UPDATE: Rachel Hunter

Back in early February of 2007, Your Mama came across a 5 bedroom and 5 bathroom house up in the hills of Hollywood on N. Crescent Heights Boulevard that carried an asking price of $3,600,000. We had a devil of a time sorting out ownership and by the time we managed to figure out that the house was owned by ex supermodel and Rod Stewart ex wifey Rachel Hunter, it was late May and the asking price had been karate chopped to $2,995,000.

The property lingered on the market for quite some time with the lower price and then, POOF!, it vanished, apparently unable to attract a ready, willing and able buyer. The 4,078 square foot sort of Tudor style house (which is now be marketed as an "English country farmhouse" evaporated from our mind until just the other day when, KABLAM! the property popped back up on the MLS with a new asking price of $3,250,000.

Whhaaat? Please.

All due respect to Miz Hunter and her pee-pol, but what's the thinking process behind re-listing the property with an increased asking price after it languished on the market for a good long while at a lower price? Are we missing something?

Hoo-righ-ah Who?

BUYER: Olena Franchuk
LOCATION: No. 17 Upper Phillimore Gardens, Kensington, London
PRICE: £80,000,000
SIZE: Big.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama predicts that in 36 hours or less no one will remember or even care whether Hourieh Peramam, the recent and alleged buyer of the gaudy Toprak Mansion, is an actual person or some kind of bizarre ploy for marketing the uglee-ass pile on The Bishop's Avenue in North London, because £41,000,000 is loose change for Olena Franchuk, the new and undisputed queen of hideously expensive London real estate.

Hold on to your Vivienne Westwood britches bitches because according to a report in the Daily Mail, the Ukrainian bizness woman and pal of Miss Sir Elton John is believed to have dumped a hair raising £80,000,000 on a huge detached house in the hoity toity Kensington area of South-West London. Yes, you read that correctly kids, that's £80,000,000, a breathtaking 158,756,800 clams to those of us across the pond in the good ol' U-nited States where a good New York City townhouse can still be snapped up for well under $50,000,000.

Contracts are reported to have been exchanged in the last few weeks and if the purchase is fully executed, the sale price of the 5 story house on Upper Phillimore Gardens will shatter the previous record high when Indian born steel baron Lakshmi Mittal forked over a stunning £67,000,000 for his 12 bedroom behemoth on heavily secured Kensington Palace Gardens.

Miz Franchuk's new digs have recently undergone a reported £10,000,000 overhaul which included installing an underground swimming pool, gym, sauna and private cinema. There are "at least" 10 bedrooms and a secure panic room, a feature that is becoming de rigueur in the lavish homes of the freakishly rich. Look closely and you can see the interior spaces appear to have been extended under the entire back garden and all the way to the mews cottage at the rear of the property, which is included in the sale. That's some serious and impressive engineering iffin we say so ourselves.

Miz Franchuk, a well known ladee among big money international philanthropic types, is the daughter of a former president of the Ukraine and the wife of 40-something billionaire bizness man and may-jor contemporary art collector Viktor Pinchuk.

Now puppies, Your Mama certainly has no problem with rich people living up in nice houses. Hell, we're rich and living up in nice houses. However, we do confess that in our little pea brain there's something unseemly and, frankly, vulgar about anyone paying $160,000,000 for a single house that is likely to be occupied, at most, only a few months of the year. We know Miz Franchuk and Mister Pinchuk pledge generously with their time and money to a myriad of charitable causes including AIDS education and research, and we credit them for their good works. But could they not have found a nice house for $60,000,000 and spent the other $100,000,000 curing cancer or feeding every starving child in the Ukraine for many years to come? Just a thought.

(Your Mama would like to thank the many people who forwarded up information and links to this story.)

Kylie Minogue Moves On

SELLER: Kylie Minogue
LOCATION: Mount Wellington Road, French Island, Australia
PRICE: $1,800,000-2,000,000 AUD
SIZE: 221 acres, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to a leg up from Lovely Luiza from Down Under, Your Mama is pleased to present our first ever discussion about a property in Australia. Hoots and hollers all around. Your Mama apologizes in advance that we simply don't know very much about the Australian property market, so at times we're bound to sound like one of those moe-rons who insist on talking about things they know nothing about.

Princess Luiza linked Your Mama over to an Australian news item which announced that Australian singing superstar and cancer survivor Kylie Minogue has put her French Island hideaway on the market "for tender," which Your Mama thinks is Australian for a sealed bid but very well may just mean "for sale." See kids, we're already sounding like an ignoramus, but try to give us a bit of leeway because Your Mama not wise to the real estate lingo particular to that part of the world.

Listing information indicates the toothy pop phenom is asking between $1,800,000 and $2,000,000 Aussie dollars for the 221 acre property, which translates to roughly to about $1,700,000-1,885,000 US dollars. Since Your Mama has no idea how to look up property records in remote regions of Australia, or any part of Australia for that matter, we'll have to rely on recent press reports in which "insiders" whispered to reporters that Miss Minogue and her then beau-friend, the hotsy totsy Parisian born ack-tor Oliver Martinez, bought the property three years ago for just 400,000 Aussie. The big spread, which they called Beauciel, sits on a high point of of the island with long, wide, and serene bay views over the virtually untouched terrain of French Island.

Naturally, Your Mama had never even heard of French Island, but a little research on the internets and we discover that the virtually unspoiled island is an eco-traveler's paradise sitting smack in the middle of Western Port Bay just 60 kilometers from Melbourne. The island, accessible only by ferry, was once home to the somewhat famous and cushy Mcleod Prison Farm, but now claims just 80 permanent residents as well as scads of potoroos (rat kangaroos) and the largest Koala population in Australia.

After purchasing the two parcel property, the now split couple are said to have dumped another million (or so) Aussie dollars on house renovations, landscaping, and the addition of solar and wind power, something that Your Mama is quite surprised not to see more rich and famous people doing since they are in fact the ones with the pockets deep enough to forge an environmentally friendly path in a world with increasingly decreasing non-renewable resources.

In the after math of her successful battle to beat breast cancer three years ago, Miss Minogue and Mister Martinez retreated to this remote hideaway to recooperate without having to deal with long and unforgiving lenses of the paps being shoved in their faces every time they tried to go to the post office or the grocery market. However, it seems pretty obvious from the lack of personal objects in the residence that the Aussie superstar has already packed her Louis Vuitton cases and decamped from French Island in favor of another secluded getaway that does not remind her of Mister Martinez or The Big "C." Who could blame her?

According to listing information, in addition to the 4 bedroom and 2 bathroom main house, the recently fenced and mostly self sufficient property contains organic fruit and vegetable gardens, plenty of room to run sheep and cattle, a walled garden made from corrugated iron and reclaimed century-old timber that protects a small grove of fruit trees, large rainwater storage tanks, and a restored chicory kiln that houses a back up diesel generator.

Although Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would have to ferry in all sorts of furniture because, all due respect Miss Minogue, what's currently in the house hurts our eyes and offends our delicate sensibilities, we could happily whittle away a few isolated months every year at Beauciel puttering around the organic gardens and sitting on the large bay view decks with a stack of books and a big pitcher of gin and tonics. The only question for us is would the Australian government allow us to fly in our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly as well as our sour tempered pussycat Sugar? Because even though that cat is a real bitch, we couldn't go anywhere for that long without him.

UPDATE: Affleck and Garner

Looks like the $22,500,000 behemoth on S. Mapleton Drive in hoity toity Holmby Hills that all the blogs and gossip glossies (see #3) including Your Mama thought Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck were in the process of buying is back on the market.

Perhaps that explains why the real estate seeking couple were out looking at high priced properties in Malee-boo last week.

