazzo style home sits atop the highest point of land overlooking Vineyard Haven’s outer harbor. The 10,000-square-foot main residence consists of 6 bedrooms, 6 baths, 2 powder rooms, a grand foyer, large living room, sun porch, dining room, gourmet kitchen, family room, media room, office, exercise room, and wine cellar...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Not too long ago we received word from Smiley, one of our tipsters with a thing for Martha's Vineyard, who informed Your Mama that television writer Juanita Lee had listed her waterfront home in the village of Vineyard Haven on Martha's Vineyard for $12,950,000. The children prolly don't recognize Miz Bartlett's name, but surely ya'll recall the 1970s television hit The Rockford Files. Well, Miz Bartlett wrote that show along with episodes of The Greatest American Hero and The Scarecrow and Mrs. King.

For those not familiar with Martha's Vineyard, it's a triangular shaped island off the coast of Massachusetts with a long history of genteel summering. Blue bloods and well to do bohemian types have been ferrying to Martha's Vineyard since someone figured out how to put shingles on houses. It is also the location of several Kennedy family tragedies including where in 1969 Senator Ted Kennedy had his infamous and unfortunate Chappaquiddick car crash that killed that poor Kopechne gurl, and also to where John Kennedy Jr. was flying with his fashionista wifey Carolyn Bessette and her sister Lauren when their plane plunged into the Atlantic in 1999.

Miz Bartlett's summer getaway sits on Main Street over looking something called "the outer harbor" in the dry town of Vineyard Haven. Dry? Oh no! Dry means you can't buy alcohol there, which means Vineyard Haven won't be seeing Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter anytime soon.

Listing information for Miz Bartlett's "Italianate palazzo" indicate it was recently underwent an extensive 3 year renovation that sensitively incorporated modern amenities and restored the custom mill work. Now babies, we don't care much for Miz Bartlett's taste in sofas, and dining room tables (and do not even get Your Mama started on those curtain valances jobs in the living room) , but we give the ladee a raucous standing ovation for spending the big bucks to restore the wonderful woodwork and window seat in the stair hall.

In addition to the 6 bedroom, 6 full and 2 half bathroom main house, which property records indicate measures 6,872 square feet and the listing proudly declares has 10,000 square feet, the water front property also includes a 3,000 square foot carriage house. Your Mama takes the foolish liberty to assume that the 10,000 number comes from combining the square footage of the main and carriages houses.

In addition to Miz Bartlett and the Bill Clintons who sometimes vacation there, Martha's Vineyard attracts all sorts of celebrity and Hollywood types not interested in the high octane summer scene in the Hamptons and includes Carly Simon, James Taylor, news maven Diane Sawyer, Bill Murray, Naomi Foner and Stephen Gyllenhaal (Jake and Maggie's folks), Larry David, Wes Craven is reported to own several homes, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, and ex-Beatle Paul McCartney.

Your Mama hasn't a clue why Miz Bartlett has chosen to sell her vacation house, but we're certain once she does she'll miss that big private beach. We know we would.

Jessica Alba and Cash Warren Make House

BUYERS: Jessica Alba and Cash Warren
LOCATION: N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills (Post Office)
PRICE: $4,050,000 (sale)
SIZE: 4,686 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Breathtaking Italian Villa in the BHPO adj. to Franklin Cyn. Park. 4 bds, 4 baths (en suite) + two 1/2 bas. Romantic master w/ fp that leads to an amazing outdoor terrace + his/hers custom closets, large cooks' kitchen w/ Viking Professional range. Expansive, charming veranda w/ outdoor dining area. Beautiful faux finishes, arched doorways, imported Italian tiles & sinks, surround sound, landscaped yard w/ pool, spa, waterfall. Newer system. Every room opens to the outside.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Now that she's got a baby in her belly, an engagement rock on her finger and new digs in the Beverly Hills Post Office, Your Mama sincerely hopes that Jessica Alba will stop swanning around town hiding her face, scowling, and generally looking like a Sally Sourpuss all the time. No offense gurl, 'cause Your Mama does not know shit about you, the movies you make, our why you rank on the Hollywood A-list, but one day your damn face is going to freeze like that and your career is going to be sorry. We know the paps can be annoying, but seriously gurl, if you want to keep being famous, and you know you do, Your Mama recommends a publicity lesson from ol' Paris Hilton. Everyone seems to love her and she doesn't even do anything worth liking except smile and make nice-nice with the paps who eat her up like candy.

Anyhoo, for quite some time Your Mama has been reading on the blogs and in the gossip glossies that Miss Alba and her boy-bitch baby daddy-to-be Cash Warren have been house hunting. According to a recent blurb in US Magazine, the unmarried with-childs have finally bitten the bullet. The blurb in US gave Your Mama just enough information that with an assist from Our Fairy Godmother in Bev Hills, we were able to locate the new Alba/Warren family nest.

Listing information for the property shows an asking price of $4,195,000 and one of Your Mama's better sources whispered in our big ear that Miss Alba and Mister Warren closed on the property in mid-January for $4,050,000. Who knew Miss Alba had so much damn money? For what? Looking good in her bee-kee-nee? What has she done that has made her so much money? Seriously? All that money from a surfing movie? Did she save every penny she earned from Dark Angel?

Listing information for the "Italian Villa," which sits on a tiny off-shoot of N. Beverly Drive and not on N. Beverly Drive, measures in at a relatively modest 4,686 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 4 full and 2 half bathrooms. Your Mama likes the bedroom to bathroom ratio and it is certainly gracious to offer your over night house guests private poopers. But six terlits means the twice weekly cleaning gurl is going to need an assistant whose sole responsibility will be scrubbing terlits. Something for Miss Alba to keep in mind as she works her budget and hires her household staff.

Now children, please keep in mind that the furniture and decor are not that of Miss Alba and Mister Warren, but rather the sellers of the home, who are not in the fame game. So really, let's not blather on and on about how you've never seen a sofa like that in Tuscany or about how Italians don't pave their gardens with Saltillo tiles.

Here's what we like about this house: According to the listing, every room on the main floor opens to the outdoors. Now that, children, makes for some dee-lishus California living. The house is completely surrounded by Saltillo tile terraces tucked into the hillside, surrounding the heated swimming pool and over looking the scrubby hillside on the other side of N. Beverly Drive. There's a gorgeous outdoor covered dining area perfect for balmy evenings spent sipping stiff gin and tonics and playing Scrabble, and the resort style swimming pool is wonderfully private and lovely enough to look at.

Here's what we don't like: The kitchen. Yes, we do appreciate the monster island perfect for rolling out tortillas, and maybe it's just a bad photo, but that tile floor makes Your Mama's head swim like the morning after a long night out with booze hounds and boy magnets Fiona Trambeau and Falsetta Knockers.

We have heard from a gentleman who will remain nameless, that the soon to be parents have yet to move into the house. So don't any of you nimrods hop in your Daiwoos and Hyundais and drive up N. Beverly Drive hoping to catch a glimpse of Miss Angry Eyes. And we don't recommend it after Miss Alba moves in either. Even under the best of circumstances this gurl does not like to be bothered by the paps or her fans, and now she is carrying that Warren baby and her are hormones prolly raging, she just might come running out of the house frowning for everything she's worth and screaming like a banshee to give you a beat down. And you know what? You'd deserve it. Leave the ladee alone if she wants to be left alone. There are plenty of other attention desiring no talent "actresses" in LA who are more than happy to flash their hoo-has and be chased by the paps.

Now then, let's all take bets on how long before paparazzi hating Miss Alba lobbies her neighbors to have the street gated.

Your Mama Hears...

...that LA based real estate queens Max Mutchnick and boy-beau Erik Hyman are thisclose to purchasing a major estate in Hancock Park. The children will recall that it was Miz Mutchnick and the unfortunately named Mister Hyman who sold their big gay Bev Hills mansion to lezbeeun house hoppers Ellen Degeneres and Portia DiRossi.

Should the out and proud Will and Grace co-creator and his well connected attorney huzband decide to pick up their anti-aging lotions and potions and head to Hancock Park, their new neighbors will include former Friend David Schwimmer, who owns a well-hedged 11,336 square foot house up the street, and Will and Grace alum Sean Hayes, who lives near enough to borrow a lipstick from Madge Mutchnick on his way to Rage. What Your Mama wants to know is if right wing funny ladee Patricia Heaton will organize a neighborhood watch if two of LA's biggest homos move in a few doors down from her corner property on S. Muirfield Road.

Your Mama Hears...

...that Oscar nominated Hollywood hawt-stuff Kate Hudson just might be shopping for new digs in New York City. The bubbly and beauteous Tinseltown royal used to shack up in a TriBeCa loft when she was a-courtin' with bearded Black Crowes ex-huzband Chris Robinson. But according to all the tabs and glossies, after getting hitched the couple lived primarily on the Left Coast in a Pacific Palisades house in which the now dee-vorced Miss Kate still reportedly resides.

Your Mama heard from Little Miss Muffit that the single mommy of one long haired boy child recently checked out a $5,200,000 duplex at celebrity friendly 27 N. Moore in TriBeCa. Now babies, Your Mama does not know Miss Kate or any of her peeps, so we can't confirm if this is true. It's just a rumor puppies. Idle gossip.

It is possible she was just looking with a well to do pal, however, Little Miss Muffit provided Your Mama with an actual photograph of the lovely young Miss Kate holding marketing materials for the 3,419 square foot unit (pictured above) that includes 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and an impressive but difficult to heat 22 foot ceiling over the kitchen and dining areas.

No word on whether she liked it. Anyone care to fill Your Mama in on that?

The Singleton Residence

SELLER: The Singleton Family
LOCATION: Delfern Drive, Bel Air, CA
PRICE: $85,000,000
SIZE: 15,520 square feet, 10 bedrooms, 11.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: A remarkable opportunity to acquire one of the great classic estates in prime Holmby Hills. This historic compound is offered for the first time, this home is one of the last designed by Wallace Neff. It features over 7 acres, on 3 parcels of gated grounds, which include rolling lawns, lush gardens, tennis court, pool & massive motor court, plus additional parking. Grand entryway, high ceilings, over-sized doors, incredible moldings/details thruout.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Another of Los Angeles' most important estates has hit the market with a blistering $85,000,000 price tag. No puppies, Your Mama did not hit the wrong numbers on the keyboard...it's eighty five million damn clams. Lawhd children, someone get Your Mama a nerve pill and some Maalox because numbers that big make us nervous, dizzy and a wee bit queasy. The sky-high asking price of the Holmby Hills estate will ensure plenty of press and chatter by all the real estate gossips who get goose pimples when a legendary estate like this goes on the block. According to property records, the estate is owned by Miz Caroline Singleton in trust for the Singleton Family.

Who might the Singleton family be and why do they have so much moolah the children are surely asking? Mister Henry Singleton, now deceased and may he rest in peace, was a co-founder of electronics juggernaut Teledyne. A hush falls over the land. Anyone who knows anything about the history of Los Angeles knows what Teledyne is and the huge impact it has had on the science and military industries, not to mention being one of the first companies to successfully develop semiconductors, an itty bitty electronics product that has become a mainstay of modern electronic life and made many men more money than the damn Pope. Mister Henry Singleton, who met his widget maker in 1999, owned several (if not many) patents on technologies Your Mama is simply not scientifically sophisticated enough to understand...things having to do with gyroscopes, degaussing, and precision platforms. If you're interested in that sort of thing, Google him. Or better yet, Blackle him.

Your Mama may not know much about science or the economics of military contracts, but what we do know is that the tournament chess playing Mister Singleton was considered both an electronics genius and a master biznessman who earned himself mountains of money that he used to become one of the largest landowners in the good ol' U.S. of A. It is said the Singleton family owns approximately 1.5% of the state of New Mexico. Think about that for a moment children. Seriously, think about that. The Singleton family holdings reportedly include vast tracts of desert around Roswell, New Mexico where the U.S. government is rumored to test all sorts of scary and top secret military equipment and where many believe many of the visiting ships from outer space like to land.

The architecturally minded children may also recognize the Singleton name because in 1959 Mister Singleton commissioned modernist icon Richard Neutra to design a contemporary confection for him at 15000 Mulholland Drive. The resulting "Singleton House," now owned and controversially renovated by hair honcho Vidal Sassoon, currently languishes on the market with an eye popping $19,995,000 asking price (reduced from and even more eye popping $25,000,000).

In the late 1960s, after Mister and Missus Singleton tired of their glass walled architectural folly and they commissioned noted Los Angeles architect Wallace Neff to design a large and lavish Holmby Hills homestead. The three parcel, seven acre estate sits just north of Sunset Boulevard on the corner of of N. Faring Road and Delfern Drive, arguably one of the finest and most expensive areas in all of Los Angeles. A high class Bev Hills real estate agent that Your Mama spoke with, a ladee well acquainted with 8-figure properties, told us that the Singleton estate "is the best property out there." She went on to breathlessly report that five of the 7 acres are flat, and that the land is "worth 10 an acre." So bring on the billionaires, the Saudi sheiks and the Russian oligarchs, because you gotta be filthy, stinking rich to even think about looking at this property.

According to listing information provided to Your Mama by Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air, the Southern Colonial style house measures in at a huge 15,520 square feet with 10 bedrooms and 11.5 bathrooms. With at least 25 rooms, four fireplaces and 12 terlits this is not a house that someone should even think about owning unless they are comfortable with having a few dusting gurls and terlit scrubbing hunks around 24/7. And that's not even taking into account landscaping bills so staggeringly large they would probably bankrupt the average American.

The expansive grounds include a behemoth motor court that listing information says can park 20 cars, a monstrous brick terrace that stretches across the back of the house and overlooks more manicured lawn than most people could afford to keep green, planted gardens, a tennis court tucked way and mostly out of sight from the main house, and a swimming pool that looks like it could use a little updating.

Here's the thing kids. Your Mama believes our well connected ladee real estate agent who tells us the house should sell for well over $50,000,000 because the land alone is worth that. And we're quite sure the Mister Wallace Neff did a stellar job on the architectural detailing. However, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would never want to live in a big ol' house that looks like a galleria mall in Dallas with a Tiananmen Square sized parking lot out front. Good thing we're not shopping for $85,000,000 houses then, right?

The Singlet

Your Mama Hears...

...that follicly challenged and recently uncoupled model magnet Heath Ledger is quietly shopping the Woodrow Wilson Drive house for which he and his baby momma Michelle Williams paid $2,300,000 in June 2006. Often referred to as "The Treehouse," the 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom house measures 1,861 square foot according to property records and was formerly owned by house hopper Ellen Degeneres.

It's just a rumor kids. Do you know what that is? Keep in mind this is just idle real estate gossip when you talk about it with your friends.

As far as Your Mama knows, Miz Williams and child still reside the Hoyt Street townhouse in Brooklyn that the couple purchased in September of 2005 for $3,600,000.

UPDATE: Mister Ledger was found dead in his Manhattan apartment today. It sorta makes this post seem a wee bit silly, don't it? RIP. Our sincere condolences to his baby momma Michelle Williams and their young daughter.

Guess Who Will Be Bunking In Brentwood?

BUYER: Conan O'Brien
LOCATION: Tigertail Road, Brentwood, CA
PRICE: $10,750,000 (sale)
SIZE: 6 bedrooms, 8.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Truly unique New England Traditional gated compound offers formality, romance & every amenity. Gracious public rms, 10 ft ceilings, 6 fireplaces, 6 en suite bedrooms inc guest suite, sybaritic master w/sitting, balcony, dual baths, huge fitted closets, screening room, 1500 bottle wine rm, paneled library w/ bar, 60 ft veranda, pl, spa, pavilion w/ fireplace, exterior kitchen & magical canyon views--all just completed on one of Brentwood's most prestigious streets.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Well, god bless celebrity real estate high priestess Ruth Ryon at the Los Angeles Times. For weeks Your Mama and our team of (usually crack) tipsters and informants have struggled to sort out the buyer of this Brentwood property on posh Tigertail Road. At first we thought maybe it was Britney Spears, who was rumored to have toured this property just before it went into escrow. But of course, the poor, dissembling Miz Spears sometimes has a tough time finding her own house in Bev Hills and her leased Malee-bee mansion, so we figured she wouldn't really be in the market for a third house she'd not likely be able to locate without the assistance of her paprazzi pals.