Just Jack's Shack

SELLER: Sean Hayes
LOCATION: S. Rimpau Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $8,950,000
SIZE: 5,765 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Gated English Country home in great character is located in the most desirable part of Hancock Park. Ivy covered walls and English gardens welcomes you to this absolutely captivating home. Spacious living room, formal dining highlighted by rich dark hardwood fls and French windows. Wonderful gourmet kitchen complete with top of the line appliances opens to family/media room with f/p overlooking pool and patios. Luxurious master suite, separate guest house & outdoor f/p w/ al fresco dining area.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Jack McFarland may have been an out, loud and proud mincer and a major mooch on the television juggernaut that was Will & Grace, but the real life Emmy winning actor Sean Hayes does not speak publicly about his oft rumored gay ways and he clearly does not need that uptight Will Truman's money anymore. That's right children, as you can plainly see from the glossy photographs of the meticulously maintained and stuffy doctor day-core in the Hancock Park house he just pushed out of the pocket listing closet and onto the open market with an $8,950,000 asking price, Mister Hayes eats, sleeps and washes his wigs in big, fat Will & Grace residual checks.

Property records for the Rimpau Boulevard property are a little fuzzy, but it appears that Mister Hayes purchased the 5,765 square foot house in November of 2001. At this point and time we are not sure precisely what amount Mister Hayes paid, but we do know, thanks to Our Fairy Godmother in Bev Hills, that that house was on the market with an asking price $1,575,000 at the time Mister Hayes coughed up the cash.

Listing information for the "Country English" manse indicates there are 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, which is an awful lot of terlits for one man to keep clean. But then again, Your Mama is quite certain that Mister Hayes does not spend much of his hand and knees times scrubbing terlits, if you know what we're sayin'. Perhaps that dirty job is left for a slim hipped and broad shouldered cleaning man with a tool belt full of cleaning utensils and hair care products.

In Your Mama's humble and entirely meaningless opinion, this place looks a bit too much like the long time residence of a couple of well heeled, dignified, and late model Jaguar driving grandparents who know a thing or two about cruising on the Queen Mary and not the home of a rich and famous actor who publicly pretends to know nothing about cruising, queens or men called Mary, oh-kay?

Your Mama means no offense to Mister Hayes or his nice gay decorator man-friend who did this place up because there's really not much wrong with the sensible, Connecticut furniture showroom day-core...except for the upsetting and inexcusable quartet of pear pictures from IKEA hanging over the breakfast table. What in the world is wrong with people's minds that makes them want to put up pictures of pears in the kitchen? Your Mama's decorating lesson #47 is no pear paintings allowed anywhere on any premises

Now kids, fun as it might be and all appearances aside, Your Mama does not want to get jump into the fracas and fray that surrounds Mister Hayes and the rampant speculation about what sort of person he likes to see laying out nekkid by his pretty in ground pool. We recognize it ain't nobody's bizness but his. But, we'd be dying if we we're lying about this inquiring mind wanting to know.

Anyhoo, Your Mama does appreciate the wainscotting in the stair hall as well as the dark paneling in the faux-manly office from where Mister Hayes conducts his show bizness as well rings all his gurlfriends to invite them over for game night in the big green family room adjacent to the kitchen.

The master bedroom includes a fireplace for romantic evenings, a men's club style bathroom with twin Carrara marble topped vanities, a steam shower large enough for Mister Hayes to invite a few well built friends to sweat out the booze, and naturally, there's a huge closet fitted with custom cabinetry.

Your Mama has no official or even whispered word on why Mister Hayes would shed his Hancock Park real estate skin for some other property, but we speculate it could be because he was denied permission to erect an 8 foot wall at the front of the property which would have keep all the queens in sky high heels from peering in his windows at night. Whatever the reason, it's certainly not because he doesn't have the money to maintain this place. Wherever he may land, Your Mama wishes him a happy home and we sincerely thank him for so perfectly playing the high-larious, lovable and gay, gay, gay Jack MacFarland on primetime television.

UPDATE: Suzanne Somers

Looks like the always entertaining and forever blond actress, writer, cancer survivor and unlikely tycoon–yes, babies, she is a tycoon–Suzanne Somers and her huzband Alan Hamel have had a real estate reality check on Le Baux de Palm Springs, their 70 acre hideaway tucked up into the hills overlooking Palm Springs, a town Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter luv to visit but where even the young people are old enough to collect the social security.

Even though the exuberantly decorated 10 bedroom and 9 bathroom property came flying on to the market with all manner of press and publicity, the Duke of Ormonde whispers in Your Mama's big ear that "no one has even bothered to tour" the quirky compound with it's hair raising $35,000,000 price tag.

Now puppies, we don't know if "no one" means only one or two looky-loos or if "no one" means not a single soul wanted to see the Somers/Hamel residence at the original asking price, but hopefully for Miz Somers and her big white teeth, the new and improved asking price of $27,500,000 will bring out a few deep pocketed desert dwellers looking for a new home to park their fleet of customized golf carts.

UPDATE: Michael Jackson

Oh lawhd have sweet mercy children because an unnamed Michael Jackson source is out yakking and spinning to all the press people that the gigantic loan that Fortress Investments holds on Neverland Ranch is being refinanced and the 2,600 acre property* will not be sold at auction on the steps of the Santa Barbara county courthouse on March 19.

Refinanced? Whhaaat? Do we smell that krazee talking Raymone Bain?

We have no doubt that Mister Jackson and his people are furiously spinning their rolodexes and working the phone lines looking for a lender damn fool enough to refinance a $24,000,000 loan secured against a property owned by a man who does not work, has no significant income, and who is leveraged plumb up to the top of his wig. Just who gives those kinds of loans anymore besides someone involved in organized crime? Seriously, who?

Now listen here all you Michael Jackson fans who are goin' to scream and yell about how the one time King of Pop earns big royalties from his recordings as well as income from his significant stake in the Sony/ATV music publishing catalog: Zip it! We do not want to hear your nonsense. The 25th anniversary release of Thriller isn't doing as well as hoped and a pop star with proper income does not squat with his three children and that Raymone Bain ladee in the big houses of rich friends or camp out in Las Vegas hotel suites comped by the hotel's generous owners. Get real.

Here's the thing children, whether The White Lady is able to get Neverland Ranch refinanced or sold by some other means, it's clear to anyone with eyeballs to read the writing on the wall, Michael Jackson's fat lady of real estate has done sung. Long ago.

Now then, Your Mama has done worn our fat fingers to the nubbins the last few days so we're off to mix a big pitcher of gin and tonics and drink ourself into a stupor while we watch all those lovable freakos on Project Runway. We suggest y'all do the same.

*Some reports say the property spreads over 2,900 acres.

A Little Afternoon Reading

Our lovely and crack research maven B.S. Beaverman sent us a link to New York property website The Real Deal which details a fascinating story about the tawdry circumstances surrounding the sale of a 12-room pre-war Park Avenue apartment in New York City.

The story is far too complicated for Your Mama to encapsulate in just a few words, but here are a few teasers to entice the curious to read the whole saga: Lord Conrad Black, the FBI and Sotheby's International Realty.

Go!

John Stamos: The Next Downtown Dweller

The summer scene around the roof top pool at the Eastern Columbia just got a little bit hotter. According to the good people at Curbed LA, prime time's Emmy winning ER beef cake John Stamos is the latest celebrity to snap up a condo at the big blue building in downtown Los Angeles. According to Curbed's tipster, Mister Stamos will be bunking one of the three penthouse units that are currently (and rumored to be) in escrow.

If true, he'll be able to borrow sugar and French things from neighbors Johnny Depp and his baby momma Vanessa Paradis who have purchased at least one of the penthouse units in the Kor Group condo conversion. If Your Mama were John Stamos and/or Catholic– which of course we are not–we'd be working our rosary and praying there's a secured garage attached because as nice as Miss Kelly Wearstler did up the lobby and as dee-luxe as the roof top pool may be, this is no place to be street parking your Porsche after a long night at Villa. At least not according to our always saucy pal Lucy Spillerguts who regularly roams the rough and tumble streets around the Eastern Columbia.

Now children, this is off topic and we know his career is way too hot for this, but does anyone besides Your Mama ache to see Sexy Stamos poured into a pair of impossibly tight pants, waving his big arms and swiveling his hips around the stage on that awful and too embarrassing not to watch Dancing With the Stars program? Think about that for a minute before you answer.

Rock It Like A Rockefeller

SELLER: Your Mama does not know actually, do you?
PRICE: $27,500,000 ($8,620.88/month maintenance)
LOCATION: 810 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
SIZE: 2 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Originally Nelson Rockefeller's apartment, this property features a 47' living room with remarkable Park views, West and South. Large formal dining room and library with full bath. Currently the apartment is configured as a 2 bedroom master suite with a double staff room and family room. Could be converted back to a 4 bedroom + library.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to a little birdie we'll call The Viking, Your Mama has learned that a little piece of New York real estate history has hit the market with a $27,500,000 price tag for what amounts to a large and well located one bedroom apartment overlooking Central Park in a not quite a-list building on Fifth Avenue. The full floor co-operative apartment on the 12th floor of 810 Fifth Avenue has a storied history, so bear with Your Mama as we educate all the children who don't study historical high society real estate deals in New York City.

From the mid-1930s through the early 1960s, oil heir Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, who went on to become Governor of New York State and later Vice President of the U-nited States, and his first wifey Mary Todhunter Clark Rockefeller owned and occupied a tremendous triplex penthouse riding atop 810 Fifth Avenue. The young and really rich Rockefellers hired modern architect Wallace Harrison to design their gargantuan aerie and they paid Parisian decorator du jour Jean-Michel Frank to do up the day-core of some of the 30 rooms. The Rockefeller penthouse was reportedly filled to the brim with cutting-edge furniture and fiercely contemporary artworks by folks like Fernand Leger, Henri Matisse, and Hans Arp as well as gilded consoles by Giacometti, loads of Louis XV-style furniture, and acres of candy colored carpets, which certainly sounds, uhm, colorful.

In 1962, after pushing out and raising up 5 children, the couple went splitsville and the Missus took the top two floors and the Mister kept the entire 12th floor for himself. A very short time later, Mister Rockefeller found and married another ladee named Margaretta Fitler Murphy, but everyone just called her Happy. After the big nuptials, Mister Rockefeller and his new wifey purchased another full floor co-op in the neighboring building at 812 Fifth Avenue which they combined with the former triplex's 12th floor of 810 Fifth which provided the couple and the two children they would have with nearly 12,000 square feet of Fifth Avenue fabulosity. The floors of the two units were not at the same height so a half staircase had to be installed to connect the combined units. The stairs were located behind what is now a bookcase in the library at 810 (see plan here.)

Because the first Mrs. Rockefeller lived upstairs, and perhaps to selfishly spare him any unnecessary drama, Mister Rockefeller reconfigured his combined units at 810 and 812 so that he and Happy could enter through 812 Fifth while First Wifey continued to use the entrance at 810, thus eliminating any chance encounters or a possible fracas between the two well married women as they waited for the lift with its white gloved operator.

The fixer upper duples with 17 rooms (some reports say 12 rooms), 6 bedrooms, and a 1,200 square foot wrap terrace was eventually sold to healthcare honcho John Foster who famously sold it on to music mogul David Geffen for $31,500,000 after the fussy co-op board–which at the time included socialite Jan Cowles and philanthropist Elizabeth Rohatyn, wife of financier and former Ambassador to France Felix Rohatyn–dragged their feet but eventually gave the West Coast based billionaire the gilded and difficult to come by stamp of approval.

Then, of course, as anyone who follows New York real estate knows, the fickle and obscenely rich Mister Geffen turned around and quietly put the duplex back on the market without ever moving in or making any alterations to the duplex. Property records (and multiple reports at the time) reveal that the duplex was quickly purchased by the Blackstone Group's Pete Peterson for $37,500,000, a man whose alliterative name Your Mama delights in and approves of highly, natch.

Anyhoo, let's get back to the full floor unit on the 12th floor of 810 Fifth Avenue. At some point, and Your Mama confesses we don't know when, Nelson and Happy sold their combined units which were incorporated back into their respective buildings as single units. It is the lowest floor of the original Rockefeller triplex at 810 that is currently available to purchase by any rich, well connected individual able to finesse, charm and woo their way into the hearts of the co-op board.

Although the full floor units at 810 Fifth were originally configured with 4 bedrooms, 4 bathroms, a library, and 4 itty bitty staff rooms flanking a servant's hall, the current layout of the 12th floor features nearly 48 feet of paneled living room overlooking Central Park with two fireplaces, a wet bar, and some seriously tired and uninspired day-core. To the east sits a good sized but unfortunately Peptol Bismol pink dining room, and to the north, a paneled library with an attached guest bathroom and a kitchen adequately sized for Lucinda the staff gurl to comfortably whip up poached eggs and blinis.

The mammoth master suite consists of two large rooms. Presumably one is meant to be a bedroom and the other a private office, sitting room or a boudoir. Don't y'all just love that word? Boudoir...boo-dwar. It's boo-lovely rolling across the lips. Anyhoo, the two rooms are separated by twin walk in closets, dual dressing rooms and a master bath with his and her terlits and bidets. Now how elegant is that that in this co-op the owners need not wash their private parts on the same bidet?

Interestingly, the staff suite is joined to the master bedroom through a walk in closet. Your Mama assumes this back door bizness is so that good ol' Lucinda can discreetly slip into the boo-dwar (or whatever that room is) and leave the ladee of the house her morning mood pills and the man of the house his before bed bourban without disturbing them as they dress, poop, and/or fornicate in other areas of the multi-room master suite.

There is an additional bedroom in the apartment which is really part of the staff suite and not suitable for the sort of high-fallutin' guests that are likely to be dragging in and out of an apartment like this in their Valentino gowns dripping in doo-dads from Van Cleef & Arpels. In addition to a private bath and bedroom, the staff suite also has what is called on the floor plan a laundry slash family room. Now does anyone really see the owner of this apartment settling into a long night of reality television in the same room where Lucinda launders the sheets and hand washes the under garments? No children, Your Mama does not see that happening either.

Clearly, the apartment's day-core is in dire need an update at the least and more likely the new owners will have to give the place a total overhaul directed by one of the better nice gay decorators who ply their trade in the rarefied air and better addresses along Fifth and Park Avenues. This particular brand of high-klass interiors are not Your Mama's forté, however, we're just certain our good pal The Social Butterfly can hook the new owner up with a well preserved and impeccably mannered gentleman decorator who for a large fee would be more than happy to squire the new owner(s) of this apartment around to all the better shops and showrooms in Paris.

Former residents of 810 Fifth include William Randolph Hearst Jr. and the notorious and much maligned Richard Nixon. In addition to the aforementioned Rohatyns and Jan Cowles, other current residents of the building are believed to include board president Eric Sheinberg (former partner at Goldman Sachs), art patron Maureen Cogan, former Archer Daniels CEO Dwayne Andreas, and records indicate the building's newest super rich resident is Lazard Frere's William von Mueffling who forked over $25,000,000 for the 10th floor apartment in July of 2007.

Here's the question for all you New York old money types, arrivistes and also for all the service class that cater to the well to do along Fifth Avenue...who currently owns this place? Unfortunately that is a name we've yet to be able to ferret out. Email Your Mama with your dirt.

Say Bye Bye to Neverland Ranch

Veronica Hearst is not the only famous and formerly rich person grappling with the soul crushing and credit wrecking world of foreclosure. Fortress Investments, the long suffering lender who holds the multi-million dollar mortgage on Michael Jackson's once beloved Neverland Ranch, has reached the end of their patience rope with the financially strapped and fallen music icon.