Then we thought it might be Tobey Maguire. It had also been whispered to Your Mama that Spidey Maguire, who sold his bachelor pad on Thrasher Avenue last year for $10,800,000, was shopping around Brentwood for a new estate and it was Your Mama's humble and meaningless opinion that this one just might fit the young family's needs. Besides, the Maguire/Meyers can't stay shacked up in Leo DiCaprio's house forever. No babies, they're not squatting with Mister DiCap and whatever moe-dell he's fornicating with in that fortress like remodel in the Bird Streets, but rather in the other DiCap owned house on Oriole Way.

A few other names came through the gossip grapevine, but lo and behold, according to Miz Ryon's most recent Hot Properties column, the buyer is none other than the red-headed late night talk show boy wonder Conan O'Brien. Given that Mister O'Brien is set to take over The Tonight Show in 2009, it makes perfect sense he'd want to set down some real estate roots in Los Angeles, but Your Mama confesses that Mister O'Brien was not on our short, long or even our stab in the dark list of potential buyers.

Anyhoo, according to listing information Mister O'Brien and his wifey Liza's new West Coast crib features 6 bedrooms, each with it's own private terlit, a "sybaritic" master suite with sitting room, private balcony, large, fitted closest, and two terlits so the Mister and Missus can poop privately and at the same time.

The small packet of information we received from our Fairy Godmother in Brentwood does not include the square footage of the obviously huge and newly built New England Style mansion. However, it does include the purchase price of $10,750,000. The children will note that the purchase price is MORE than the asking price of $10,495,000. Perhaps the sagging market has yet to affect the small pool of buyers lucky enough to have seriously deep pockets.

We don't love the Brentwood location. (That is not a complaint about or snipe at Brentwood per se, just a personal preference, so don't all you Brentwood lovers send Your Mama a thousand emails telling us we don't know shit and would be lucky to live in Brentwood and all that crap.) Nor are are we thrilled about spending more than ten million clams to see the glossy black garage doors as the primary feature on the admittedly wonky front facade. And, clearly, the photos show the house dressed up in a cymbals crashing, choir singing sort of staged. (Please note the disturbing and ant inviting basket of fortune cookies in the media room).

None the less, Your Mama is a big fan of Mister O'Brien's new digs. Classy. Dignified. Restrained. We know already that some of you children are going to whine about how you like your East Coast traditionals to be on the East Coast, and that builders should be strung up by their private parts for building out of vernacular style houses in sunny Southern California. But, come on! Think about that for a moment before you get all architecturally righteous on Your Mama. Do you really think EVERY damn house in California should be a low slung Cliff May type house, a tile-roofed adobe, or a glass walled modern? Because that's just silly kids. By those rather limited rules, Mister Philip Johnson ought to have kept his iconic Glass House out of Connecticut and Your Mama does not think any of you East Coast architectural snobs would declare that kind of sacrilege, would you?

But we digress...Additional features in the new O'Brien house are six fireplaces, a speck-tack-u-ler paneled library, a 1,500 bottle wine cellar, a 60 foot booze-friendly veranda stretched gracefully across the back of the house that overlooks the heated swimming pool, expansive decking with a pavilion that hangs over the wooded canyon. That little pavilion, by the way, includes an outdoor kitchen and fireplace where Your Mama can happily imagine lounging with our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly while the Dr. Cooter works the wild salmon and fresh asparagus on the barbecue.

Inside we find soaring white walls and faboo fenestration in the living room, enviable 10 foot ceilings elsewhere, luscious ebonized wood floors, enough fireplaces to keep the loggers logging the forests of Oregon for years to come, and room after room with simple but impressive custom wainscoting. Your Mama can only hope that Missus Liza O'Brien will hire a nice gay decorator to get in there and do up this place in a proper fashion once all the lovely white slip covered sofas owned by the staging company have been removed from the premises. (Your Mama always loves a white slip covered sofa, we can't help it.)

Although this will not be the first time Mister O'Brien makes a nest in Los Angeles, he currently lives in New York City at The Majestic on Central Park West where he owns no less than three contiguous apartments including an 18th floor corner penthouse with three terraces that he purchased in late 2006 and was reported to have been on the market for $9,950,000.

Now children, have at it...pick the staging apart, complain about the price, moan over the facade. But do Your Mama a favor and at least try to see the forest though the trees on this one because, despite the unfortunate garage situation, this is a big ass house that even Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter could call home.

UPDATE: Joe Babajian

By now, everyone who pays any attention to the Los Angeles real estate scene knows that former real estate agents to the rich and famous Joe Babajian and his bizness partner Kyle Grasso were indicted all all sorts of lurid charges of fraud and money laundering. They have been relieved of their vaunted positions at Prudential and currently await their trial, scheduled for July, unless some sort of plea agreement is reached.

Ever since his real estate shit hit the media fan, ol' JoeBabs has been trying to unload his fully renovated Bev Hills home located in the swanky hills of Trousdale Estates. First dropped on the market at $6,995,000, the price was quickly lowered to $6,985,000, a paltry and laughable reduction at best. However, JoeBabs must be serious about shedding his high priced digs now, because Your Mama notes that the asking price has recently been hacked all the way down to $6,595,000 in one fell swoop of the price cutting machete.

Public records show that Mister Babajian paid $1,350,013 for the house in September of 2000, but given ol' JoeBabs alleged sale price tinkering, it's a bit difficult to know if that is the amount he really paid for the 3,443 square foot, 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom house. He obviously spent a small fortune renovating the place, but somehow Your Mama thinks JoeBabs will come out flush even with this price chop. And he better hope so, because he's retained a very expensive attorney who will cost an arm and a leg whether JoeBabs wins or loses his uphill battle with the law.

Is Johnny Depp Doing It Again Downtown?

A big mouthed source who lives in the freshly completed Eastern Columbia building whispered to the fine folks at Curbed LA that a-list actor Johnny Depp has been sniffing around another penthouse unit at the downtown Los Angeles building. According to source, the penthouse in question sits di-rectly next door to the corner penthouse with private terrace he recently scooped up for $2,100,000. Will a second big bucks purchase make Mister Depp the newly anointed king of downtown LA?

UPDATE: Steven Spielberg

Back in early December, Your Mama piggy backed on the gurls at Newsday who reported on the rumor that long time Hamptons summer resident Steven Spielberg was snapping up some prime Georgica Pond real estate a few doors down from his sprawling Gwathmey Siegel designed compound on Apaquogue Road in East Hampton.

Now the Newsday gurls are reporting that the sale for the 3.3 acre pond front property with it's fixer 4,500 square foot house has closed for a "bit less than the asking price" of $19,950,000. The property was purchased through a trust and apparently no one wants to publicly profess that it was indeed purchased by the prolific director, but Newsday's sources say the transaction was handled by an attorney well known for dealing with Mister Spielberg's real estate doings.

There is also considerable whispering that the bearded and bespectacled Mister Spielberg is also negotiating to drop a big wad of cash on the property next door to his current compound which happens to sit right in between his modern compound and the old school shingled cottage he reportedly just bought. It would make sense, right? However, the gurls at Newsday rung up the owner of said property, a Miz Janet Ross, widow of philanthropist Arthur Ross, who denied the gossip saying, "It's a very mixed-up rumor. No, my property is not for sale."

But Your Mama can't fathom that the filthy rich film mogul has not at least approached Miz Ross and presented her with an armload of money. It just makes sense that he'd want that entire stretch posh pond front property. Only time will tell kids, and it seems that the gurls at Newsday are likely to get that particular scoop.

Anne Hathaway Shops for SoHo Loft

RENTER: Anne Hathaway and Raffaelo Follieri
LOCATION: Broadway, New York, NY
PRICE: $30-35,000 per month
SIZE: 4,120 square feet, 3-4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...A private elevator opens a sensational entertaining area with an enormous open kitchen and huge windows facing east that flood the loft with light. Unlike most lofts on Broadway, protected north facing side windows allow up to four windowed bedrooms. Currently set up as a grand Master Suite, with a glamorous spa-style bathroom and two and one half additional bedrooms and bathrooms, the finishes and fixtures throughout this home are3 of the very highest standard...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Earlier this week New York Magazine reported that squeaky clean actress Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada, Becoming Jane) is shopping for a New York City love nest in which she can shack up in sin with her real estate developer man friend Raffaelo Follieri. With that salacious tidbit all you right wing Christian types will probably protest and boycott Miss Hathaway's upcoming film project Get Smart, but Your Mama takes a more practical view on these sorts of situations. Your Mama believes in shopping before buying, okay? So we got no issue whatsoever with Miss Unmarried Thing living up in the same apartment with her beau.

A source told celebrity real estate scribe S. Jhoanna Robledo at NY Magazine that Miss Hathaway, her good looking paramour and his body guard toured a large SoHo loft on Broadway with 4 bedrooms and $30,000+ per month price tag. So being the nosy little monster we are, Your Mama went a-searchin' for SoHo loft spaces that match the description in the article.

And guess what kids? There was only one apartment located on Broadway between Spring and Broome with an asking price over $30,000 and it's the one pictured above. Now babies, Your Mama does not know Miss Hathaway or any of her people so we can not confirm this is in fact the place the lovebirds looked at, but 1 and 1 and 1 do make three, right?

Interestingly, the listing is marked "in contract," so perhaps the the lovebirds signed a lease on the glammy 4,120 square foot space? Since the decor is not that of Miss Hathaway or her flashy Follieri friend, a man who apparently thinks he's famous enough to require a bodyguard, Your Mama won't discuss the dangerous looking dining room table, the deep disappointment at finding a pool table up in this place, or how we would rather sleep IN the bathtub than have one sitting right up next to the bed.

However, as long narrow lofts go, this one is not so bad. Due to the rare side windows, the architect has managed to squeeze in two (can be three) secondary bedrooms that have actual windows. We appreciate that elevator has been configured to provide a de facto entrance hall rather than opening up directly into the living room...a set up Your Mama loathes...and we're feeling pretty good about the bathroom lay outs.

What Your Mama can not sort out in our gin soaked mind is why a big celebrity type like Miss Hathaway would even consider living on that block of Broadway. Yes, SoHo used to be filled with artist types milling around and living in massive lofts, but nowadays it's just a big outdoor mall where tourists of all stripes schlep their sweat suited selves up and down the street from Banana Republic to H&M to the damn Pottery Barn. Also, those freaky red double-decker tour buses glide right down Broadway, and we're quite sure Miss Hathaway does not need a bunch of Midwesterners with cameras peering in the windows of her loft while she and her Italian man friend do the unmarried dirty on the pool table.

Anyhoo, only time will tell if Miss Hathaway and Mister Follieri will make house in this loft or some other high priced SoHo set up. Wherever they land, Your Mama wishes the happily not married couple all kinds of unwedded bliss, and we sincerely hope Mister Follieri's nasty name calling bizness with billionaire supermarket mogul Ron Burkle has been squared away.

Your Mama Hears...

...that large lipped house flipper Jeff Lewis is on the move. The anal retentive reality television rehabber had been shacked up in his Los Feliz redo on Ben Lomond Place. However, a certain someone whispered in our ear that Mister Lewis will soon be parking his Range Rover in the carport at his flip on N. Commonwealth Avenue, also in Los Feliz.

Both overhauls lingered and languished on the market in late 2007 but disappeared from the MLS around Christmas time. Your Mama expects both will soon come back on the market re-priced for a less electric market.

Gayle King, Manhattan Bound

BUYER: Gayle King
LOCATION: East 57th Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $7,400,000 (reported)
SIZE: 2,530 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: This morning we awoke to some interesting news in Braden Keil's Gimme Shelter column in the New York Post. The exceedingly well connected celebrity real estate gossip reports that his sources have whispered to him that long time Connecticut resident and Oprah Winfrey best buddy Gayle King purchased the penthouse at Place 57 located on East 57th Street deep in the heart of Midtown Manhattan.

According to the Place 57 website, the 3 bedroom 3.5 bathroom penthouse unit measures 2,538 square feet with a generous 768 square foot south and west facing terrace. Although we would never want to live on 57th Street, Your Mama would take a bullet for a terrace like that.

Your Mama rather likes the layout of this particular penthouse with it glass wrapped kitchen, dual fireplaces and a master suite sufficiently separate from the rest of the living space. We don't love that one must cross the dining room to get to the living room from the front door, but we imagine that's not an issue once you're physically in the space.

The biggest concern we have about this floor plan is the terlit and bidet set up in the master bathroom. Your Mama loves a bidet and we adore poopers that have been segmented off from the main area of the bathroom. However, Your Mama hopes that little cave has some serious ventilation, because Gayle King's shit stinks too. You know what we're saying?

Anyhoo, press material for the dee-luxe and not yet completed building indicates that the fitness facility will feature Baccarat crystal lighting, which is really quite lovely because let's be honest, who does not want to work out under a very expensive crystal chandelier? Baccarat crystal accoutrement will also be featured in the lobby, the lounge, and in an outdoor space called the "Baccarat Crystal Garden," a name which just sounds a little too New Age goes uptown for Your Mama's liking.

Now then, here's what Your Mama really wants to know:

1. We know that Miz King worked 18 years as a television news anchor. We know that she is dee-vorced from a successful attorney. We know she's on Miz Winfrey's payroll as an editor at large (or some such thing), and we know that she hosts a radio show. We know that she'll be paid to do something on her media maven best pal's new OWN television network. Mister Keil reports that he hears Miz King is also buying a large West End Avenue apartment for her adult children. But seriously kids, where does the ladee get all this money that she can afford a $7,400,000 penthouse in Manhattan and an apartment for her children? Yes, we know it's none of Your Mama's beeswax, but we're nosy that way. We can't help it.

2. Will she be selling her house in Connecticut?

3. Which bedroom will The Big O be sleeping when she come to New York for a visit?

Moby Needs Another Buyer

Your Mama is a little late to the rodeo ring on this one, but since we like Moby the music man (and his little tea shop Teany on Rivington Street on the Lower East Side), we figured late was better than never.

See puppies, celebrity real estate gossip Josh Barbanel at the NY Times reported that the co-op board recently rejected a buyer for Moby's $7,500,000, four floor aerie in the south tower of the swanky El Dorado on Central Park West (as reported on Radar Online). Bummer for the sanguine Moby who seems to be handling the board's denial with an admirable diplomacy.

So Your Mama wants to encourage all you New York people with fat bank accounts, penthouse dreams and strong glutes to ring up one of his real estate agents and purchase his uptown House of Stairs so that Moby can move back downtown where he belongs.

Jeana Keough Selling Off Shane's Condo

SELLERS: Matt and Shane Keough
LOCATION: Secret Garden, Irvine, CA
PRICE: $849,000
SIZE: 2,300 square feet (approx.), 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Elegant corner townhouse, travertine floors, granite kitchen with maple mocha woodwork, wood shutters, designer paint and carpet, stainless appliances, refrigerator, washer/dryer, dual masters (1 up, 1 down) with walk in closets. Third bedroom/office on lower level.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Hold on to your boots children because there's real estate trouble brewing behind the Orange Curtain, and it looks like it's just going to to get even hotter in that suburban oven. Not too long ago the residents of newly built gated communities all across inland Orange Country we're giddily gabbing to each other about how much their big ass tract houses had gained in value as they sat around their ridiculously lavish backyards sipping cocktails and counting their money. Those days seem to be coming to an abrupt end as is evidenced by the real estate difficulties being faced by several of the folks featured on the Bravo's reality T.V. train wreck The Housewives of Orange County.

First, Hummer driving beau-hunk Slade Smiley tried to unload his over-leveraged love nest behind the gates of Coto de Caza on Meadow Wood Lane for nearly $1,700,000. The house and its acres of craptastic white carpeting went through several price reductions, but found no serious buyers. It is currently priced at $1,290,000, which is far less than what is owed on the property, and according to a recent article in the Orange Country Business Journal (thanks B.S. Beaverman), Housewife real estate agent queen bee Jeana Keough (sorry Tamra, you haven't ripped that crown from her head yet) is reportedly negotiating a "short sale" on the swimming pool-less property.