According to the always well informed celebrity gossip Roger Friedman who pens the Fox 411 column, Neverland Ranch has been foreclosed on and is scheduled to be sold at auction on March 19 unless The White Lady manages to scrounge up $24,525,906 and 61 damn cents. And quick.

If the 2,600 acre ranch on Figueroa Mountain Road in the Santa Ynez Valley is auctioned off on the steps of the Santa Barbara county courthouse, the sale will include "every single thing that is or isn't nailed down" including furniture, fixtures, appliances, and "all merry go round type devices." It would be fascinating to know what objects and personal items Mister Jackson left behind when he fled Neverland Ranch in shame and humiliation in June of 2005 after being acquitted of child molestation charges.

No one, including Mister Friedman and Your Mama, thinks Mister Jackson can or will do anything to stop the sale. The man is broke and hideously leveraged as it is. We presume he will spend the next few weeks praying that the sale produces enough dough to pay off Fortress so he can finally wash his hands of the uglee affair. If the auction does not produce a satisfactory bid, Fortress is likely to take possession of the ranch and list is with a local realtor, a turn of events that will have every real estate gossip in the world salivating and hoping to swing a seat on the press tour.

Poor Michael Jackson. The man was once a musical force and prodigy who sat on top of the world, and now his entire world is collapsing around him. Your Mama hopes he's on the horn right now trying to convince Tito or LaToya to let him move in with one of them because the Dr. Cooter is adamant that The White Lady and his trio of cute kids can not, under any circumstances, come live with us.

In Other London Property News...

UPDATE LATER SAME DAY: Well kids, as you've all noted in the comments section, this alleged purchase by Simon Cowell was some kind of a dirty hoax perpetrated on all the good real estate gossips and Your Mama is pissed. The only thing true about the report is the Mister Cowell already owns a house in Holland Park. Blah, blah, blah. Sorry to feed the children rotten food, but sometimes we get poopy information.

...It is being reported that resident American Idol sourpuss Simon Cowell dumped a huge wad of his reality television moolah on a posh house in the hotsy totsy Holland Park area of West London. In addition to the on the decline American Idol, Mister Cowell has a piece of several other lucrative pies including the original signing contest Pop Idol, as well as The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent.

Apparently Scowlly Cowelly coughed up £40,000,000 for the Grade-II listed home and has embarked on a significant renovation that includes installation of or work on a swimming pool, spa, kitchen, car park and something called an underground extension. Is that a basement, or is that some kind of James Bond style underground tunnel that will allow Mister Cowell to enter and exit his pricey pad without being seen by the other stinking rich millionaires in his new hood?

Stateside, Mister Cowell has spent the last few years on a full scale renovation of a 9,335 square foot mansion on N. Palm Drive in the Bev Hills flats.

Thanks to the good people at Glitterati Gossip for hooking us up to this one.

Your Mama Hears...

...That Jennifer Affleck and Ben Garner (or whatever their names are) are keeping their real estate agent very bizzy. All of Your Mama's sources still say the a-list couple did indeed buy the humongous Holmby Hills house we discussed a few weeks ago, and now we hear they're out touring high priced properties in Malee-boo, including a newly built $25,000,000 mansion on the cliffs of Point Dume (pictured above) that features 7 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, private beach access, a home thee-ay-ter, 2 family rooms, a kitchen with two of everything, and a detached guest house for their growing army of personal assistants and nannies.

Your Mama sees a new S-Class Mercedes in the future of their lucky real estate agent.

A Little Mid-Week Mish Mash

1.
In an interesting twist to the stunning foreclosure sale of Veronica Hearst's (now former) Palm Beach play pen Villa Venezia, freakishly rich retired professional golfer Greg Norman sat with the representatives of New Stream Capital as they bid and bought the 28,000 square foot mansion at auction for just $22,000,000. Mister Norman, who was recently embattled in a public and bitter dee-vorce and is now engaged to tennis ace Chris Everett, has reportedly been on the hunt for a Manalapan mansion to call home and some rumors say he may be one of the eight parties said to be interested in purchasing Villa Venezia from New Stream. Why else would he be there, right?

2.
Your Mama has received confirmation from a well placed and confidential source who yesterday whispered in our big ear that recently rehabbed rock star Richie Sambora did indeed buy the Calabasas crib of San Diego Padres pitcher Randy Wolf. Good thing the place is walled, gated and secured because Mister Sambora does not need that wild eyed Denise Richards collapsed and crying on the front porch anymore. (We tease. Your Mama has no idea if Miz Richards ever resorted to such hysterics, but we do think she's wild eyed.)

3.
Did the once high flying celebrity real estate agent Joe Babajian finally get a deal on his Trousdale Estates domicile that he's been trying to unload ever since he was indicted on hair-raising charges of fraud, money laundering and other nefarious and naughty activities?

Joebab's fully and meticulously renovated house on Carla Ridge in the eastern edge of the Bev Hills was first listed at $6,995,000 and almost immediately reduced to $6,895,000. Recently, the asking price was karate chopped to $6,595,000 which must have brought in the buyers because the listing is now marked, "Looking For Backup." The possible sale no doubt comes just in the nick of time for ol' Joebabs to hand over a giant retainer to Thomas Mesereau, the high profile and high priced attorney reported to be representing Mister Babajian in his trial scheduled to begin in July, 2008. Stay tuned because this one just gets more interesting.

4.
Poor little faux rebel rocker Avril Lavigne. Not only is the kohl-eyed pop princess reportedly having a devil of a time getting all the mommies of pre-teen gurls with black nail polish to cough up the cash for tickets to her current concert tour, she can't seem to get her former residence in the guard gated celebrity enclave of Mulholland Estates sold either.

We're starting to think The Spitter left some seriously bad juju in the house that scares the money of potential buyers back into their bank accounts. Has the listing agent considered having the house "cleaned" they way that kooky Jeff Lewis from The Bravo TV's Flipping Out does? Think about it. Nothing else has worked and desperate times call for desperate measures.

Miss Lavigne, who in 2006 got married in a big white princess dress to Sum 41 front man Deryck Whibley, first listed the 6,894 square foot house a looong time ago (too long ago for Your Mama's booze addled brain to recall) for nearly $7,000,000. Over time, the asking price was cut, whittled and chopped to it's current asking price of $5,800,000. At least two (we hear three) buyers stepped up to the plate and then backed down. The house remains unsold like Av's concert tickets and meanwhile she and Deryck still gotta pay the fat mortgage on the house they bought last year in Bel Air.

5.
Russ Weiner, founder of Rockstar Energy Drinkand spawn of right wing radio wingnut Michael Savage, is also having trouble unloading several high priced properties in the Hills of Hollywood. Three properties to be exact. First there was the four story flesh colored house on Franklin Avenue that was originally priced at $3,995,000 (maybe higher?) and has been languishing on the market for a real estate eternity at $3,500,000. Then came "The Fortress" on curvy and swervy Sunset Plaza Drive which has also been on the market for a lifetime. Last week, the price of the architecturally intriguing property was chopped from $11,900,000 to $9,900,000. (Your Mama thinks the price of this house started in the neighborhood of $14,000,000, but we just can't recall and we don't have time to look. So one of you people look for Your Mama and let us know. Thanks.)

Then came the icing on the cake which is that monstrosity on Sierra Alta Way that Mister Weiner bought in September 2005 from the humorously named NBA basketball player Carlos Boozer for $8,600,000. Hoping to cash in on the white hot real estate market, Mister Weiner and his people first put the 17,893,000 square foot pile of uglee on the market at a delusional $22,000,000. Is anyone surprised that there have been several price reductions and just last week the asking price was slashed to $15,900,000?

The bleeding heart children should have no fear and lose no rest that even if Mister Weiner manages to off load all three of these properties all at once, he'll be homeless. Oh no. The young and exuberantly rich fixture on the Hollywood party scene also owns one of the more modest spreads up in super swank Beverly Park.

UPDATE: Veronica Hearst

Hold on to your britches children because Veronica Hearst's real estate shit has finally hit the fan and the Manhattan-based socialite is screwed six ways from Sunday as far as Your Mama can tell. Now puppies, before any of you get your moral panties in a bunch, we are not dancing on Miz Hearst's real estate grave. The ladee bleeds just like everyone else and her financial woes are nothing to be gleeful about. However, Your Mama has been following Miz Hearst's trail of foreclosure tears for quite some time and we need to see the story through to its inevitable and uglee climax.

According to the Palm Beach Post, the dirty deed has been done and the 28,000 square foot, 52 room Villa Venezia was auctioned off in a foreclosure sale for just $22,000,000. The children will recall from previous discussions that Villa Venezia is the palatial Palm Beach pile for which Miz Hearst plunked down a hefty $29,870,807 just a couple of months before her huzband and newspaper scion Randolph Hearst died in 2000.

Over the years Miz Hearst borrowed heavily against the property, presumably to pay its $375,000 yearly tax bill and to maintain her lavish lifestyle of private jets, Couture Dior and $100,000 tables at charity galas. The buyers of the estate that stretches gracefully from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Worth are New Stream Capital, the plaintiffs in the foreclosure proceedings who happen to be the very same outfit that holds more than $40,000,000 in mortgages owed by The Widow Hearst.

According to a recent and eye popping article in the New York Daily News, Miz Hearst has been very bizzy selling everything that isn't glued down or already mortgaged in an effort to scare up some cash. And it looks like she's gonna need all the pennies she can find in the sofa cushions because the ladee reportedly put up her full floor co-op in a swanky Fifth Avenue building and her 45-acre estate in New Castle, NY as collateral against the massive mortgages in the event the foreclosure sale of Villa Venezia did not produce enough to pay off New Stream, which of course, it did not.

Since Villa Venezia sold for just $22,000,000, Miz Hearst remains in deep financial doo-doo with New Stream for another $16,000,000 (or more), and as such they can force the sale of her other collateralized assets in order to recoup their money. Oh dear. So get ready children, because unless the bible scholar sells a boatload of baubles and rare books or finds a benefactor to loan her another $16,000,000, Your Mama expects we'll see New Stream go after at least one of Miz Hearst's other properties to pay off her still considerable debt. These people at New Stream are clearly done messing around and waiting for Miss Missy Socialite to restructure her debt, hawk her jewelry or find a rich huzband. They want their damn money and they're gonna do whatever it takes to get it.

Someone better tell the high fallutin' board at Miz Hearst's co-op because the big spending Widow Hearst reportedly did not get permission to pledge her unit as collateral. And you can't pull that shit with a co-op kids, at least not without stirring up all manner of uppity co-op board rage. Those are sure to be some angry-ass rich people up in 4 East 66th Street if they are forced to deal with a foreclosure and property auction that might allow an undesirable element to swoop in and scoop up Miz Hearst's 7,000 square feet (approx.) of dee-luxe Fifth Avenue dee-lishusness.

If Your Mama were the betting type we'd wager our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that that the high net worth residents are already meeting in secret to pool their resources in the event they need to purchase the full floor apartment at auction. In fact we would not be the least bit soo-prized if the co-op board's people have already approached Miz Hearst's people about quietly selling her shares back to the co-op at fair market value. We speculate kids, so don't go reporting that like we know what we're talking about.

Anyhoo, it must be some relief for Miz Hearst to finally unload that white elephant in Palm Beach even if she's still has a lot of hot financial coals to walk across before she can slip her feet comfortably back into a pair of 5 inch Louboutin heels. In the mean time we sincerely wish Miz Hearst fortitude and some good damn advice from her top notch attorneys who Your Mama hopes are telling her to sell everything, pay off New Stream, and buy herself an elegant little one bedroom at The Sherry Netherland with the left over cash. That is if she can get passed the board at The Sherry now that she's a financial hot potato.

Another High Priced Summer Rental in Malee-boo

OWNER: Mark Burnett
LOCATION: Malibu Road, Malibu, CA
PRICE: $80,000/month (summer season)
SIZE: 3,375 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: A feast of extraordinary craftsmanship and taste on prestigious Malibu Road. This beautifully furnishes home features hand chiseled beams and cabinetry, old world wood flooring, walls of stone, bi-fold doors opening to the ocean, large media room, state of the art electronic, water walls, custom fixtures and lighting, courtyard living room with fireplace, romantic master suite with fireplace, private patio, sitting room and stunning master bathroom, spa and sauna.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A few weeks ago Your Mama recommended all you people who rent high priced summer homes in Malee-boo hurry up and hop in your hoopdies and head on up the PCH to secure your summer digs before all the folks with more money and time on their hands snap up all the good properties leaving you with only the moldy, barnacle encrusted shitty shacks sitting on a pile of rocks with no beach.

Have no fear all you filthy rich and procrastinating Angelenos itching to stand on the back deck and scope out ol' Paris Hilton as she prances in a pair of size 11 flip flops or watch that Heidi Montag gurl make a bikini-clad fool of herself on the beach, high priced rentals continue to pop up on the market and several are yet to be rented. The fine folks at The Malibu Real Estate Blog recently posted an article which indicated that there are at least five available properties in the $80-100,000+/month price range in the guard gated Malibu Colony and along the sandy stretch of beach on Malibu Road alone, grab your fat checkbooks and GO! because Your Mama will not accept any invitations to some cheap ass rental you had to take because you were too damn lazy too git out to Malee-boo in February to locate a good house.

Property records reveal that one of the ocean front properties currently available to lease in that sky-high price range is owned by Emmy winning reality television super producer Mark Burnett (Survivor, The Apprentice, Are Your Smarter Than a 5th Grader?). If the children use their noodles, they may recall that Mister Burnett is betrothed to Touched By An Angel ack-tress Roma Downey, who has put up an ocean front home she owns in the Malibu Colony celebrity enclave up for lease at $100,000/month for the summer season.

As it turns out, these two real estate rich Hollywood types are able to lease out two prime ocean front properties rather than use the houses themselves because they are lucky and rich enough to live in yet another ocean front estate on the cliffs hovering over posh Paradise Cove that Mister Burnett bought fully furnished in April of 2005 from hoity toity house flipper Sandy Gallin for more than $25,000,000. We hear from the always snappy Kenny Kissentell that the house sits so high on the bluff that these two drive a golf cart down a grassy path to the beach.

Anyhoo, property records reveal that Mister Burnett purchased this house on desirable Malibu Road in April of 2004. It is unclear to Your Mama if the Tinseltown titan ever used the house himself or if it was simply an investment. Listing information and property records show the house measures in at a modest but decent 3,375 square feet and has 3 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, a bed-to-bath ratio that gives the Dr. Cooter goosebumps of joy but causes our house gurl Svetlana to quiver with anger calculating just how much time she'll have to spend on her hands and knees with her head in a terlit rather than sunbathing on the back deck.

The three story "contemporary" residence features a courtyard entrance with a fireplace, which could be nice for those nipply evenings when the wind kicks up off the ocean, and many of the rooms lead to ocean side decks or, like the family room on the lower level, small terraces tucked away from the eyesight of the beach combers and paparazzi that have taken to roaming the sands of Malee-boo hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the Duff sisters sunbathing topless or smoking a fattie with the behemoth balled musician Cisco.

If we're being honest kids, and we always try to be, we do not like this house with it's angular and funky roof lines unhappily married to that turret thing at the front of the house, and while we know almost nothing about ancient Chinese secrets, there just can't be anything harmonious about the Feng Shui of the ocean side elevation. Although we do love a white slip covered sofa almost as much as we love our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly, we don't love half a dozen or more all shoved into one room, and we're certainly not keen on the overall Shabby Chic invites the Dalai Lama to dinner day-core.