The next Housewife to put an O.C. property on the market was Lauri Waring, who may well be the sweetest gal in Orange County, but children, Your Mama worries something terrible about this ladee. This woman appears to have so much plastic in her body and face that we are concerned she might melt like the Wicked Witch of the West in the blistering Orange County sunshine. Anyhoo, once richie rich fiancée George bought Miz Waring a Mercedes and a big diamond ring, she put her single mommy condo in Mission Viejo on the market for $599,000. Interestingly, she did not choose Miz Keough as her listing agent. Again according to the O.C. Business Journal, the 3 bedroom 2.5 bathroom condo was taken off the market due to lack of interest. Your Mama presumes (but has NO confirmation) that Miz Waring's daughter is living there again because even though she's in her early twenties, she seems reluctant to get an education, a job, or to pay her own way in the world.

Then came the high drama that is Vicki Gunvalson's real estate nightmare on Altamira. With both Gunvalson children in college (good for them!), the high strung, high earning insurance broker and her mellow huzband Don bought a 4,000 square foot house behind the gates in Coto. Although the new house is still quite large, it's smaller than their current digs, and the idea was to move to the house on Altamira to empty nest. However, before that Frankie dude could finish "decorating" the place, Vicki decided that scaling down felt like failure. So the Gunvalson's called Jeana, who listed the 5 bedroom and 6 bathroom property at $1,780,000. At least one price reduction later, the house remains unsold and now Slade Smiley is apparently storing his belongings in the house. The property no longer appears on Jeana's website and Vicki appears frantic about the situation on the show.

Honestly kids Your Mama can't blame her freaking out. Yes, she took on all that debt willingly, but with two big mortgages, a sagging real estate market, a house in Lake Havasu to maintain, a newly rented office, two kids in college, and a fleet of luxury automobiles to pay for, she's got a mammoth monthly nut. Your Mama would be falling to pieces too if we had to write that many checks. So while she's ka-razy as a loon, we feel for her pocketbook.

Late last night, thanks to the kind tip by Mister Tom Thumb, Your Mama learned that Housewife Jeana has also listed one of the family's properties for sale at $849,000. Jeana once boasted on the T.V. program that she had bought a house for each of her children, and this one appears to have been for the often shirtless and diamond stud wearing semi-pro baseball playing son Shane.

Property records reveal that Mister and Missus Keough purchased the 2,300 square foot (approx.) condo in October of 2004 for $767,000. The 3 bedroom and 3 bathroom end unit condominium was later transferred into Shane's name along with that of Mister Matt Keough, who is currently serving 180 days in the clink for a parole violation. More reality that you won't see on that particular reality program. Poor Jeana. Dee-vorce and drunken family drama is never that funny kids, and Your Mama has an honest to goodness soft spot for Jeanna and we sincerely hope this family is able to move on and right their topsy turvy boat.

Given that hawt-stuff Shane lives in Arizona, or some other place where he gets paid to swat little white balls with a big stick, Your Mama presumes that the hideous beige decor in the photos does not belong to Shane or the Keoughs, and that the place is leased out to some tasteless tenant with an unhealthy affinity for gargantuan sectional sofas and faux topiary.

To be honest, little is more dee-pressing to Your Mama that the notion of living in a "luxury" condo development in the suburban wilds of Irvine, so we really can't fathom why anyone would even consider paying upwards of $800,000 to buy this place. But for Jeana's sake, we hope someone does buy it, and quick.

P.S. Your Mama thinks the house owned by Housewife Tammy Knickerbocker might also be for sale...Anyone?

UPDATE: Avril "The Spitter" Lavigne

Yes children, even rich and famous folks in Hollywood sometimes have trouble unloading their large and lavish mansions. Several weeks ago it looked like faux punk pop princess Avril "The Spitter" Lavigne had fi-na-lee sold her 6,894 square foot Bev Hills residence up in guard gated Mulholland Estates. But alas.

Little Miss Nasty Attitude, who currently lives in the former Travis Barker/Shanna Moakler mansion in Bel Air with her Sum 41 front man huzband Deryck Whibley, has been trying to unload her Bev Hills bachelorette pad since at least the beginning of March 2007. According to current listing information, two deals have already slipped through the cracks and a "short escrow" is being sought.

With two deals down the terlit, The Spitter has gotten serious (or desperate) to sell the 5 bedroom and 6 bathroom tennis court estate and recently whacked a whopping $400,000 off the asking price for the 5 bedroom and 6 bathroom tennis court estate, now priced at $5,800,000.

Kristen Kerr's Carthay Circle Commoner

SELLER: Kristen Kerr
LOCATION: Hayes Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,995,000
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Exquisite custom renovation on a prime tree-lined Carthy Circle St. Keyless entry & all nu dual glazed wndws & drs; Nu state-of-the-art kit w/ Terrazzo, custom cabinetry & all stainless; 24x24 hand selected Italian honed slate, cork and T&G flring; Hand selected Iranian marble in mstr ba; Pre0wired for all wireless & full audio/video sys; Cstm alarm; Nu plumb w/ tankless water htr, nu electr'l & nu HVAC w/ air purifier & built-in humidifier. Nu salt pool w/ raised spa w/ salt filtration system.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: I know children, we're really scraping the bottom of the celebrity barrel here, but they can't always be a-listers so sometimes Your Mama has to dip down into the deep morass of lesser known. Plus, Your Mama needs to start clearing out some of the information we have in our archives on properties owned by the lesser known celebrities who haunt the Hollywood casting offices and velvet rope hot spots like Villa where brighter stars and celebutards quickly and easily slip past the sourpuss door men while all the hope-to-be celebs linger out front like lost sheep.

One of the many slim hipped pretty faces that may (or may not) be on the way up the slippery ladder of fame is former moe-dell and rock star gurlfriend turned ackturuss Kristen Kerr. Now children, Your Mama had never actually heard of the pretty ladee either, but the big boobed brunette bombshell has had enough bit parts and small roles on enough television programs (Desire on MyNetworkTV, Dexter on Showtime) and enough films (Black Dahlia Movie, Inland Empire, Flight of the Living Dead) to have a resume on the Internet Movie Data Base. And, yippee for her pocketbook, it looks like she's got a few more cinematic tidbits headed to the big screen including a film called Strictly Sexual, which is apparently a comedy and not a pornographic film.

Miz Kerr and her husband, a talent manager of some sort, have recently listed their Carthay Circle residence with a $1,995,000 asking price. Property records reveal that Miz Kerr purchased the 2,022 square foot, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom ranch-like house in June of 2005 for $1,150,000. Listing information indicates all sorts of custom upgrades were made including Terrazzo counter tops on custom cabinetry in the kitchen, cork flooring, all sorts of pre-wiring for all sorts of electronic gizmos, new plumbing and a "nu" salt water swimming pool and spa. All good things that might appeal to a multi-million dollar buyer.

Here's the thing kids, Your Mama just doesn't have much to say about this house. We do appreciate that many of the services have been upgraded and we dig the salt water swimming pool, even if we don't care for it sitting at a cock-eyed angle in the yard. If those disturbingly diminutive Cheetah print chairs in front of the fireplace were hauled off to the dump, we'd would find the living room with it's fireplace, dual window exposure and happily haphazard collection of sofa cushions to be a nice place to settle in for a long night of reality television.

But otherwise, it's just a house. A house with out of scale windows, a strange motel-like courtyard out front, a bathroom so beige and boring it gives Your Mama the hives, and a dining room set that looks so much like the one Your Mama's dead granny had in her dining room that it gives us the shivers.

Your Mama prefers not to get into the state of the market all that much because that's not what this blog is about. However, we do worry about average sized and ordinary looking houses like Miz Kerr's that have two million dollar price tags. Because let's be honest, that's a lot of damn money to spend on anything and Your Mama genuinely wonders with furrowed brow if the once scorching and currently cooling Los Angeles real estate market can or will sustain such high prices for lack luster and common houses...even recently and decently renovated ones like this.

Only time will tell kids, but in the meantime, Your Mama wishes Miz Kerr the best of luck in getting her career off the ground and her house sold off at a price she can write home about.

Wednesday Madness

Children, Your Mama regrets to inform that we are running WAY behind schedule today and have so many obligations to take care of that the morning has yet to pass and we're already hitting the sauce and downing the nerve pills to steady ourself. So don't get your panties all in a ruffle and send Your Mama a bunch of snotty emails...we do not want to hear about your impatience. Your Mama will will get to you later. So stay tuned. Bye now.

UPDATE: Slade Smiley

Last night Your Mama received a lovely communication from a nice young man we'll call Mister Happypants who was generous and kind enough to send over some paperwork that clearly shows that former Housewives of Orange County stud muffin Slade Smiley's Coto de Caza house is indeed sliding into foreclosure, if it hasn't already.

According to a Notice of Trustees Sale (dated August 28th, 2007) that was provided to Your Mama by Mister Happypants, Mister Smiley owes $1,408,662 and seven damn cents on his uglee ass house with a criminal amount of white carpeting. The N.T.S. also indicates that the house was to be sold at auction on September 27, 2007. Property records do not reveal a sale at that time, so Your Mama does not know if Mister Smiley managed to hold off the sale or if a sale is simply not yet reflected in public records.

However, you'll recall that the house was last listed at $1,290,000, less that what Mister Smiley owed on the property, which might explain why Mister Smiley's shit was all piled up in Vicki Gunvalson's real estate mistake in last week's titillating and exciting episode.

Now puppies, Your Mama does not want to pour any fuel onto Mister Smiley's financial fire, but it does seem a wee bit strange and sad that a man rich (and foolish) enough to buy his not very intelligent appearing gurlfriend a e-class Mercedes finds himself in such a monetary pickle. Or did he lease it? Uh oh. That would leave poor Jo in need of another male benefactor to buy (or lease) her a luxury automobile.

Anyhoo, Celebrity real estate maven Miz Ruth Ryon at the the LA Times recently reported that Mister Smiley purchased a condo at the Eastern Columbia loft building in downtown Los Angeles. Your Mama poured over the available E.C. deed documents with a fine tooth comb, and we failed to come up with a paper trail for a purchase by Mister Smiley.

And, of course, we wonder how a man headed into foreclosure, a man who can not even afford to store his belongings, could possibly afford a six or seven hundred thousand dollar condominium. Anyone? Your Mama speculates (we speculate kids, we know NOTHING) that IF the rumored to be impoverished Mister Smiley is indeed living at the Eastern Columbia, it might just be thanks to the good graces of a ladee friend with large plastic boobies and a fat wallet.

Now why isn't this imbroglio being captured on The Housewives of Orange County, because puppies, this is reality.

Mark Teixeira Trades in His Texas Crib

SELLER: Mark Teixeira
LOCATION: King Fisher Drive, Westlake, TX
PRICE: $5,750,000
SIZE: 6,986 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 full and 4 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Built in 2005 on 1.1 acres in the Vaquero Develop. Tuscan inspired home has a gracious dwnstrs master ste, & 3 bedrms upstairs & a gmrm. One of the many highlights of thi hm is the outside space consisting of cvrd terraces, fps, outdoor kit & a Zen like garden. Additionally there is a negative edge pool. There are frml & infrml din rms, great rm with a vaulted ceiling, a 2 story lib-off with a fp, several wet bars & a chef's kitchen.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The other day we received a polite and all-bizness type of email from a gentleman we'll call Mister Plum. Clearly our Mister Plum knows a little something about baseball because he informed us that a young ball player named Mark Teixeira had put his suburban Dallas-Fort Worth home on the market for $5,750,000. And of course, as you might imagine, Your Mama had no idea who this Mark Teixeira is or how to say his complicated looking last name.

We took to the internets to sort out just what makes Mister Teixeira famous and we quickly and easily learned what many of you sport fans already know. Young Mister Teixeira is an award winning first baseman with the Atlanta Braves. Previous to his current gig in Atlanta, Mister Teixeira swung bats and tossed balls for the Texas Rangers which explains why he owns a multi-million dollar house in a swanky suburban gated community north of Fort Worth. The internets also informed us that in the summer of 2007 Mister Teixeira turned down a reported 8-year and $140,000,000 (!!) contract with the Rangers before being traded to the Braves. So Your Mama assumes he must be pretty damn good at what he does to be offered that kind of coin.

Oh, and his name is pronounced Ta-sheer-uh, but we'll just call him Tex.

Property records show that the young and rich Tex and his wifey purchased this Westlake property in a gated development of custom built homes in December of 2005. Records reveal they dropped $3,990,000 for the 6,986 square foot "Tuscan inspired" residence that features 4 bedrooms and 4 full and 4 half bathrooms. See puppies, it's not just the rich people in Los Angeles that desire, build and buy "Tuscan inspired" mansions that have little or nothing in common with the architecture and landscaping of Tuscany.

Anyhoo, after a quick spin through the photos Your Mama was quite surprised to learn that Tex is just 27 years old and we assume the Missus Tex is in that same age range. What? Still covered in their dewy youth and living up in a big suburban mansion with a houseful of heavy furniture, a grand piano and eight damn terlits? We would have guessed the inhabitants of this suburban abode were in their 40s and getting ready to ship their mouthy and disrespectful teenagers off to Texas A&M. But alas...

Now stick with Your Mama here children because I know the impulse is to shred and shame these sorts of Meditamerican/Amertalian architectural abominations which are typically located in suburban gated communities overlooking manicured golf greens and man-made ponds. We are certainly no fan of that ubiquitous building trend either. And while this house is indeed located in a gated golf course community and overlooks a man made pond, Your Mama thinks that Tex, Missus Tex, and their decorator have actually shown an admirable restraint on much of the interior spaces.

I know all of you are probably gasping, pulling out the smelling salts and wondering if Your Mama has done fallen off the deep end like that poor gurl Britney Spears or if we're being held at gun point by a Texas decorator demanding we say nice things about the insanely huge velour sectional sofa. That is not the case. Yes children, it's all rather dark and there is FAR too much beige and brown happening up in there. And yes, it does seems a wee bit silly for a couple of twenty-somethings to have a baby grand piano wedged into the corner of their living room (unless of course, one of them plays the piano), and indeed Your Mama cringes at the kitchen attempting to masquerade as a living room.

However, the gravel driveway was a much better choice than concrete or, heaven forfend, blacktop. We love all the dramatic ceilings, the dining room, at least in the photo, looks pleasingly put together and appropriately scaled, and despite this house being almost new, the library strikes a stately and dignified chord. But it's actually the media room that has softened our usually hard edges. Oh children, have you seen the home theaters that some Richie Rich sports stars put in their basements with migraine inducing flashing neon lighting and those vulgar wheel-about old fashioned popcorn making machines that are supposed to be charming but are really quite depressing? So while Your Mama has never understood framing and hanging sports togs as artwork, we commend Mister and Missus Tex for showing some serious decorative restraint in their media room.

Here's the thing kids...not everybody can or even wants to live in Bev Hills or New York City or the Hamptons. Not everyone wants to live in a sleek and glass wrapped contemporary confection designed by a name-brand architect. Not everyone in Texas can live in a house that looks like the damn Alamo and not everyone wants a Miles Redd or John Barman or Kelly Wearstler designed interior. Many people in America, most people probably, just want a big, safe, cozy house in which to raise the brats. So, all things considered, it could be much worse. There could be recliners.

We hear from Mister Plum that Tex and Missus Tex have relocated to a suburb north of Atlanta, but we've yet to be able to identify any property they have purchased. Perhaps they're waiting to unload this place before they take their next residential plunge. Whatever the case, Your Mama hopes with all our heart that they at least try to inject a little color into whatever big ass suburban mansion in a gated golf course community they buy next.

Eric Mabius In Topanga

SELLER: Eric Mabius
LOCATION: Canon Drive, Topanga, CA
PRICE: $1,495,000
SIZE: ,891 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Charming 1930s walled and gated Spanish Hacienda surrounded by lush grounds and flowering gardens. Four bedroom three bath main house with exposed beam ceilings and hand plastered interiors. Gourmet kitchen with stainless appliances and travertine floors & designer baths with decorator finishes. Pavered outdoor patios & grassy lawns plus detached guest studio/art room/gym.