The good news is that Malibu Road is less trafficked and thus less noisy than the PCH, the views are undeniably lovely, there are flat screen TVs mounted on the walls in ev-er-ee room (which is a real bonus for reality TV junkies like Your Mama), and unlike some other stretches of ocean front homes in Malee-boo, the neighbors on this section of Malibu Road are less likely to have 24-hour armed security who will question your guests and insist they move their Range Rover back four inches so the bumper won't hang over the property line of their high profile employer.

Your Mama already knows that a good number of you are gonna whine about the ridiculousness of spending so much money for so little space (blah blah blah), and most of you interior design know it alls will not like this house any more than we do. So the question is not what's wrong with the house, but rather, who do you think should cough up the big bucks to rent the place? We're going to say Jaime Pressly, who loves Buddha day-core, but might not have the extra money to lease a beach house until she manages to unload that place of hers in Tarzana.

Randy Wolf Tosses His Crib on the Market

SELLER: Randy Wolf
LOCATION: Vicasa Drive, Calabasas, CA
PRICE: $4,250,000 (list)
SIZE: 10,204 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Spectacular custom built Med. estate, private and secluded. Guarded gate community. Magnificent estate of over 10,000 sq. ft. Features include a ballroom sized entry and dbl. oak stairs, living room and Great Room with three sitting areas each, a gourmet kitchen w/ Sub Zero and Jennaire appliances. Separate Home Theatre HD updated. Wood paneled Game Room. Tropical paradise in backyard. Master suite w/ sitting area. High Tech surround sound throughout.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: All of our friends and family well know that Your Mama does not know a thing about the professional sports people. However, with an assist from our ball crazy pal Fiona Trambeau, we are going to try to make some sense this morning and sound like we know the difference between a baseball and football, which of course, we do not. Not long ago, the world learned that San Diego Padres leftie pitcher Randy Wolf bought himself some new digs in the Hollywood Hills from Velvet Revolver gee-tarist Slash. Surely the children are not still so hopped up on last night's drug and alcohol binge that they can't recall the drama that whirled around that house?

Just in case, let's Reader's Digest the saga so everyone is up to date: In December of 2005, Slash forked over $6,250,000 to buy the Wattles Drive house because, it was rumored, he and the wifey Perla were headed to the high court of dee-vorce and the aging rock star was gonna need a place to lay up with all the Hollywood hussies who were sure to beat down his door with their Lucite heel sling backs the moment they got wind of the split. But the Mister and Missus managed to work out their differences and the Wattles Drive house went back on the market for $6,995,000. No buyers presented themselves. The asking price was reduced several times and Slash got so pissed the house wasn't selling he filed a million dollar lawsuit against his real estate agent claiming the agent misrepresented the property during the purchase. Please. Finally, Slash managed to unload his real estate mistake in December 2007 for $5,725,000, a gigantic financial loss. The buyer was the above mentioned ball tosser Randy Wolf.

As it turns out, Mister Wolf also needed to sell his Calabasas crib on Vicasa Drive in a small guard gated development which was recently on the market for $4,250,000. Property records reveal that the sidewinder purchased the tremendous 10,204 square foot residence on its .78 acre parcel in June of 2003 for $2,385,000.

Listing information indicates that in addition to the large public rooms (living, dining, kitchen, family, and game rooms), the brick shaped behemoth features a whopping 7 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms, which seems like an awful lot of house for a single fellow who was in his mid-20s when he bought the big house.

Now kids, we know that Mister Wolf had better things to do with his time than worry about the day-core of his stupendous suburban mansion, and we realize that the color of his furniture and the intricate swag of his curtains was probably of little or no interest to the man. But perhaps it should have been. Your Mama has never been a fan of these sprawling and newly built suburban mansions that are smothered in beige carpet and stuffed full of even more brown and beige furniture that is set off against black granite counter tops and Home Despot quality lighting fixtures, and this house is prime example of why we get all gaggy and bitchy when we're discussing those sorts of homes.

However, rather than get all steamed up and righteous about those deeply dee-pressing curtains that have us wanting to poke out our eyes with a fork, or that glitzy and impossible to keep clean black marble floor in the entrance hall, we'll try to take the high road this morning and find a few nice things to say. Your Mama always appreciates a long gated driveway with thick foliage at the front of the property to provides at least a sense of privacy and security. The four car garage is great for sheltering a fleet of big BMWs and there are two fireplaces, one in the formal living room and another in the master bedroom. Two is good, but we'd have preferred to see a third to anchor the commodious and beige family room also.

The movie thee-ay-ter is a nice feature (except for the vulgar red carpet), and although Your Mama is not and never will be a fan of grown men having children's toys on display, we do credit Mister Wolf with having such kooky and quirky objects as life size Star Wars mannequins, an air hockey table, and a sofa crafted from the butt end of a 1950s Cadillac. Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would sooner peel off our own skin than have any of that crap cluttering up one of our homes, but at least the pleasingly paneled game room reflects Mister Wolf's gen-u-wine personality, unlike all those other beige, brown and banal rooms that are totally devoid of life.

We heard rumors from The Calabasas Cackler and the always in the know Lucy Spillerguts confirmed that Mister Wolf's house was purchased by recently rehabbed rock star Richie Sambora, the dumbass who left the soo-blime Heather Locklear for the publicity hungry crazy train that is Denise Richards. Naturally, those two parted company long ago, but not before the world was subjected to any number of pukey reports and photos of them sucking face everywhere they went.

As a side note, Your Mama hears that Slash and Perla have sold their long time crib that hovers above Valley Vista Boulevard in Sherman Oaks and are thisclose to purchasing a big new house on or just off Mulholland Drive. Details are slim at this point, but we'll see what we can dig up in the next few weeks.

Your Mama would like to wish Mister Wolf a happy home in the Hollywood Hills. Listen hunny, let Your Mama give you an unsolicited word of advice: Do yourself and all your guests a favor and spend some of your big San Diego Padres paycheck to hire a nice gay decorator to do up the day-core of your new house. If you need a few names, give Your Mama a shout and we'd be happy to hook you up.

One Hyde Park Floor Plan Porn

Yesterday, Your Mama received some fantastic information from a Continental cohort we'll call French Toast regarding the floor plans for the obscenely expensive One Hyde Park in London's Knightsbridge neighborhood. French Toast directed us towards the City of Westminster website that houses copies of the floor plans that were filed for One Hyde Park back in late 2005.

The moment we received the information from French Toast we began to sweat with glee and set about preparing a snappy discussion only to finish just as we received additional information from another lovely gentleman we'll call English Muffin. Now children, Your Mama does not know who this English Muffin person is, but he's apparently got enough cash and clout to provide Your Mama with an online brochure for One Hyde Park that include photos, an extensive list of services, and a sample floor plan for a typical 5 bedroom apartment that measures (approx.) 8,500 square feet with 5 bedrooms, 6 full and 2 half bathrooms.
While 8,500 square feet is far more space than Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's hard working house gurl Svetlana would ever agree to clean, we are none the less impressed with the general layout, which the brochure explains can be tweaked and altered with the assistance of the Candy and Candy design team...for a considerable fee, no doubt. Residents and invited guest enter the flawless flats though a private glass elevator and restricted lobby area while staff and service people enter through a different elevator bank altogether, so there's never any reason for the lowly laundry ladee to ever darken the front door of all the rich Russians and mega money Middle Eastern residents.
The floor plan porn (above) reveals that in addition to the wrapped in glass living room with a private balcony hanging over Hyde Park, there is a huge dining room, large library, medium sized media room, an office suite, and a massive eat in kitchen with a large butler's pantry which appear to include dumb waiters to bring groceries and supplies from the garage and the lobby, which we're certain the staff will appreciate for not having schlep everything up the elevators on their minimum wage backs.

The children will note that each of the five bedrooms (one of which can easily be converted into a staff suite) features a private pooper, and the lavish master bedroom contains a large sitting area, private balcony, twin dressing rooms and two ginormous bathrooms.

English Toast informs us that the people at One Hyde Park indicated to him that units range from 1,600 to 10,000 square feet and prices start at around £7,000,000, which converts to $13,651,610 at today's rate on Oanda.

In addition to the amenities we've previously mentioned such as bullet proof glass, a panic room, private underground parking, hotel services by the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, and etc., the glossy brochure reveal that the bespoke building will offer a full compliment of leisure facilities that includes a 22M swimming pool (72+ feet), a golf simulator, and a fitness room. A communal wine cellar can be used by the ritzy residents for private parties (we presume each owner has individual and locked wine cabinets), and a screening room that seats 30 can be reserved for private screenings. The ground floor will host "smart business facilities," which will include state of the art meeting rooms with video conferencing abilities.

Phew! Now puppies, Your Mama is going to go lay down because we are plum worn out from all the exuberant and unapologetically high priced luxury. We suggest you do the same after you pour over that floor plan and decide where you'd put your recliner. We kid.

Khandi's Khrib of Fours

SELLER: Khandi Alexander
LOCATION: Woodshill Trail, West Hollywood, CA
PRICE: reduced to $2,995,000 from $4,495,000
SIZE: 4,126, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Fabulous! Celebrity owned hip estate behind Chateau Marmont. Head on dramatic city views are just the bonus to this spectacular home. Soaring ceilings in every room, 5 fireplaces, walk-in closet, gym, library, office, pool, spa, and grassy side yard for dogs. 3 car garage, at the end of a cul-de-sac with tremendous privacy and security. This house is sunshine bright with a full on southern exposure. Completely redone. Just bring your toothbrush - property is sold furnished!

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week, Your Mama floated a tidbit about CSI: Miami actress and buxom icon Khandi Alexander listing her home located up behind the Chateau Marmont Hotel, where rich and famous folks often gather for cocktails and adulterous rendezvous. Being the nervous and superstitious type that we are, Your Mama's big ol' ears pricked right up when we read through the listing and noted the repetition of the number four: 4 stories, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, 4,126 square feet with an asking price of $4,495,000. We don't have a clue what all those fours mean, but children, mark my words, that number 4 is significant. Some numerologist type should get on the horn quick and try to convince Miss Khandi to sell her khrib for $4,444,444.

Property records show that the dee-lishus Miss Khandi purchased her multi-floor khrib on itty bitty Woodshill Trail in the hills above Hollywood in January of 2006 for $2,850,000. Listing information indicates that in addition to the 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, the "recently redone" house includes 5 fireplaces (too bad there's not just 4), a gym, library, office, a 3-car garage, (why not make room for 4?), a small grassy side yards for the canines, full on southern sun exposure, a swimming pool, spa, and soaring ceilings in every room. Which all sounds good...on paper.

When Miss Khandi's khrib first hit the market, no pictures were included for all us nosy real estate gossip types to pour over. Now there are. And Khandi gurl, we gotta say, we are not impressed. We just hope that you have done packed your flat irons and push up brassieres and already moved on because the photographs of your khrib look about as alive as the nursing home where they used to keep Your Mama's mama's poor old Aunt Velma.

Your Mama confesses: we luv us some Khandi Alexander and because of our undying affection for the bosomalicious babe and her flawless chi-chis, we are somewhat reluctant to speak ill about those upsetting and confusing faux cornerstones on the exterior that fail to give the place a "French" vibe, which is what we think they're supposed to do. We're also not sure we want to get into the entrance hall looking like an airport terminal in Kuwait, the dining room with it's wall of mirrors that force diners to watch all the masticating in visual stereo, and we certainly don't want to bring up the obvious danger of stepping out of that patio door after a half a dozen gin and tonics and falling di-rectly into the mini-pool.

For some unknown reason, the Miss Khandi's khrib is being sold furnished, which perplexes Your Mama but should please all lovers of fake suede and white rugs.

Here's what Your Mama wants to know...is there an elevator in this house? Because navigating four floors of residence without an elevator could easily get a little difficult unless you're one of those firm gluted exercise freaks that are so common around Los Angeles. The other thing we want to know is if a good pair of binoculars allow one to peer into the rooms of the Chateau Marmont? The ability would certain save on the cable bill because who needs reality TV when you can sit on the balcony and watch the sordid doings at the Marmont day and night?

Although we are not a big fan of this house, Your Mama sincerely wishes Miss Khandi much luck in selling her house and the furniture to someone who likes climbing stairs. And wherever she may land next, we sincerely hope she'll khool it on the fake suede and white rugs. Seriously gurl, give Your Mama a shout and we'll hook you up with a nice gay decorator that will rock your next khrib into the sensational celebrity hideaway you deserve.

Your Mama Hears...

...that Coley Laffoon, the ex-huzband and baby daddy of one-time lezbeeun Anne "Celestia" Heche, is back to work...as a real estate agent. Thanks to a heads up by Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Your Mama has learned that Mister Laffoon has hitched his post dee-vorce wagon to Paris Hilton's daddy at the venerable Hilton and Hyland.

Apparently the former camera operator, who claimed in court documents that his monthly expenses included $2,000/month for groceries and $1,500/month for clothing, wasn't able to convince the courts to up his reported $15,000 per month support payments from Miss Crazy Pants after all.

Back in July of 2007, Your Mama wrote about the Hancock Park house Mister Laffoon once shared with the peculiar Miz Heche and their young child which property records reveal they sold in September 2007 to television writer/executive producer Matt Olmstead and super producer Dawn Parouse for $3,660,000.

Now YOU Can Buy A Place at the Chupi

SELLER: Julian Schnabel
LOCATION: W. 11th Street, New York, NY
PRICES:
Duplex: $32,000,000 (raised from $27,000,000 in April 2008)
Triplex Penthouse: $32,000,000
SIZE: 3,850 square feet (duplex) and 3,845 square feet (triplex)
DESCRIPTION: Influenced by the scale and finishes of European palazzos and the character of Stanford White's cottage architecture, 360 West 11th Street, designed by Julian Schnabel, is New York's most unique residence. These homes have an atmosphere and aura unmatched in the city. Beautiful views of the surrounding city, down to the harbor and across the Hudson river provide bright sunlit rooms. Handmade details include cast bronze door handles, stone fireplaces and cast stone railings. Grand room finished with beamed ceilings, terra cotta tile floors and plaster walls open onto colonnades, terraces & balconies. Amenities include concierge service, an indoor swimming pool with steam room, and private on-site parking.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Bearded, bespectacled and often be-robed artist/film maker/provocateur Julian Schnabel was hoping to people his much maligned and visually pugnacious Palazzo Chupi with hand selected and big money residents culled from his wide circle of friends and associates who could afford to cough up a colossal sum of cash to buy into his one man real estate whirligig on West 11th Street in New Yorks' far West Village. Mister Schnabel's original intention was that the units at the Chupi would never be listed for sale on the open market and that the invitation only status would have New York's super-rich arty farty types bitch fighting for the opportunity to live up next to the artistic genius and shameless self promotion machine that is Mister Schnabel. But alas, even the best laid plans sometimes go awry, and as the always well informed property-philes at Curbed noted last week, the two remaining unsold units have hit the open market with ear piercing price tags of 27 and $32,000,000 respectively.

Before Mister Schnabel decided to offer the two remaining units to the great unwashed but filthy rich masses, he managed to convince some finance guy at Credit Suisse to spend a reported $15,500,000 to move into Schnabeltown, and he was successful at wooing the once smoking hot and still lovely to look at Richard Gere and his wifey Carey Lowell, who where without a Manhattan outpost after they sold their Greenwich Village townhouse in June of 2007 for $12,850,000.