YOUR MAMAS UPDATE: Upon further inspection, we have determined and figured out that Mister Mabius actually sold this house back in March of 2007. So it's current decor and etc. DO NOT reflect his or his interior designer wife's taste. We goofed kids...So we've changed up the discussion to reflect.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Eric Mabius may best be known for his current gig on the surprise television hit Ugly Betty, but the hairless hottie has a long resume that precedes his work as a rich and entitled stud muffin opposite Miss America Ferrera. He was once an unknown actor in cult favorites like Welcome to the Dollhouse and I Shot Andy Warhol who went on to bigger and better gigs on The O.C. and The L Word. Now he's an international heart throb with screaming teenage gurl fans who earned a buff bodied spot on People Magazine's 2006 list of sexiest men alive.

Along the way he got married to an artist/interior designer named Ivy Sherman that he met while still in high school, made a mini-Mabius, and bought and bunked down in a small house up in the wilds of Topanga. According to property records Mister Mabius purchased this .38 acre property on Canon Drive with it's purdy little hacienda style house back in March of 2002 for just $635,0000. Oh children, remember the good ol' days when you could find a decent house in LA for under a million smackers?

Give Your Mama a moment because we are breathless with nostalgia thinking back to those days, now only a wisp of memory, may they rest in peace.

Anyhoo, according to records, Mister Mabius actually sold this house back in March of 2007 for $1,209,000. Records indicate that Mister Mabius' former tile roofed residence measures a modest 1,891 square feet and listing information reveals that four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a gourmet kitchen have all been squeezed into the space and a detached structure houses an art room/gym where Miz Sherman surely got creative and Mister Mabius kept his stomach flat and his biceps bulging.

Here's what we like about the house in it's current state: The cozy but not tiny rooms, the high, beamed ceilings, the white plaster walls, and the easy flow from the inside to the outside. We appreciate the monochromatic and soothing color palette and we L.O.V.E. that his looks like a house in which people actually live as opposed to an over decorated tableau designed to look like someone lives there comfortably. The upgraded bathroom is not very exciting, but it is attractive and we always appreciate a separate shower so that we don't have to haul ourselves over the edge of a tub in order to wash. Your Mama can imagine whittling away warm afternoons on the large paved terrace reading all the glossies and the tabs while the Dr. Cooter mixes gin and tonics and our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly frolic on the lawn.

But it's not all perfect. We can live with the light staging that was done for the photos–although seriously people who keeps a vase of flowers at the foot of the bed?–but all those antlers hanging on the walls make Your Mama a mite squeamish. We adore the travertine floors and the bookshelf full of cookbooks in the kitchen, but the layout is a wee tight looking and we would have preferred to see a slightly upgraded appliance package. And whatever message of cuteness that "VINO" sign is meant to transmit falls on deaf ears here. Ugh. Someone surely made a million dollars selling those things, but we'd gladly pay them a million dollars to recall them all.

Sink a swimming pool out back and Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter could live happily ever after in the in hippie heaven that is Topanga Canyon. We'd gleefully tolerate all the crystal wearing nature nuts and alternative healers who drive Jaguars and eat expensive organic food at the Inn of the Seventh Ray, and we'd spend evenings at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, a lovely outdoor amphitheatre where Shakespeare is alive and well and where Your Mama once spent a long afternoon burning sage and chanting as part of a very colorful and creative pal's wedding ceremony.

The only real problem we have with this place is that it's on the Calabasas side of the mountains, which means a dash to the market for terlit paper or a quick trip to the bank lands you in the bizarre world of The Commons at Calabasas where large lipped Lisa Rinna owns a boo-teek called Belle Grey. Now don't any of you people over in Calabasas take offense and send Your Mama all sorts of uglee hate mail extolling the virtues of Calabasas and/or Miz Rinna's leviathan pucker. You want to live up in your big ass tract homes, drive Hummers and shop in malls everyday? Well go on with your bad selves. That is your prerogative as a well-to-do citizen of Amurrica. But that particular world of suburban wonder is just not Your Mama's cup of tea. We're a geographic snob. We can't help it and we won't apologize for it. So, much as we love this little house, we'd love Mister Mabius' former cute casa even more if it sat closer to the Malee-boo side of the mountains.

We haven't a clue where Mister Mabius moved his family and well toned torso. But we have heard that he currently lives in the Santa Monica Mountains (as a commenter noted) and also that he's holed up in Hollywood apartment, which sounds strange. So Your Mama does not know what to think. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Who's Got a Million Bucks for a Mad to Lab Rental?

PRICE: $1,000,000 (MD-LD rental)
LOCATION: Parsonage Lane, Sagaponack, NY
SIZE: 12,300 square feet (approx.), 8 bedrooms, 9 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: On Parsonage lane, newly completed 12,300+/- sq. ft. custom residence. The 4.1+/- acres overlooks expansive farm fields. Features 8 bedrooms, 9 full and 2 half baths, formal living and dining rooms, professional chef's kitchen, media room, office, and great room. Spacious covered porches, elaborate woodwork and cabinetry, and top electronics. 3,800' finished basement features gym, wine cellar, sauna, billiard room and two bedrooms. 1,700' pool house/gaming pavilion. Over sized pool with spa and all-weather tennis.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Sit down and take yourself a big fat nerve pill and a shot of something bracing because Your Mama has some real estate news that just might cause a few of you kids to faint in upset and flabbergast. See puppies, the day every real estate agent on the East End giddily awaited has finally arrived.

Earlier this week we learned from Braden Keil at the NY Post and the gurls at Newsday that the ballsy proprietor of a gargantuan and dee-luxe shingle style "cottage" in the hoity toity Hamptons recently dropped a 3-year old mansion on the summer rental market with a $1,000,000 asking price. Yes puppies, you read that correctly. That is one million fat clams to shack up in this lavish yet somewhat ordinary Hamptons estate for the 90-some days between Memorial Day and Labor Day. And it's note even on the water.

The gurls at Newsday identify the owner of the 4.1+/- acre Parsonage Lane property as a real estate agent named Andrew Saunders who was offered a million bucks to rent the property last summer, but declined because it was for sale at the time for just over $20,000,000. So that's why he imagines he might get a million dollars this year.

Another local broker, the inestimable and venerable Harold Grant, claims that he rented out a Southampton house last year for a million big ones, but the high producing agent with big name clients declined to comment further. However, other local sources told the gurls at Newsday that it was for an oceanfront house on super posh Gin Lane. So the Sagaponack house isn't setting a rental record for the Hamptons but it's still got all the real estate brokers up and down Montauk Highway whispering and gossiping about whether Mister Saunders will get a million bucks for a house that is not only not on the water, but does not even have water views.

In fact, the massive house in swanky and serene Sagaponack sits at least 1.5 miles from the sugar sand beach at the bottom of Sagg Main Street. What! For a million bucks you still gotta have the hunky gardener drive you to the damn beach? Oh hunny, no. Yes, you could pump a bi-cycle down to the sand if you were so inclined, but Your Mama thinks it's just plain suicidal to do battle on a bi-cycle with all the X5s, G55s, and 911 cabriolets that race up and down Sagg Main Street. We are cautious that way, but perhaps someone who can easily afford to throw enough caution to the wind to plunk down a million clams to lease a house for three months is both sportier and gutsier than Your Mama.

So what does a million bucks buy, or rather rent a stinking rich weekender? The main house measures about 8,500 square feet with an additional 3,800 square feet in the finished basement. Eight bedrooms and 9 full and 2 half baths should be enough space for even a large polygamist family if they're willing to double bunk the wives. The interiors have all been done up in whites and beiges and cremes, all very soothing and comfortable looking. However Your Mama would be petrified to open a bottle of red wine in this house for fear of it spilling and splashing and making the place look like a high class crime scene.

For a million damn dollars Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would want this house to come fully staffed with a gurl who does nothing but wipe the asses of our guests and a beefy young lad to stand in the driveway with a chamois to wipe every speck of dust that lands on the cars from the gravel driveway. We'd want chocolate sculptures in our bedroom each night and closet full of a never ending supply of Jo Malone and Kiehls products. We'd want a 24-hour professional chef on duty so that IF we were to awake at 3:27 am craving a chili dog and Chinese food it would be ready by the time we got downstairs in our well tanned all together.

For a million bucks Your Mama would want a former male moe-dell who does nothing but sit next to us on the beach and rub us down with oil and towel dry us after a dip in the Atlantic. Your Mama would want a gurl with a bucket of ice and a bowl of water to trail after our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly so that they never overheat as they roam the manicured grounds. We'd want a three times weekly (M, W, and F) team of house cleaners who work silently in the middle of the night so they're not underfoot and making a racket while we're trying read the classics and swill gin and tonics in peace on the covered porch overlooking the farm fields.

But alas. Your Mama guarantees that for a million dollars you still gotta drive yourself to the beach, supply your own chef, your own housekeeper, your own car washer and your own gurl to wipe your guest's butts. So forget it. We'll stay in the modest shingle style farmhouse we already own.

The Neverland Ranch Saga Continues

Dead on gossip king Roger Friedman, who writes the Fox 411 column Fox News, is once again slinging fascinating real estate dirt about Michael Jackson and his once beloved, now shuttered and forlorn Neverland Ranch.

If something does not happen quick, and Your Mama means really quick, the storied and infamous Neverland Ranch will slip into foreclosure next week. According to Mister Friedman, there are in fact efforts underway to refinance the $23,000,000 loan that was secured against the 2,700 acre (Friedman says 2,900 acre) property. However, no lender seems to want that hot potato and no person or entity has yet stepped up to give the wacky singer turned tabloid freak show a financial assist.

Mister Friedman also reports that cash poor Mister Jackson and his three kiddies are currently cloistered in the Palms Hotel as non-paying guests of the Maloof brothers, who of course own the hotel. Your Mama aches to know if the Maloofs have also generously provided a room for Mister Jackson's always entertaining spokesperson Raymone Bain. We worry about the fate of this krazy talking ladee if and when Mister Jackson's financial house of cards finally crumbles.

Stay tuned kids, because it's looking more and more like Neverland Ranch will be sold at auction marking the end of a long and drawn out nightmare for Mister Jackson. Perhaps it's what's needed to right his boat. Ever the optimist are we today.

Nic Cage Sells Off the Scene of the Crime

Today the good folks at Wall Street Journal Private Properties column (and Mister Big Time) are reporting that hair challenged house hopping actor Nic Cage has done sold his Newport Beach house for a whopping $35,000,000. Yes puppies, this is the very same house where Mister Cage recently awoke in the middle of the night to find a naked intruder trying on his leather jacket.

Property records show that Mister Cage, who owns ten or more properties around the world, purchased the Newport Beach house in July of 2005. Records to not indicate a purchase price however it's rumored and reported that the real estate obsessed actor paid somewhere between $22-25,000,000 for the waterfront property.

Located on Bayshore Drive in a private community overlooking Newport Harbor, property records indicate the house measures 4,404 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, which sounds a mite small to Your Mama when you look at the photo above. Out back there is a large dock where Mister Cage parks his pretty boat named Weston, after his teenage son.

The new owner of Cage's crib is reported to be a stunningly rich Las Vegas bizness man who made his fortune from low brow casinos, slot machines, and gas stations that feature fast food outlets. Not very klassy, but seriously lucrative.

Mister Big Time mentioned in his discussion that Mister Cage and family have decamped back to their monstrous house on Copa de Oro Road in Bel Air that they recently removed from the market where it was priced at a shiver inducing $35,000,000. But that's not what we hear from our always reliable informant Lucy Spillerguts who tells us that the Cage clan is actually holed up in a Santa Monica rental on Palisades Beach Road. Why Cage would rent a house on the beach when he owns so many? Well children, Your Mama has said it a thousand time before...who are we to sort out the strange real estate shenanigans of the rich and famous?

Photo: Pacific Coast News

Suzanne Somers Loves Her Some Zebra Rugs

SELLERS: Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel
LOCATION: Alta Vista Road, Palm Springs, CA
PRICE: $12,900,000 (reduced from $35,000,0000)
SIZE: 73 acres, 10 bedrooms, 9 full and 2 half bathrooms (spread across several buildings)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama stayed up late last night in order to receive a ream of faxed missives from informant and aide-de-camp Lucy Looselips, and we dropped everything this morning to bring you photos and information of Les Baux de Palm Springs, the hillside compound overlooking Palm Springs that former Three's Company dingbat turned self help guru goddess Suzanne Somers and her huzband Alan Hamel recently put on the market for a blistering $35,000,000.

Ooo-wee children, Your Mama loves us some Suzanne Somers. Like most of you probably do, we too think she's a bit over the rainbow and she's probably a little too into the white light crap for our particular constitution, but this still blond behatcha is far smarter than most people give her credit. See babies, Miz Somers played Chrissy Snow so flawlessly that many just assumed she was an air brained cow. She is, decidedly, not.

Not only did Miz Somers have the know how to parlay her 15 minutes of 1970s television fame into a lifetime of public eye, she has very successfully turned her wacky ideas into a massive money making empire. Yes, children, that is correct, a damn empire. This lady has earned more money toning booties with her ThighMasters, strutting her stuff in Las Vegas, teaching fat ladies how to "Somersize," and pushing product on the Home Shopping Network than most people realize.

The seemingly charmed sixty-something year old artificial blondie has also been touched by the dark hand of Lady Luck. She was booted from Three's Company because she asked for a raise (something women simply did not do back then), she was diagnosed and survived breast cancer with a combination of traditional treatments and mistletoe injections (whatever that is), and in January of 2007, her and the Mister's ocean front home in Malibu went up in flames resulting in a total loss. Some time ago Your Mama discussed the house on swanky Sweetwater Mesa in Malee-boo that the couple leased in the aftermath.

But we digress. Let's get back to Les Baux de Palm Springs where among her other endeavors such as gardening and inventing silly things people never knew they desperately wanted, the multi-talented dilettante decorates. Oh Jeezis, Mary, and Joseph does she ever decorate. This ladee's got chandeliers hanging in the trees, a silver mine worth of picture frames, miles and oceans of fabric swinging in the breeze, dried roses coming out her well preserved wazoo, and a zebra skin rug in just about every damn room in the compound.

Located in a quiet pocket of Palm Springs at the base of the San Jacinto mountains, Miz Somers and Mister Hamel's desert hideaway sprawls across 65 (or 73 deppending on where you look) acres of canyon scrub land that they've owned since March of 1977. According to a recent article in Palm Springs Life, the small main house was built in the 1920s by Wright Ludington, an artist and architectural dramatic who went on to steward Montecito's quirky and venerable Val Verde estate. Ludington sold the property sometime in the 1950s to the Benoists, who owned the Almadén Vineyards. Presumably it was the Benoists who added the Albert Frey designed guest house up the slope from the main house.

The Somers/Hamels kept the place virtually untouched for 10 years after purchasing it, making due with minuscule square footage and a frightfully wee 4 foot wide kitchen. Then they got a bee in their rich bonnets and went all Winchester Mystery House expanding and building their faux-French-ish desert dreamhouse. The main house was enlarged, a newer, larger kitchen was built, several guest houses were dropped into the craggy landscape, the swimming pool was updated, a small amphitheater was wedged into the rocks, and over the years all services were updated to offer modern day conveniences and luxuries. The myriad of buildings that make up the hillside compound connect by way of stone pathways and curving staircase that are dotted with small terraces and provide big views over the valley.

We know some of you city sophisticates are going to scream and fuss about how Palm Springs is nothing but a deathly hot cemetery where even the young people are old and we know some of you will moan endlessly about all the wildly wealthy, leather skinned 70-something year old retirees piloting flawless, vintage 450SLs while sporting tennis togs, gigantic woman-with-a-past sunglasses and heavy turquoise bracelets. Still others of you will surely gripe about all the queens with pinky rings and jewel colored sweaters wrapped around their shoulders that parade up and down Palm Canyon Drive like it was a god-damn runway in the tents at Bryant Park. Fair enough. None-the-less, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter happen to love the desert in general and specifically the Coachella Valley where we have spent many happy evenings staring contentedly at the craggy mountains as we toss back a few gin and tonics on the balcony of our favorite room at the Jonathan Adler designed Parker Palms Springs Hotel. So we get it when Miz Somers says that the area is magical. We happen to agree, sweater queens aside.

Naturally, we are beside ourselves with mortification about the monstrous and potentially lethal pot rack in the kitchen and we find those little skirt thingys on the dining room chairs to be both upsetting and unnecessary. But in the main, we freely confess to loving Miz Somer's house and its over-stuffed and over blown interiors. No children, Your Mama is not drunk–yet–or on drugs. We just happen to dig all the odd tidbits and pieces scattered throughout the property like the matador costume and nutty green velvet sofas in the dining room. We love that Miz Somers has a passion for opulent and glittery chandeliers and hangs them everywhere, including in the trees. Although Your Mama hasn't a single mirror in any of our houses that isn't above a bathroom sink, we j'adore all the mirrors with intricate carved wood frames and we appreciate the way she injects a single color or texture or pattern into a space that somehow makes the whole thing leap out at you like a 3-d horror movie. And we can not stand–in a good way–that she has used zebra pattern as a motif throughout the house, in almost every room. This house SCREAMS Suzanne Somers and we love that because we love her.

No children, Your Mama could never and would never live among this sort of uber luxe romantical Architectural Digest worthy decor and, in truth, iffin Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter were to buy desert digs we'd look for something far more modern with interior spaces that become outdoor spaces by simply pushing open a massive glass slider, something with a day-core that managed to stop well short of being all did up like one of those horrid clichés of mid-century modern madness that litter the steaming streets of Palm Springs. None-the-less, we can't help it. We're smitten with the Somers/Hamel house and we would relish and pull our toenails out for any opportunity to lay around that wonderfully sited swimming pool with Miz Somers and talk about bioidentical hormones, thigh tightening, organic vegetables and what she really thinks of Larry King and Joyce Dewitt.

We know y'all are going to skewer us and prattle on for days about how awful this place is. And you just go right ahead with your bad selves. Meanwhile we're going to dream about the high-larity of hanging out with Barry Manilow, Dinah Shore, and the memory of Mister Merv Griffin, may she rest in peace, while Miz Somers serenades us in her own private amphitheater.

According to Palm Springs Life, the Somers/Hamels will be packing up their zebra skin rugs and chandeliers and moving to a new Palm Springs compound currently under construction. They say they're moving on, albeit with trepidation and pained hearts, because they love the process of building and all that entails. And we believe Miz Perpetually Young. We do. But Your Mama also knows that money talks, and if the this savvy couple can unload Les Baux de Palm Springs for anywhere near it's current $35,000,000 asking price they'll pocket many millions of dollars. And that my friends is another of the many examples of just how smart Miz Somers is when it comes to making the big bank.

Since the article in Palms Springs Life provided the link to the virtual tour, so will we. Enjoy. And be nice.

Are You A Celebrity?

Or do you just live like one?

Your Mama knows all you rich and famous people read this blog...how do we know? Because we've heard from many of you in the past and now we'd like to hear from you again.

If you're buying, selling, redecorating, think your house is the shit or just want a little extra publicity, give Your Mama a shout because we are lining up properties to feature on our upcoming television show.

Have no fear celebrity puppies, Your Mama and the children might dislike your choice of curtains or your questionable taste in chairs and tchotchke, but we promise to discuss it all in good humored fun.

Plus, we'll let you shamelessly plug your upcoming projects.

We're looking for celebrities, demi celebrities, and personalities all stripes and wattage, so even if you're d-lister on the a-list like the fab-u-lous Kathy Griffin, a reality show juggernaut like Chyna, a rising art star like Tara Donovan, or a media titan who just wants to be on T.V., email Your Mama at realestalker@yahoo.com so we can get our people in touch with your people.

See that kids...we're already getting the lingo down like we were born to take meetings and have a load of Botox® in our face.

UPDATE: Slade Smiley

Former Housewives of Orange County beau-hunk Slade Smiley is back in the real estate gossip columns. The LA Times' celebrity real estate high priestess Ruth Ryon recently reported in her Hot Properties column that the former reality television stud purchased a unit in the much publicized and bally-hooed Eastern Columbia loft building, which happens to be located in a still scrappy and crappy part of downtown Los Angeles.

Yes kids, this is the same freshly converted condominium conversion where LA based designer du jour Kelly Wearstler did up the lobby (her huzband happens to own the company that developed the building), and where a-list actor Johnny Depp plunked down $2,100,000 for a penthouse unit. No one seems to know just why Mister Depp, who owns a lavish and storied estate above Sunset Boulevard, would want or need a modestly sized loft downtown. Your Mama sniffs a publicity ploy, but we're cynical that way.

Anyhoo, the new condo isn't the only new piece of real estate gossip about Mister Smiley. The former mortgage broker (isn't that what he did?) has long been trying to unload his 4,800 square foot mess of a mini mansion in Orange County ever since his former ladee friend Jo dumped his ass so that she could live in Los Angeles and pursue her heart's desire to be a pop star.

Originally priced at $1,725,000 and listed with Housewife Jeanna Keough natch, the price was reduced several times and was recently karate chopped to just $1,290,000. Which, quite honestly, still seems like a lot of paper for a house with white carpet, questionable architectural integrity (at best), and no swimming pool. Then again, what does your Mama really know about the real estate ambitions of all the too tan and plastic boobed behatchas who marry high earning and emotionally absent husbands so they can live behind the glitzy gates of Coto de Caza? Ouch. Did we say that?

We also heard recently from someone we'll call Timothy Tattletale who whispered to Your Mama that Mister Smiley's house is in default, which we heard once before from a gal we call Connie Crossyerheartandhopetadie. But our quick little bit of research did not turn up any evidence of that, so perhaps Mister Smiley has made good with the tax man or the lender or whomever it was that wanted money from him.

Whatever the case, Your Mama looks forward to being invited for gin and tonics over at the Eastern Columbia where Mister Smiley can fill us in on all his new and exciting ventures.

Jesse Metcalfe Desperate to Unload House in the Hills

SELLER: Jesse Metcalfe
LOCATION: Rodgerton Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,495,000
SIZE: 3,919 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: This HIP Celebrity Owned Mediterranean is the Perfect Party Pad, Big Family Home or Large Hm Office, w/almost 4000 sq ft + bonus space. This Villa features fully updated kitchen, 5 Bds (2 w/own entrances + prvt. Apt.) 5 baths, 2 FP's, Dark hardwood floors and stone throughout. Huge Party/Rec Floor w/kitchen and own entrance. Media Rm w/Projector, Spacious LR, Dining. Gym. Large garage. Great Hollywood Sign View! An Amazing Value and Very Done.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Most of the children know the almost 30 year old ack-tur Jesse Metcalfe, his seriously manicured eyebrows, and his bulging baby butt smooth chest from his stint as the horned up cougar-luvvin' teenage gardener on Desperate Housewives. Never mind that he was in his mid to late twenties when he worked that gig. However, Your Mama remembers this slab of Hollywood beefcake from his days as Miguel Lopez-Fitzgerald on the high-larious and phantasmagorical daytime story Passions, which is unfortunately no longer on the air. Oh lawhd children, that program was so damn gewd back when Charity was possessed by the devil and the teenagers were getting preggers right and left.

Nowadays the recently rehabbed and somewhat career challenged actor is more likely to be discussed in the tabs and glossies for his on and off again relationship (and possible engagement) with that Girls Aloud gurl Nadine Coyle and the constant speculation that he might actually like boys instead of gurls. For the record, Your Mama does not know or even care which way the porn bodied party boy swings.

What we do know and what we do care a little something about is the Beachwood Canyon residence that the slim hipped and chisel chested ack-tur recently put on the market for $1,495,000.

Property records show Mister Metcalfe purchased the 3,919 square foot Mediterranean-ish style house on twisty-turny Rodgerton Drive in September of 2004 just about the time as he was leaving Harmony for Wisteria Lane. Records show the ack-tur paid $1,075,000 for the house overlooking Beachwood Canyon. Although property records show the house has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, listing information for the house indicates the house includes five bedrooms and five bathrooms. There must be some sort of funky lay out because listing information proudly declares that two of the bedrooms have separate entrances and an additional private apartment which appears to have been turned into some sort of pool hall nightclub.

Clearly muscular Mister Metcalfe fancied the notion of living up in a house done up like some kind of club or lounge. Your Mama does not know what kind of screw needs to be loose that possesses these young and moneyed television stars to spend arm loads of money to transform their homes into looking like Hyde or Villa or whatever other red velvet roped clubs they like to go to. Don't they spend enough time laying around in these places? Do people really want to live in houses done up like nightclubs? Anyone? Ugh. Not Your Mama, that's for sure.

We've got mood lighting up the wazoo, chandeliers hung too high, unfinished looking spaces, banquets pushed up against the wall, a bed-like lounging area in the media room (wonder what goes on there?), and a library table suspended by chain that looks like something that might have been done by the Design on a Dime folks. Don't get Your Mama wrong, we love the Design on a Dime folks, but presumably Mister Metcalfe was decorating with more than a dime so it's disconcerting and upsetting to see this abomination swinging in his house.

Here's what we do like: We love fireplaces and there appear to be at least three here. We love that looking at every window you see tree tops which gives the place a nice tree house sort of effect. We love the view of the Hollywood sign. But other than that, hmm. well. Although we are not down with hunting and killing animals (just our point of view, not a political statement, so all your animal killers, back off), we do kinda dig that kooky wart hog head hanging over the fireplace in the living room even though it would surely scare the bejeezis out of us after a few fireside gin and tonics.

Our humble recommendation to Mister Metcalfe would have been to keep the decor less club like and instead of spending his funds on custom banquettes and carved wood pool tables to put his money into changing the uglee tile around the fireplaces, trading in the tile floor in the dining room, and renovating the kitchens and bathrooms. All this decor is simply shucking and jiving that makes it very difficult to see the house or imagine living there without a resident dj.

Sadly, there is no backyard to speak of, which makes the property perfect for anyone who does not want to green thumb it in the garden or fool with a team of landscapers roving over the property and interrupting their beauty sleep several times a week. However, Your Mama needs somewhere to run our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly so no backyard is a problem.

Additionally and sadly, builder of this house didn't even see fit to include decks or terraces on the backside of the house that are big enough to do anything but stand around smoke a doobie or watch the sun rise. Both nice things, but frankly, Your Mama prefers to sit when we get stoned and there's hardly room to put a chair on the decks of this house let alone a nice quiet and sunny spot for our pussy cat Sugar to sun bathe.

The listing for the property screams, "PRICED TO SELL NOW," which makes Your Mama wonder why Mister Metcalfe is in such a hurry to unload his house. Could he be cash poor due to his molasses career? Could it be that it's too tempting to booze it up when you're den looks like a bar? Is he moving in with Miss Coyle, as has been widely rumored, or does he actually have much more money that Your Mama imagines and trading up to something more glammy and celebrity style?

Are You A Celebrity?

Or do you just live like one?

Your Mama knows all you rich and famous people read this blog...how do we know? Because we've heard from many of you in the past and now we'd like to hear from you again.

If you're buying, selling, redecorating, think your house is the shit or just want a little extra publicity, give Your Mama a shout because we are lining up properties to feature on our upcoming television show.

Have no fear celebrity puppies, Your Mama and the children might dislike your choice of curtains or your questionable taste in chairs and tchotchke, but we promise to discuss it all in good humored fun.

Plus, we'll let you shamelessly plug your upcoming projects.

We're looking for celebrities, demi celebrities, and personalities all stripes and wattage, so even if you're d-lister on the a-list like the fab-u-lous Kathy Griffin, a reality show juggernaut like Chyna, a rising art star like Tara Donovan, or a media titan who just wants to be on T.V., email Your Mama at realestalker@yahoo.com so we can get our people in touch with your people.

See that kids...we're already getting the lingo down like we were born to take meetings and have a load of Botox® in our face.

UPDATE: Lauren Conrad

BUYER: Lauren Conrad
LOCATION: N. Orange Grove Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,360,000 (listed at 2,495,000)
SIZE: 3,009 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms (main house)
DESCRIPTION: Stunning renovation of a 1020s character Spanish. Gated w/ courtyard entry. 3+2.5+den_pvt detached gsthse w/ bath. Refinished hrdwd flrs, custom kit w/ Lagos Azul counters & high-end s/s appl. Tastefully appointed baths w/ Carrara marble. Original charm such as gorgeous wrought iron work, original moldings, antique light fixtures, & a beautiful den w/ traditional Spanish floor tiles. Great outdoor space includes a sun-filled yard, pool & fp.

Well, almost immediately after putting up our little screed about Lauren Conrad, Your Mama heard from Junebug and Sweet Thing, both of whom have been in this house and who both gave us all the 411 about Little Miss Conrad's new home. We thought the children who care might like a little look see at what rich parents and reality T.V. paychecks can buy.

Well, in truth kids, Your Mama does not know if Little Miss Conrad is purchasing this property with her own money earned from posing for party candids at Roosevelts and Hyde, or if it's being leased for her television show by the production company. We suspect she's purchasing, but we've been wrong before. Although Junebug thinks 2.2 million clams would have been a better asking price, the house was actually last listed at $2,495,000 and property records show the Miss Conrad picked the place up for $2,360,000.

At any rate, the freshly renovated house measures 3,009 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. There is also a guest house out back with additional an bedroom and bathroom which will make perfect digs for a bodyguard or one of her less fortunate female friends who can't afford her own multi-million dollar house.

We confess to liking this house quite a bit. Of course, it is not blazing any new interior design trails, but it's a modestly sized, well appointed house Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter could easily call home. She may be a snooze on our television, but she can certainly pick a decent house, can't she?

Please note the floor in the sun room and the black and white tiles in the bathroom. We love that shit.

Brendan Fraser's Former House of Love

SELLER: Brendan Fraser
LOCATION: Readcrest Drive, Beverly Hills (Post Office), CA
PRICE: $2,995,029 (sale)
SIZE: 3,948 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Outstanding example of Mid-Century design, Rex Lotery, Architect, circa 1959, expanded and reinterpreted for the Millennium. Gated, private, and fully secured, the property features soaring ceilings, floor-to-ceiling glass, white walls, glass tile and stainless steel details, all within the warmth and sophistication of blonde hardwood floors, clerestory windows and other museum-quality finishes and features.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Given that big and beefy ack-tur Brendan Fraser (George of the Jungle, Gods and Monsters, The Mummy franchise) is back in the tabloids and gossip columns due to his pending dee-vorce, Your Mama thought we'd dig into our archives and discuss the Bev Hills Post Office house he, his soon to be ex-wifey Afton and their three small children sold in April of 2007 before it all went splitsville. Dee-vorce is never funny kids, or at least not for couples who slogged it out nine years in the fickle trenches of Hollywood-style relationships where rich and famous folks marry and dee-vorce frequently and as casually as if they are rotating their tires.

Having purchased this 3,948 square foot house back in June of 1996 for just $675,000, property records reveal that Mister Fraser once again proves to be a bit of a real estate anomaly in the world of Hollywood where many celebs move simply because they've tired of the color of the tile in the guest bathroom. Property records show the mid-century modern-ish house was built in 1966 and includes three bedrooms and four bathrooms. However, listing information indicates the house was built in 1959 and features 4 bathrooms and 3 bedrooms, plus a fourth that big chested Mister Fraser used as a home gym.

The photos reveal a provocative pavilion like living room with sky high walls of glass on three sides looking towards the petite swimming pool and also over the canyons to the city lights below. Clearly the whole place has been staged by Staging Gurl in a Pink Toyota because who else would fail to put any color into the dining room, leave that open book looking sad and ridiculous on the coffee table in the media room, or rent all that beige velour furniture for the master bedroom? No offense gurl, but this is not some of your best work.

As for the house itself, Your Mama rather likes this sort clinging to the hillside kind of residential drama. And we like it even better that the architects and engineers managed to squeeze a pool on to the steeply sloped property. We swoon over all the tall white walls (all you paint freaks could change that easily and cheaply if you lived here), we appreciate the vertical soffits in the master bedroom designed to conceal the curtains, and while Your Mama loathes soaking in a bathtub full of our own filth, we can imagine the view from tub in the master bathroom might just be enticing enough to give it a whirl...after scrubbing down in the shower of course.

We're certain all you kitchen snobs are going to gripe until our ears bleed about the galley kitchen set up. However, what's not easily visible from the photos above is that behind the long counter, where the fruit sits coyly and seductively in a basket, the wall has been opened up to the dining room which helps to make the somewhat narrow space seem less hemmed in. Your Mama loves that big ol' Viking range and the blessedly simple cabinetry, but we could do without the stainless steel counter top. We're also fond of a cute little breakfast booth like we see here, but unless that leather is butter soft we are not okay it's ka-kee color.

Mister Big Time wrote about this house way back in July of 2007 (no link at this time), but at the time he was unable to suss out the sale price. Property records now reveal that Mister Fraser sold the house in April of 2007 for $2,995,029 (last listed as far as we can tell t $3,499,000).

Interestingly, Your Mama dug up a report on a British website that says that Mister Fraser and family lived in a two story house on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Hmm. Makes a certain mount of sense given that they have three small kids and this isn't the most family friendly house. We're investigating.

As of today Your Mama does not know where Mister Fraser has taken his chesty self or where the soon to be ex-wifey and kids are shacked up. Wherever they may be, we wish them all some peace as they sit across the big table with their attorneys dividing up the assets.

Lauren Conrad Flattens Out

All the children know that both Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter love us some tawdry reality T.V. However, we do not tune in to The Hills because we find the juvenile cat fighting, faux fashion jobs, and sex tape nonsense a total snooze. Your Mama did not like teenagers when we were a teenager and we like them even less now. Even worse in our big book of judgment is 20-somethings on television acting like teenagers. Ugh. Your Mama would rather baby sit Sister Woman's insanely loud and migraine inducing children than get our blood pressure worked up by that piece of reality television trash. None the less, Your Mama recognizes that many of the children probably care more about this reality show rich gurl named Lauren Conrad than they do their own family. So...

According to the New York Post's Page Six, Little Miss Conrad will be moving out of her two bedroom rental in, well, in the hills of course, and down into the Hollywood flats where she'll shack up, sans roommate we presume, in a modest but pretty Mediterranean style house.

Your Mama would bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that the peeved neighbors have already formed a neighborhood coalition to deal with all the vomiting gurls in short sequined dresses and the blinding flashing bulbs from the hordes paparazzi who trail this demi-celebrity and her crew of equally semi-celebrities around.

Your Mama regrets to inform that we were just too lazy and uninterested to sort out the details of the location and features of Miss Conrad's new crib. We just don't care enough. However, if any of you kids want to send Your Mama that information, be sure to send us a nicely worded and respectful email. And thanks to Mister Smiley for sending us the link over to to Page Six.

Source: NY Post (photo)

Howard Gittis Double Whammy: Southampton

SELLER: Howard Gittis
LOCATION: Ox Pasture Road, Southampton, NY
PRICE: $59,000,000
SIZE: 15.4 acres, 15,000 square feet (approx.), 7 bedrooms, 8.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Settle down children. Go and lay down on your cushioned chesterfield, catch your breath and then take a few anxiety pills to settle your frazzled nerves. Your Mama knows that after viewing the soo-blime Palm Beach manse of recently deceased bizness man Howard Gittis, the children were expecting something faint worthy from his Southampton summer residence. But alas...

What we find instead is a very gracious, very large and very old school Southampton estate in a posh location with luxe but rather lackluster interiors and a spine tingling asking price of $59,000,000, a number only an metals magnate, strip mining industrialist or hedge fun honcho can appreciate or afford. Remember kids, this is a summer house in the Hamptons that is likely to be used only a few months of the year and 59 million smackers is a lot of damn money for a summer house.

Your Mama is non plussed by the interiors, but we will admit that the entrance hall is spectacular if a little more elegant than we would desire in a Hampton beach getaway, and overall, the house is a stunning piece of traditional architecture...it just needs a nice gay decorator to get up in there are spruce up the furniture up. Partick the dated and depressing dining room.

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Mister Gittis scooped up the gorgeous and nicely proportioned Georgian style brick manor house on Ox Pasture Road for $8,000,000 back in January of 1994. He soon purchased the adjacent house on a 2 acre parcel for another $1,000,000 which was recently renovated and used as staff quarters. Now babies, let's discuss this for a moment. Your Mama would never, ever dream of having full time staff living in our house. Live in staff are just too damn nosy and Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are way too private.

All you rich people with staff living up in your big houses are just fooling yourself if you think the they don't hear everything, see everything, and try on your good jewelry when you're not home. Your butlers, housekeepers and dusting gurls know far more about you and your family than you would ever want to admit. And they talk to each other. Don't think they don't, because they do. They vent to each other about your tantrums and they tell their friends about your eating disorders and they gossip far and wide about your husband's penchant for Chinese tranny hookers with blond hair. However, if we were to have full time staff, a second house on the property would definitely be the way to go. Think about it. If you've got the room and the zoning, it's the right thing to do. Mister Gittis had the right idea and a million clams is not so much for a supremely rich tycoon to pay for a little bit of privacy.

Anyhoo, listing information for the property shows the house measures a behemoth 15,000 square feet (approx.), with 7 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms and sits on an 15.4 acres. Property records reflect slightly different numbers, but Your Mama is not going to split hairs on this one...it's a huge damn house on an unusually large piece of land for this neck of the hoity toity Hamptons.

The estate, called Westerly, sits just a short chauffeur driven ride from the sugar sand beach at the bottom of Halsey Neck Lane. However this is clearly not the sort of house one would dare track in sand after a sunny and windswept day at the beach. At least not without incurring the silent wrath and deep resentment of the stern housekeeper Ingaborg, who spent the better part of her morning supervising and scolding poor Hildegarde and Gladis as they hand picked sand out of the custom sized sisal in the living room.

The extensively manicured grounds feature long views across acres of meticulously clipped lawns surrounded by mature trees, formal gardens, cutting gardens, quiet corners, a tennis court, what appears to be two swimming pools (one for the staff perhaps?), and several gated entrances with long gravel driveways leading to several garages and motor courts.

Everyone knows that real estate prices in the Hamptons follow their own insane logic, but even still, unloading a $59,000,000 estate that's not on the ocean won't likely be a quick sell. But then again, stranger things have happened, Wall Street bonuses are at a record high this year and there are plenty of people looking to park tens of millions of dollars into a market that remains untouched by rising oil prices, sagging stock prices and a lending industry looking more and more like it's headed for a free fall.

Whatever happens, Mister Gittis' Westerly will net his estate several if not many times his initial $9,000,000 investment. Good luck to his real estate agents. Be sure to let Your Mama know when this place sells and for how much!

Howard Gittis Double Whammy: Palm Beach

SELLER: Estate of Howard Gittis
LOCATION: Via Palma, Palm Beach, FL
PRICE: $23,500,000
SIZE: 12,620 square feet, 6 bedrooms and 9.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama was tuckered out and tired of looking at uglee damn houses filled with uglee ass furniture and a barn full of cheap tchotchke. We need some pretty this morning so we're headed down to Palm Beach where the richest of the rich hob nob and lay around their palm tree lined pools wearing Lily Pulitzer shifts and plastic sandals drinking cocktails at noon prepared by a sexy young houseman named Carlos.

The palatial and perfectly decorated property we're going to discuss today belonged to a screamingly rich man of bizness named Howard Gittis. Mister Gittis went to meet his maker in September of 2007, and now his collection of glammy residences in glitzy locales are being sold off at exorbitant prices. Your Mama can forgive the children for not knowing who this Mister Gittis is, or more accurately was, all due respect, so let Your Mama educate y'all in 5 seconds or less. Howard Gittis was one of the closest advisers and bizness partner to billionaire bizness man Ronald Perlman. Blam. He may not have been as rich as ol' Revlon Ron, but he could certainly afford multiple and lavish residences filled with ridiculously expensive furniture with punishing pedigrees and an even more impressive and expensive collection of contemporary artwork.

Property records reveal that Mister Gittis purchased this waterfront estate in July 0f 2001 for $9,950,000. The house was originally designed and built in 1952 by vaunted Palm Beach society architect Marian Sims Wyeth, who y'all will surely recall had a hand in the mix at designing Marjorie Merriweather Post's winter residence Mar-a-Lago (now owned by cotton candy haired Donald Trump). Mister Gittis' winter getaway, just a few blocks north of Mar-a-Lago, is currently listed at $23,500,000, approximately 2.5 times what the savvy investor paid for the house just 6 years ago.

Although property records indicate the symmetrical Georgian style house measures just 5,997 square feet, listing information shows it sprawls across 12,620 (approx.) square feet with 6 bedrooms and 9.5 bathrooms. The main house includes an elegant foyer, library, office, living and dining rooms and a loggia surrounded by arched glass French doors. The kitchen, breakfast room, a home gym and a children's or staff bedroom occupy a wing at the back of the house. Upstairs four guest rooms flank the dee-luxe master suite that includes a sitting room, fireplace, two bathrooms and dressing rooms, and a drop down projection screen (perfect for those dirty movie nights). A private veranda overlooks the swimming pool, the sculpture dotted expanse of well watered green grass and the Intracoastal Waterway.

The lush and meticulously manicured grounds include the main house with circular drive, a semi-detached garage and a waterside pool cabana that functions as a guest house and media room. A small dock accommodates a small yacht and the gardens on the east side of the property feature a small forest of metal Bertoia trees.

Although the interiors of this house are far more serious than Your Mama would want for our own weekend residence, it should be clear to anyone with eyes that Mister Gittis and his team of decorators had an obvious eye for pedigree, a solid desire to merge the traditional with the contemporary and pockets deep enough to shop wherever their hearts desired. Your Mama would discuss the glass banister in the foyer, the to die for Karl Springer dining room table or the George Nakashima coffee table in the loggia, but we just can't seem to take our eyes off the stellar contemporary art collection.

The children will note theDamien Hirst spin painting over the fireplace in the dining room and the large Peter Halley behind the beige sofa in the living room. All that beige is just fine with Your Mama when juxtaposed with a color cornucopia like that. You can also spy a sliver of a glossy Gary Hume on the back wall of the loggia and did you see that dee-voon Lucite canoe hanging from the ceiling? Oh look over there, a Willem de Kooning painting hangs over the fireplace the master bedroom and out in the yard sit several more sculptures including a miniature version of Alamo, the massive Tony Rosenthal sculpture that has stood in Manhattan's Astor Place since 1967.

According to other reports, also sprinkled around the house are several Warhols, a Picasso, a few Fernando Boteros and at least one Louise Nevelson sculpture. Jeezis Mary and Joseph, a tour through this house is like going to the damn Museum of Modern Art. Your Mama imagines all the bigwigs from the Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses are beating down the door to the executor to Mister Gittis' estate trying to get their hands on all that art.

Mister Gittis' people have also listed his tremendous and scenic Southampton, NY estate. Your Mama will discuss that 13 acre piece of Hamptons real estate pornography on Ox Pasture Road later today.

In closing, Your Mama offers sincere condolences to all those who knew and loved Mister Gittis, his spectacularly furnished houses and his enviable art collection.

In Response...

...to Mister Big Time's December 23rd query about which celebrity sold the property at 1840 Camino Palmero in Los Angeles.

The answer is Beck. And don't any of you nut cases think it would be cute to be driving by waving, shouting and flashing your boobies because not only would that make you a dip shit, Mister Beck, his family and all their Thetans have long moved on to new digs.

Property records reveal that the quirky singer paid $3,950,000 for the house (pictured above) in June of 2005. The records also show the house measures 4,012 square feet. However, listing information for the property from the time that Mister Beck purchased show the square footage at 5,200 with six bedrooms and six bathrooms. The listing breaks it down as as follows: four bedrooms upstairs (all en suite), a staff room (and bath) on the main floor and the detached guest house out by the long and lovely rectangular pool claims another bedroom and bathroom. Your Mama presumes the difference in square footage between the records and the listing is roughly the size of the guest house.

Built in 1916 and done over in 2005 by a real estate agent with a flair for renovations, the quasi-craftsman style house has a wide wrap around porch for sipping cool cocktails on blistering summer days, a pecan paneled dining room, an "extravagant" kitchen, and three fireplaces (living room, master bedroom and another on the porch).

The children will recall that Beck and his missus Marissa Ribisi recently plunked down $6,750,000 for a big new crib on S. Hudson Avenue in Hancock Park. The couple also own a modest house on Larkspur Lane in the Point Dume area of Malee-boo.

Your Mama would like to thank Beeswax Betty and Lucy Spillerguts for helping us solve Mister Big Time's real estate puzzler.

Your Mama Hears...

...that celebrity hair honcho Sally Hershberger will be opening her very own Los Angeles outpost in the same building that houses celebrity decorator Kelly Wearstler. We're not surprised.

The budding tycoon is busting out all over with a line of tshirts called Shagg, a series of anti aging lotions and potions (with The Face Place), and she will shortly open the doors of her East 71st Street outpost (Sally Hershberger Uptown) on the top two floors of an exquisite brownstone a few steps from Central Park. Now all the rich behatchas and diva doyennes on Park Avenue won't have to to fret about whether it's safe to venture over to the west side where Sally Hershberger Downtown is discreetly located on the second floor of a non-descript building on far West 14th Street in the Meatpacking District..

Miz Hershberger, who charges a shocking 800 clams to snip and shape the tresses of rich and famous folks like Donna Karan, Sandra Bernhard, Roger Federer and Renée Zellweger, recently had her sexy, sleek and minimal Trousdale Estates home on the market for $6,500,000. The house never sold and appears to have been taken off the market. Gurl has got to live somewhere when she's in LA. Little Miss Sally Scissorhands also owns a small penthouse apartment in a gorgeous Bing and Bing building the West Village and a small water front cottage in an area of East Hampton called The Springs.

Paul McKenna: Celebrity Hypnotist Heads for the Hills

BUYER: Paul McKenna
LOCATION: Rising Glen Road, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $6,600,000 (sale)
SIZE: 4,529 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Rare four-bedroom Regency pavilion at the top of Rising Glen in excellent updated condition with many details that recall Hollywood's "Golden Age"" terrazzo floors; bar in living room; brick-paved pool area. Grounds include large grassy area, guest house, four car garage & screening room. On one level except one bedroom currently in use as office, opening to terrace.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Unless you're British, a vice-ridden celebrity, or know a little something about neuro-linguistic programming, it's quite possible the children won't recognize Paul McKenna's name. However, all you thick waisted, small breasted and impoverished self help cynics who are afraid of your own shadows might want to sit up and take notice because among Mister McKenna's many feats of mental miracles the very rich and very famous British hypnotist and self-help author claims he can fix phobias, help smokers give up the cancer sticks, make fatties thin, help the poor get rich, and in a 2004 interview in The Guardian he said he can make boobs bigger. Well move over Anne Sullivan, because Paul McKenna has set his sights on Hollywood and there is a new miracle worker in town.

After several television programs in the U.K., at least half a dozen self help best sellers, and reportedly treating a slew of British big names such as the Duchess of York, David Bowie, David Beckham, and George Michael, the self confessed star fucker has landed in the good old U.S. of A. where he's already cured talk show kween Ellen Degeneres of her filthy smoking habit. Your Mama speculates that we might be seeing Mister McKenna up on the American boob tube shortly, partick because the networks are scrambling to get anything new on the air in the wake of the writer's strike. We don't know anything nor have we heard anything through the gossip grapevine, we're just speculating kids.

Why does Your Mama speculate and postulate that a show might be in the works? Because, in December of 2007, the eyeglass wearing and energetic forty something year old hypnotist put down some expensive roots in celebrity filled Los Angeles. Originally listed for $7,500,000 before being substantially reduced, property records reveal the mind bender scooped up a 4,529 square foot Regency style house high in the hills of Hollywood for a whopping $6,600,000.

According to property records, and the Movieland Directory, the 5 bedroom and 4 bathroom house on 1.5 acres has sheltered it's fair share of Hollywood types including gajillionaire gay David Geffen, song writing super star Diane Warren, and most recently prolific producer Chris Roberts, a man with an IMDB resume as long as Your Mama's arm but with nary a film we've ever bothered to watch.

Please note children that the interior spaces do not reflect the taste of Mister McKenna. In fact, according to the writer from The Guardian article Your Mama mentioned earlier, Mister McKenna favors, "frescos and swags of velvet." Yikes. Your Mama is petrified to think of what decorating crimes Mister McKenna's decorator has planned for the interiors of this house.

In addition to the main house, the private property features a 4 car detached garage perfect for Mister McKenna's Ferrari and a guest house that sits far enough from the main house that the new owner will never have to hear house guests fornicate or fight. According to listing information we received from Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air, the media room includes it's own bathroom and it's own entrance from the outside, which is perfect for when you want to have a few folks over for film night but don't feel like washing the dishes or picking up dirty underwear that has been tossed aside in the living room.

The back of the house opens to a large brick terrace that surrounds a heated swimming pool. Can any of the snarky children that the long view down the hillside, over the flats of Los Angeles all the way to the Pacific Ocean drops the jaw, staggers the mind and creates envy in the hearts of all flat land dwellers who dream of a sliver of a view.

Mister McKenna's new digs sit just a couple doors down from the house notoriously kooky actress Brittany Murphy bought from he notoriously troubled krazy train that is Britney Spears back in 2003 for $3,850,000. Maybe Mister McKenna and his mental machinations can sort out the details on why the young and nubile Miz Murphy went and secretly married much older, much less attractive and wildly controversial screenwriter Simon Monjack. Now there's an odd couple for the children to ponder over a stiff cocktail or four. Not that Your Mama cares a lick about Miz Murphy and her puzzling ways, but we do confess to being a wee bit curious about what makes that relationship carousel go around.

Since Los Angeles has a long history of embracing alternative forms of everything, Your Mama suspects that Mister McKenna will be embraced with warm and open arms that will happily put many millions more into his already bulging pockets.

UPDATE: Babajian and Grasso

A little Sunday reading for the kids.

Your Mama has received many requests for information about indicted celebrity real estate agents Joseph Babajian and Kyle Grasso. While whispers and rumors continue to sweep along Sunset Boulevard, little real information has been revealed about the fates of the former top producers...until last week. In case the children missed it, the Los Angeles Times printed a thorough update about the current and fascinating state of affairs.

Your Mama is glued to this story like white on rice. We've got hugely successful brokers who made millions from big name clients like David and Victoria Beckham, Ryan Seacrest and Oscar de la Hoya, and allegedly risked it all for a few hundred thousand more. We've got the venerable investment bank Lehman Brothers writing down millions in bad real estate loans because they were duped by just about everyone. We've got straw buyers, obscenely over-valued properties and forged paper work. We've got the F.B.I. investigating, bigamists on the run, and showboating attorney Thomas Mesereau representing Mister Babajian, whose Trousdale Estates house remains on the market for $6,985,000.

Look for this mess to be turned into a Sunday night movie on USA or Lifetime.

According to the LA Times, Mssrs. Babajian and Grasso are scheduled to be tried in July unless some sort of plea agreement is reached, which seems unlikely given that both men pleaded not guilty and their attorneys are quoted in the LA Times saying their clients are innocent, expect to be acquitted and will be vindicated. We'll see.

Our pal over at Real Sedated predicts the embattled Prudential agents will be fined, forever stripped of their real estate licenses and set free. Your Mama wonders, if they might also be made to spend a little time up in Lompoc where they can read, do macramé and network with other well to do white collar criminals. After all, a jury of their peers is unlikely to see them as sympathetic figures. Real estate agents are seldom well thought of by the general public and those accused of bank fraud and money laundering face an steep uphill battle in a room full of folks struggling to pay their mortgages.

Stay tuned.

Burt Reynolds Downsizing in Florida

SELLER: Burt Reynolds
LOCATION: SE Federal Highway, Hobe Sound, FL
PRICE: $10,500,000
SIZE: 12,500 (approx.), 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Extremely desirable, hard to find private three acre estate. Neighboring State Park, & directly located on Intrac. overlooking Jupiter Isl., large yacht dockage, private two bedroom guest house, billiard & cinema rooms.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Okay children, today we are discussing the home of a senior citizen, so Your Mama will try and be as kind and respectful as our nerve medication will allow. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that 71 year old Academy Award nominated and Emmy winning ack-tur Burt Reynolds has drastically reduced the price of his waterfront estate in Hobe Sound, Florida.

Mister Reynolds' estate, only about 15 miles north of Palm Beach was first put on the market in 2005 with a listing price of $15,000,000, which was stoopidly raised to $15,900,000 about a year ago before being chopped to $12,900,000 last summer and then slashed again to it's current asking price of $10,500,000.

According to Mister Reynolds' PR flak, who was interviewed by the gal who writes the always informative Private Properties column at The Journal, stated that the 1970s sex symbol was downsizing from the 12,500 square foot mansion because he no longer has use "for something so huge." The spokesman went on to say that Mister Reynolds intends to purchase something smaller in the area and at any rate, the WSJ article indicates, Mister Reynolds' primary residence is in Beverly Hills.

Back in 1980, when Mister Burt Reynolds was still a mustachioed piece of silver screen beefcake who sassily popped gum and posed nekkid as a hirsute jaybird in the glossy pages of Cosmopolitan, he scooped up this Hobe Sound hacienda for a mere $700,000. You read that correctly children, $700,000.

Presumably this is just one of several poorly decorated homes that Mister Reynolds shared with the seemingly ageless Miz Anderson. Your Mama happens to have a soft spot in our cold heart for Miz Anderson, who unfortunately hasn't changed her lacquered hair-do since her salad days on WKRP in Cincinnati. Burt's ex participated in a few real estate transactions of her own recently when she unloaded her disturbing mausoleum of 1980s era trad decor in Mulholland Estates and reportedly purchased a 4,300 square foot freshly built Montecito-style mini-manse in Sherman Oaks.

According to property records and listing information, Mister Reynolds' three acre spread butts up against a State Park, and the 12,500 (approx.) square foot Mediterranean style house features 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, a billiard room, a cinema room and a 2 bedroom guest house.

Your Mama's stomach is weak today, so we're just going to sum up our two cents in as few words as possible and then we're going move on and let the children slice and dice the place. The setting is lovely (if you dig this part of Florida, which Your Mama does not) and the enormously long driveway, water side swimming pool, helipad, and dock space large enough for a big ol' yacht are all nice features in a high priced Florida getaway.

But Jeezis, Mary and Joseph the interior spaces are a hot mess and Your Mama would Cannonball Run outta that house as quickly as our little legs could carry us before our eyeballs burned up in their sockets from looking too closely at the decorating disaster that is Mister Reynolds residence. Please note the migraine inducing pink and paneled game room with the stuffed bear and also that snowball like dining room chandelier which probably hasn't been touched since Loni lived there and very well might still have a tuft of her shellacked hair clinging to it. Ugh!

Oh Burt. Your Mama is just so disappointed. We really hoped you would have gone the extra mile and used some of your deep pockets and big bank accounts to hire a nice gay decorator to update and do over your house with the restraint and style benefiting an aging film and television icon like yourself. Perhaps in your next and more modest digs you'll see fit to have someone help you edit your lifetime worth of memorabilia and shape it into a killer and coherent collection that succinctly reflects your long, long career rather than looking like piles of clutter and junk you're too lazy to take to the dump.

UPDATE: Simon Fuller

Your Mama hears from Junebug that the Simon Fuller house we discussed yesterday is actually quietly on the market. Junebug hears through the gossip grapevine that the house is being shopped at $8,500,000.

Junebug also reveals that Mister Fuller purchased the Tanager Way house as an interim property while his Bev Hills property was being renovated. That renovation is complete (or nearly complete), and Mister Fuller can finally move in to his Ridgedale Drive manse that's just a few doors down from Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman's compound which remains on the market with a fat asking price of $31,900,000.

Michael Jackson Saved From the Poor House?

Mister Roger Friedman who writes the Fox 411 column for Fox News always has the most up to date information about financially embattled former pop star Michael Jackson, and yesterday he reported that the monetarily challenged Gloved One finally finagled a lending institution (rumored to be HSBC Private Banking) into refinancing and restructuring his Grand Canyon sized debt.

According to Friedman, the deal may have put as much as $25,000,000 into Mister Jackson's handbag, which is a lot of money to most people. But not to Michael Jackson. Oh lawhd have mercy, The White Lady needs far more than $25,000,000 to get him anywhere near debt free and liquid. In fact, Mister Friedman speculates (and we always believe Mister Friedman) that Mister Jackson's immediate payments to settle debts and lost legal brouhahas could total as much as $20,000,000. Which leaves the Jackson four (and Miz Raymone Bain makes five) only five million clams to live on...and ya'll know Miss Thing can run through five million dollars like it was five dollars.

Presumably, Mister Jackson receives fat royalty checks from his Sony/ATV/Beatles music catalog, but Your Mama imagines that a substantial chunk of those royalties must be utilized just to service the payments on his spine tingling and reported $300,000,000 loan.

But we're here for the real estate, right kids? Mister Jackson's somewhat modest windfall will apparently do little to shore up his sagging and highly leveraged real estate portfolio. No word on whether this Jackson or one of the other Jacksons took the necessary steps to pay off the $16,000+ tax lien or satisfy the $4,000,000 (approx.) mortgage on the Jackson family seat on Hayvenhurst Avenue in Encino.

Mister Jackson still has a couple of weeks to right the pending foreclosure at Neverland Ranch, his former home in the Santa Ynez Valley where he has not officially lived since mid 2005. The lender on the property is calling in over $23,000,000, and based on Mister Friedman's mathematics, it would seem that Mister Jackson is not likely to have the wherewithal to satisfy that debt and the 2,700 acre property may (very publicly) slide into foreclosure.

What a damn mess. Listen to Your Mama now Mister Jackson. Just put Neverland Ranch on the market and let some rich guy from Dubai buy it, or sell it off to John Bersci or some other swanky developer who will de-juju the place, sub-divide it and sell it off as gentleman ranches.

And where is the unnaturally pale skinned Mister Jackson living now? Well Mister Friedman tell us that Mister Jackson was so strapped for cash that he and the kids (and we assume that krazy talking Miz Bain) were camped out in Las Vegas with his mama Katherine. Poor thing didn't even have the cash (or credit?) to afford a room at The Flamingo.

Listen Michael, you can't live whitcher mama the rest of yer damn life, and you still have a mega asset that you can sell off. So do it. Do what you know you've got to do. Sell everything, buy a nice house out in Santa Clarita and retire gracefully while your children attend school, make friends and learn how to live in the world without a gauzy piece of fabric draped over their poor little heads. We know you like that sort of high voltage performance when you shop at Barnes and Noble looking like Humpty damn Dumpty in a head scarf after they put him back together again, but did you ever stop to think your children might be damaged by that kind of shenanigans?

Anywoo, enough of that soap box children. Your Mama apologizes for the digression away from the real estate.

UPDATE: Parker Posey

Back in late October of 2007, Your Mama followed up on a report by Max Abelson in the NY Observer about indie movie high priestess Parker Posey's East Village apartment being sold. The top floor 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom apartment located in a lovely landmark townhouse on East 10th Street was on the market for $1,175,000 and by all accounts attracted heaps and scores of interested buyers.

Certainly the other famous residents of the purdy and well located building–Smashing Pumpkins' James Iha and Miz Posey's indie film grasshopper Chloë Sevigny–helped scare up ready, willing and able buyers eager to shell out well over a million clams to climb three or four flights of stairs in a non-doorman building.

Today, thanks to generous assistance from Joan of Arc, Your Mama offers the children a few more photos over which to drool and feast your celebrity home starved eyeballs. Note the above photographs have slight furniture and rug variations to the image(s) that were included on the real estate listing, so Your Mama imagines that the delightful Miz Posey had her decorator Rafael de Cárdenas come by periodically to mix things up.

Do the children notice that swirly gold side table thing? We. Love. It. And we'd bet one of our long bodied bitches Linda or Beverly that it's just some cheap gold spray paint from the hardware store too, which makes it even better. Be assured that come spring weather Your Mama will be out in the backyard of our beach house carving up a stump and spray painting it gold to add a bit of glitz and glamor to one of the guest rooms.

Here's what we said about Miz Posey's former abode previously, and we stand buy it:

"Your Mama is very pleased and impressed with Miz Posey's funky downtown decor. It looks like a pleasant and well curated mish-mash of items from the Avenue A flea, Las Venus (the old and wacky Las Venus on Ludlow Street and not the mid-century modern outpost), and any number of assorted thrift shops located in church basements around lower Manhattan. I don't care what anyone says, that gnarled wood coffee table is flawless, even if it is murder on the chins after a few drinky-poos at Parker's place."

Your Mama has not found evidence of this property transferring ownership yet, so we don't know how much it sold for or who purchased it...so don't even ask.

Wherever Miz Posey and her collection of second-hand furniture has landed, Your Mama wishes her all best.

It's the Birds for Simon Fuller

BUYER: Simon Fuller
LOCATION: Tanager Way, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $7,650,000 (sale)
SIZE: 3,300 square feet (approx.), 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Soaring estate by Mark Schomisch Design perched on the most prestigious crest in the bird streets. Museum modern architecture with sweeping city lights and coastline views is a union of the sophisticated and sublime. Floor to ceiling glass walls create impressive volume and open to an expansive terrace with knife-edged infinity pool & spa. Remarkably private, the home boasts refined finishes, exotic wall coverings and state of the art Smart Home technology.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We're digging into our archives for this one children, so don't any of you bitchy brats be giving Your Mama no lip, sass or snotty email about how this purchase took place back in February of 2007. Don't you think we know that already?

Anyhoo, located high above Sunset Boulevard, this 3,300 square foot (approx.) slice of bird street bliss was given a big gay redo by Los Angeles based designer Mark Schomisch for a couple of Hollywood homosexuals with good jobs, fat paychecks and a penchant for animal skins, gold leaf and acres of black marble. The overhaul included freeing the exterior elevations from its previous life as a dated and shabby ranch house with killer views as well as reconfiguring, opening up and teaching the interior spaces to merge with the outdoor spaces.

Although we are inclined to swoon and moon over this house, don't fool your smart-alleck selves into thinking that Your Mama is in love with this interior decor lock, stock and barrel, because we're not. In fact we are quite sure we'd pee out pants from fright coming up on those statues flanking the fireplace in the darkened living room after a hard night of gin and tonics and reality television. We are naturally quite concerned the tufted sofa in the media room/library would knot our back up while watching a Project Runway marathon, and we'd most assuredly vomit out our intestines if we stepped bleary eyed out of our morning bed onto a fur rug like we see in the master bedroom. It is only Your Mama's humble and meaningless opinion, but whatever that piece of mink or fox or raccoon cost, it was too damn much.

We would never even hint at it to our lovely ladee therapist for fear of having to spend months parsing it's deeper meaning, but we are quite simply a sucker for a forbidding street facade like we see on Mister Fuller's Tanager Way house. We are also of the somewhat sound mind that the excessively manicured bushes have a charmingly quirky thing happening, and the pair of gold leaf screens, which not only provide decorative security, remind Your Mama of giant Oscar statuettes. Entering and exiting this house would provide the distinctly delightful feeling of walking down the red carpet at the Kodak Thee-a-ter every damn day.

We are also, much to our surprise, bent backwards with glee over the kitchen with all that black marble affixed to just about every flat surface. Black marble like this seems totally impractical and we're deeply concerned about constant water spotting on this material, but if Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter lived here we'd just have to resign ourselves into having Svetlana (and her sister-in-law Oksana) come in several days a week to deal effectively with that issue.

The vein-cut travertine flooring inside the house stretches out to the decently sized pool terrace that features a fireplace and a view expansive enough to silence even the most jaded queens and the most fervent Hollywood Hills real estate snobs. At least on a clear day. You Mama does not always care for a "knife-edged infinity pool" but we'll take this dee-lishus cee-ment pond without complaint or snark.

Listen up children, the photos here reflect the interior decor BEFORE American Idol creator and celebrity manager extraordinaire Simon Fuller purchased the 3 bedroom (plus library) and 3.5 bathroom aerie in February for 2007. Property records reveal the entertainment mogul paid $7,650,000 for the freshly rehabbed house that Your Mama presumes the London based millionaire uses as a pied a terre.

Y'all know who Mister Fuller is, right? In the off chance that you don't, here's a Reader's Digest rundown: Mister Fuller, who created the reality television phenomena that is American Idol– and all the other Idol programs for that matter–discovered the boozy mess that is Amy Winehouse, manages former supermodel Claudia Schiffer, Victoria Beckham and The Spice Girls as well as a large number of other big name celebs. He's the brainiac who engineered ball playing super stud David Beckham's unnaturally large $250,000,000 deal with the LA Galaxy, and, Mister Fuller's company 19 Entertainment has contracts with most of the noteworthy and money making Idol alums such as Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Clay Aiken and Will Young, just to name a few. So the children should be able to easily ascertain that the forty something year old man is stinking rich and wields an almost Svengali-like power over the entertainment bizness.

While he remains president of Entertainment 19, in March of 2005 Mister Fuller sold the group for a reported and jaw dropping $192,000,000, which in addition to his long list of royalties, syndication rights and current projects surely places him among the wealthiest of all the Hollywood bigwig types. The man can afford to live just about any way and any where he chooses and his real estate portfolio reportedly bulges with a dozen dee-luxe homes around the world including another residence on Ridgedale Drive that sits just a few doors down from the Bev Hills house that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston used to call home. Mister Fuller also recently dumped $19,360,752 on two adjacent ninth floor condos at the yet to be completed condominium conversion at The Plaza Residences at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street in Manhattan.

Nearby neighbors to the Tanager Way house include ex Will and Grace rich behatcha Megan Mullally, who lives up the road and smack next door to the house the Tobey Maguire recently sold for $10,800,000. A little farther up from Miz Mullally lives Mister Keanu Reeves and his dirty clothes. Next door to Mister Fuller's pied a terre is the house that super songwriter Diane Warren bought from Miss David Geffen back in 1995 and is thought by many to be have one of the very best views in all of the hills.

Your Mama does not know Mister Fuller personally, so we really can't offer the children any valid reason why the man might want or need two lavish homes in Los Angeles that are only a few miles distance from each other, but who are we to question the real estate needs of the super rich entertainment mogul, right?

Mrs. Hulk Hogan's Temporary Home

Everyone knows all about and probably too damn much about the troubled Hulk Hogan family. They got one daughter who makes a "career" singing in malls across America and strutting red carpets wearing trashy and tawdry outfits that barely cover her naughty bits. They've got that teenage son who acts too big for his d-list britches and recently wrapped his car around a palm tree in Miami and nearly killed his passenger friend. Then of course there is the pending dee-vorce of Mama and Papa Hogan. Honestly kids, Your Mama does not know any details of their dee-vorce and you know what? We don't really care to know.

What we do know is that not long after the Hogan family sold their Miami Beach house to action film director and producer Michael Bay for just under its asking price of $18,900,000 and shortly after leaked dee-vorce documents revealed the Hogans were splitting, Mrs. Linda Bollea (that's Mrs. Hogan to wrestling fans) packed her Louis Vuitton cases and work out bags and headed to Los Angeles where she rented a house on Hilts Avenue in Little Holmby Hills. According to property records, the house measures 3,552 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms.

A well connected source informs Your Mama that the house was listed for lease at $18,000 per month, but we have no way of confirming the exact amount that was paid to the non-celeb landlord.

Now kids, don't even think of rolling by this house like some stoopid looky loo star fucker because we're quite certain that if Mister Hulk Hogan is around he'd sooner kick your ass as have you poking around in the bushes. And if he don't get on you, then we suspect that kinda butch looking Brooke might be able to give most of you nuts a serious beat down. Besides, our source tells us that the soon to be ex Mrs. Hulk Hogan has already moved on.

The 15 Central Park West Rundown

While glass tower developments rise all over Manhattan, noted starchitect Robert A.M. Stern did a complete 180 to Manhattan's prevailing architectural trend when he designed the limestone clad towers at 15 Central Park West for the Zeckendorf brothers (the developers). The uber dee-luxe condo project has more in common with it's pre-war ancestors and neighbors that circle Central Park than with much ballyhooed projects as Dutch-born starchitect Winka Dubbeldam's pleated glass curtain on Greenwich Street or any of the many Richard Meier green glass towers that line the Westside Highway.

Few buildings in New York City have received more press than 15 CPW and there's really little we can add that hasn't already been said about the lavish and obscenely expensive building. However, since Your Mama has been receiving phone calls, emails and telegrams up the wazoo wanting to know what's what and who's who at the new at 15 Central Park West, we thought we'd weigh in with a short list of some the deep pocketed big names who have scooped up high priced condominiums in the soon to be completed two-tower building.

The complex is comprised to two buildings joined by a lavish lobby. The "House" side fronts Central Park and the "Tower" side rises behind to more than 40 stories. Resident amenities include pre-war sized rooms and unusually large windowed kitchens, a large motor court so that the ridiculously rich residents need not been seen by the common folks when entering or exiting the building, full time doormen and concierge staff (natch), a private 20 seat theater, 20 wine cellars (sold separately), 29 staff suites (sold separately), room service, a private in-house chef, a fully stocked library, landscaped out door space, and a massive health club with a 75 foot long lap pool.

While there are several Hollywood celebrity types that have purchased condos, many of the hideously high-priced penthouse units were scooped up by Wall Street types, who despite a downturn in the economy feel no pinch in their own pocketbooks. Certainly our short list below does not represent all the big names with fat bank accounts who are set to shack up in 15 CPW, so if any of you kids would like to provide us with more high profile names, be sure to give Your Mama a jingle.

1. Legendary television writer and producer Norman Lear and his wifey Lyn reportedly purchased a 2,800 square foot (approx.), 2 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom unit for nearly $10,000,000. We think they may have in fact purchased a high floor B line unit in the "Tower." According to the NY Post, the octogenarians are downsizing from their 15 room sprawler at 828 5th Avenue.

2. Just about every real estate gossip has reported that television sportscaster Bob Costas recently forked over $11,017,000 for an 8th floor "House" unit. Property records indicate the Costas residence measures 3,333 square foot with 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, however, listing information for that unit shows the residence measuring 3,454 square feet with 3 bedrooms (plus library) and 4 bathrooms. Not sure why the discrepancy.

3. Oscar winning actor and Beverly Park denizen Denzel Washington is reported to have shelled out around $12,000,000 for an approx. 3,000 square foot unit facing Central Park with 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and a park view terrace. Your Mama speculates that Mister Washington's unit may be located at the southern end of the 38th floor of the "Tower," but we're not certain. Nothing like an 8-figure New York City pied a terre.

5. Filthy rich NASCAR star Jeff Gordon purchased a 3,800 square foot unit.

6. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who brought home a reported $68,500,000 in 2007, is rumored to have used $27,000,000 of his bacon to purchase one of the larger condos at 15 CPW. Your Mama speculates (speculates, children, speculates) it might be the 6,473 square foot penthouse on the 42nd floor of the "Tower."

7. Although nobody seems to know which one, one of the gazillionaire Google guys, is rumored to have purchased a high floor spread in the "Tower" to the tune of around $30,000,000. No one connected to that sale is yakking or leaking and none of the real estate gossips, including Your Mama, have been able to confirm.

8. Fifty something and still touring rock star Sting and his long time wifey Trudi Styler reportedly dropped around $30,000,000 for a 5,500 square foot "Tower" side duplex with 5 bedrooms and a terrace. However, the Tantric sexing couple recently took their current home, another massive Central Park West duplex, off the market. Could it be they've changed their minds about moving down the street?
9. Former Citigroup CEO and current billionaire banker Sandy Weill is said to have spent $42,405,000 for a 6,744 square foot penthouse unit on the 20th floor of the "House" side of the building. That's a coma inducing $6,200 per square foot, children. Think about that for minute. The full floor residence includes 4 bedrooms (plus 1 maids room), 6.5 bathrooms, nearly 1,979 square feet of terraces, and a surprisingly unimaginative floor plan (see above, thanks to the good folks at Curbed). You'll note the small secondary bedrooms with their small bathrooms and paltry closet space. No offense to Mister Stern, the Zeckendorfs or Mister Weill, but for forty some million smackers Your Mama wants properly sized guest rooms that do not feel cramped and claustrophobic like those itty bitty caves at the Paramount Hotel.

Property records reflect that Mister and Missus Weill also purchased a 1,079 square foot, 1 bedroom and 1.5 bathroom residence, presumably for guests, staff or a nearby place to go when they need a little time away from each other. Although the schedule A for the building indicates the unit had a price of $2,100,000, records show the couple paid only $950,000 for the sixth floor unit.

10. Hedge fund honcho Daniel Loeb is reported to have purchased both units on the 39th floor of the "Tower" for a staggering $45,000,000 (approx.). Combined the units have 10 bedrooms and 10,700 square feet.

As more of the units close and are recorded, Your Mama expects that a few more big name residents will be revealed. Stay tuned. The real question is whether living in the building will live up the the hype and sky high prices.

UPDATE: Ellen Degeneres

The children who are not still working a New Years Eve hangover will recall that real estate maven Ellen Degeneres and her horse luvvin' ladee lover Portia Di Rossi recently scooped up Will and Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick's freshly built Bev Hills mansion for the not very bargain basement price of just over $29,000,000.

Since Miz D. loves a compound and typically buys several adjacent properties, Your Mama speculated that the Sapphic couple would also purchase the Cabrillo Drive property across the street. Property records now reveal that the real estate rich lezbeeuns did indeed snap up the 4,580 square foot, 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom house from celebrity real estate agent Jade Mills.

What property records do not reveal, however, is the purchase price. But the children are in luck today because Your Mama hears from an obscenely well connected source that they gurls paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $8,500,000. We can not corroborate that number with records at this point, so don't read that as some sort of gospel...it's not...it's rumor at this point kids, just rumor.

We've also heard, from two unconnected sources, that Miz D. is planning to gate the street below the well fortified entrance to their bat-cave garage. That is unless they are able to convince the owners of the third and remaining property on the dead end street to sell too. Owning that third property would allow the privacy seekers to gate almost the entire street. Finally, the perfectly private compound of her real estate dreams.

Now children, we hope there's really no need to say this again, but don't even think of driving your cheap ass auto-mo-beels up Cabrillo Drive thinking you're going to catch a glimpse of these two ladees, because your stoopid ass will just be unceremoniously turned away by one of their 24/7 armed and beefy security guards.

Now then, let the potlucks begin.

Slash Sells the San Fernando Valley Family Home

SELLER: Slash and Perla Hudson
LOCATION: Valley Vista Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, CA
PRICE: $3,750,000
SIZE: 5,980 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Sleek, sexy, sophisticated, private gated estate with infinity ozone pool. Contemporary, Zen design with 7 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, 3 fireplaces, Crestron system. Beautiful mingling of family feeling and ultra-cool! This gorgeous property provides complete privacy yet gives a 180 degree view of the valley. Truly a trophy property!

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Welcome to the year 2008 children. Onward. Forward. Upward.

Frizzy haired former Guns and Roses guitarist Slash (real name: Saul Hudson and now picking with Velvet Revolver) has been much in the real estate gossip columns lately due to the heavy duty hullabaloo and legal wrangling over the Hollywood Hills house he purchased back in December of 2005 and recently sold at a loss to some dude who is a relief pitcher for the San Diego Padres. But as we first learned a week or two ago from the always resourceful Mister Big Time, that was not the only real estate transaction that Mister Slash and his reportedly soon to be ex-wifey Perla have been involved in of late.

Property records reveal that in March of 2002, back when Slash and Perla still made googly eyes at each other, the couple purchased this Sherman Oaks property for $2,150,000. Back then, they were recently and happily married and getting ready to push out a baby or two, so this 5,980 square foot uber-private property overlooking the San Fernando Valley surely seemed a perfect fit. With 7 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms, it offered plenty of room for the rock star couple, their on-the-way babies and a live in nanny. No puppies, Your Mama does not not if the Slash's nanny lived with them or even if they had a damn nanny. The point is there was plenty of room for a nanny if they had one. Alright?

Anyhoo, Mister and Missus Slash have been dealing with dee-vorce rumors for some time now and given that property records (and Mister Big Time) reveal that they've now sold off their San Fernando family nest for an undisclosed amount of money, Your Mama expects the rumors to become deafening in the world of people who care about the marriages of hard rocking guitarists. That is unless Slash's PR flaks announce that they'll be starting over in a new and more glammy house somewhere else. It's Hollywood children. It could happen. According to the listing information provided to Your Mama by our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills, the house was last listed at $3,750,000 after having been reduced from $3,995,000.

Your Mama confesses that we are frequently somewhat surprised by the private homes of rock stars who have lived notoriously chaotic, boozey, and floozy filled lives. For better or worse we expect them to be haphazardly "decorated" with black leather sofas, displays of Wild Turkey bottles on the mantles and dozens of ashtrays filled with cigarette butts and spittle sitting on stacks of pornographic videos. But au contrare. As is so often case and despite Your Mama's stereotypical expectations, the Slash house cuts a much more sophisticated, polished and family friendly residential environment than we imagined.

The house is accessed up a long and lovely celebrity style driveway that climbs to the peak of a promontory that provides 180 degree views of the San Fernando Valley. The house appears to be a simple ranch house that was completely re-worked into a warmly contemporary house.

Now, Your Mama already knows that most of you children are going to shred this place to bits, because that's what you do. But we're going to go against the grain this morning and say that it is our opinion that this property possesses enough favorable features to make it an pleasing place to shack up. No hunnies, this is not a place Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would choose to live...we'd never dream of having 7 bedrooms or 7 bathrooms or a Sherman Oaks address...but for a well do Galleria going family with too many damn kids, it's a sensible and sound option.

Do we think those red suede sofa things in the bedroom should be removed? Yes. Are we concerned that the massive number of candles surrounding the spa tub present a potential fire hazard? Indeed. Do we loathe the credenza in the dining room and does snail looking artwork hanging over the fireplace in the living room give us the heebie-jeebies? Yes, of course.

None the less, Your Mama happens to be of the mind that if you crave a private estate in the San Fernando Valley with a large number of bedrooms and you have a few million clams to spend, you could do much, much worse than this place. Your Mama is actually quite fond of the flagstone flooring throughout the living, dining and kitchen areas and we can only hope Mister and Missus Slash had radiant heating installed under that stone floor. The large kitchen offers a good work flow and heaps of counter space for cooking, if cooking is what you desire to do in the kitchen. And while we'd flush the ottoman and choose a different chair entirely, we are swooning over the fitted dressing room that gives way to a small terrace at the front of the house which is perfect for testing the temperature in the morning to determine if you need a sweater or not.

Your Mama might have chosen a big beat up black-waxed farmhouse table with eight white Panton chairs and a pair of gorgeous gold leaf twig chandeliers by Gwen Carlton, however, we adore the shady vine covered terrace even if we fell a bit pukey about the patio furniture. The landscaping is uninspired and the patchy grass looks like it could use a little more attention by the gardeners, but children, even if you think infinity pools have become passe and even if you don't possess a burning desire to own a long view over the flat lands of the San Fernando Valley, this is a lovely, modestly and manageably scaled back yard that offers the kind of privacy and open sky that most people in urban areas can only dream.

We await word from a well connected source to tell us where Mister Slash, Perla and the children will be moving and also whether they'll be moving together or separately. Perhaps Slash will truck his bags over to a house high in the hills above Malee-boo and Perla will head over the hill to Beverly Hills where the children can be educated at Crossroads or one of the other better bohemian private schools that dot the Westside of of Los Angeles.

Whatever the case, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter wish them all a Happy New Year and much peace in 2008. Fracturing families are never funny and we sincerely hope that should Mister and Missus Slash head to dee-vorce court that they are able to remain civil and graceful for the sake of their babies.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Your Mama would like to wish all the children a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

Much to our great surprise and delight, our little corner of the blog world grew exponentially in 2007 thanks to all the celebrity real estate hungry children, our vast spider web of tipsters and sources, the researchers who dig up all sorts of strange and interesting tidbits, all the other blogs and websites who have so generously linked over to our discussions, the magazines and newspapers and so on and so forth.

Your Mama looks forward to a 2008 filled with more and more and more and in fact we've already lined up a long list of celebrity homes to discuss in the beginning days of 2008, so fasten your seat belts children because it's going to be a wild ride.

Now go watch some football or be with your families or whatever people do on New Years Day while Your Mama spends the morning fussing and fighting with this fat hangover that is working our last nerve.