There were all sorts rumors flying around that rock star and wannabe world saver Bono was going to vacate his Upper West Side aerie and move into the Chupi, but that rumor turned out to be just rumor after all. Then came the whispers and hush-hush scuttlebutt that ex-pat material mommy Madonna looked at the building. Your Mama is not surprised the ladee looked and we're even less surprised that she declined to purchase because big living Madge seems to prefer much larger digs than those available at the Chupi. Not only does the music mogul need to house her multi-culti family of five, she's also got to have enough space for the various staff people required to run errands, make phone calls, and answer the door, because you just know Miss Missy herself is not about to greet the Chinese food delivery guy at the front door with a twenty.

Anyhoo, if anyone were to ask Your Mama, which of course no one did, we think Mister Schnabel has some serious real estate cajones to be asking such big numbers for the two remaining units in the controversial Palazzo Chupi. Don't any of your moe-rons misunderstand Your Mama. We are on record as being an admirer of this cockamamie building with its quirky "Pompeii Red" exterior that looks like it's melting, and we giggle with glee over the wacky fenestration and the wonky articulation of the thing as it precariously balances itself like a drunk gurl doing the Sunday morning walk of shame on a pair of chunky platform heels.

Naturally, we love a sleek glass tower as much as the next urban sophisticate, but all new builds in New York simply can not (and should not) be Meier or Dubbeldam designed glass towers and quite frankly, it is just so damn refreshing to see a building that aggressively thumbs its nose at current architectural trend and in the process secures a funky foothold in the too often banal architectural landscape of New York. Have y'all seen the many under-whelming and intensely ordinary "luxury" apartment towers that now line Sixth Avenue in the Twenties? Yes, well, Your Mama would much rather look at the deranged Chupi-cabra on West 11th Street than one of those phallic monstrosities on Sixth Avenue any day of the week.
Amenities at the Chupi include access to the garden patio, private on-site parking (and excellent and rare luxury), and of course there is the indoor swimming pool and steam room. The world wants to know if clothing is required or optional in the pool and steam room areas or if residents can expect to see Mister Schnabel sweating it out in his all together and Your Mama wants to know if we could expect to see Mister Gere sitting in the steam room wearing nothing but his gorgeous grey hair.

But we digress. Currently two of the five units at the Chupi remain unsold, and according to listing information one is a duplex and the other is a triplex penthouse. Listing information for the duplex unit (pictured above) indicates it measures 3,850 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms and carries a stunning $27,000,000 asking price with $10,367 in monthly taxes and maintenance charges. Listing information also indicates that the unit includes a washer and dryer, a big ass fireplace, at least one balcony.

We don't L.O.V.E. the terra cotta tile floors but they have a certain Pablo Picasso-esque quality that makes them work in this building even if they would fail miserably in another. Check the fire hole that sits at the end of the tremendous soaking tub, which we imagine is nice for people who like to soak in a bathtub. It's unfortunate (and somewhat surprising) that the interior photos are not of better quality that would allow us eager beaver looky-loos to get a good long look at the the kitchen. We love the over size window and we're certain the appliances are top quality, but we're just not sure what to make of the dark cabinets and the green looking counters and back splash. We are definitely not loving the way it looks in that picture, but we'll reserve real judgment until we can get a better look.

Upstairs and according to listing information, the triplex penthouse (pictured above) measures 3,845 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms and carries a somewhat unlikely asking price of $32,000,000 with $9,268 in monthly taxes and maintenance charges. Mister Schnabel and his people have graciously included the juicy floor plan for the triplex with the listing. The floor plan reveals that the owner of the Chupi penthouse unit will be the proud owner of 4 balconies, two north facing sliver terraces and a whopping 1,300 square foot south facing terrace on the main floor that should make all New Yorkers who pine for just a tiny piece of outdoor space disturbingly jealous.

Despite the oxygen tank Your Mama would require to daily navigate all those stairs in the triplex, we are actually quite fond of the penthouse floor plan. We love the elevator opening to a huge French door and a small Juliette balcony in the entrance hall. We dig the large living room with its massive fireplace and access to that spectacular and bizarro black and white tiled terrace. We appreciate that the kitchen is large enough to cook comfortably and separate enough from the living room that we don't have to look at the dirty dishes while we settle in to an evening in front of the boob-tube. However, we are concerned about the serious lack of closet space. The children will note the paltry amount of closets in the third floor master bedroom and the total lack of built in closets in the secondary bedrooms. All due respect Mister S. but for $32,000,000, we want closets large enough to park our big BMW and still have room for our sneaker collection.

All the real estate gossip sit on pins and needles to find out just who might be interested in dumping around $30,000,000 for these condos and how long will it take in a market where you can still get a beautiful townhouse in the West Village or a massive co-operative apartment on Fifth and Park Avenues for the same price. And heaven forfend that Mister Schnabel will eat crow and (gasp) reduce the asking price for lack of qualified buyers willing to shell out more than $7,500 per square foot to shack up in the Chupi.

P.S. Your Mama thanks B.S. Beaverman for the assist on this one.

Rent Yourself Some Palm Beach High Class

OWNER: Estate of Aimee de Heeren
LOCATION: North County Road, Palm Beach, FL
PRICE: $90,000/month
SIZE: 13,539 square feet, 9 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: The beauty is graced with nine bedrooms overlooking the ocean on the east side of the house, and on the west side there is a salt water pool, floral and rose gardens. There are four fireplaces and an elevator along with a library, living room, dining room, pantry, kitchen, loggia, twelve bathrooms, and many terraces. A two story tower on the ocean hold a living room, bedroom and ladies' and mens' baths. The beach cabana and tennis court complete this splendid vacation paradise.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Yesterday Your Mama discussed the sophisticated and soo-blime Manhattan townhouse of deceased international high society icon Aimee de Heeren, who in life was cultured, multi-lingual, beloved by blue bloods every where, and a devout devotee of Omega 3 oils and Dr. Peter D'Adamo's blood type diet which many in her circle believe kept her looking healthy and many years younger than she actually was. At 90, the ladee was said to look 60, and that, children, is really something to strive for.

Thanks to some late night and in depth digging by Billy Blabbermouth, Your Mama has learned that Louwana, Mme. de Heeren's legendary house in Palm Beach is available for lease at $90,000 per month. Located on an ocean front parcel that happens to sit right next door to that vulgarity that Donald Trump has on the market for $125,000,000, the Addison Mizner designed Louwana was built in 1919 by Gurnee Munn and named after his first wife Mary Louise Wanamaker. Mister Gurnee Munn was our Mme. de Heeren's huzband Rodman's mother's (Fernanda Wanamaker Munn de Heeren) first husbands' (Ector Munn) brother. Does that make any damn sense? Lawhd have mercy on our booze addled brain, Your Mama understands quantum mechanics better than we do the labyrinthine family trees of these high society types.

Anyhoo, Louwana is far from the largest or grandest house to line the swanky shores of Palm Beach, however, it is often referred to as "the last great house in Palm Beach." None the less, at more than 13,000 square feet with 9 bedroom and 12 bathrooms, there is plenty of room for several branches of the family tree to take up residence. According to listing information, the house sprawls over 4 levels, and includes formal living and dining rooms, a library, 4 fireplaces, and elevator and staff quarters.

In addition to the main house there is a large salt water pool set in a walled courtyard on the landward side of the house, a tennis court, a large ocean side lawn for rousing games of croquet or bocci or whatever ball games Palm Beachers play in the winter, and a beach cabana offers a living room, bedroom and his and hers bathroom, because the Lilly Pulizter types apparently don't think it's appropriate for the ladees and the mens to be changing in the same room or sitting on the same terlits.

The interior of the house retains that particular sort of grace and genteel that can only be experienced in a house that has been owned for generations by the same family. These rooms are not about some hedge hog or make-up maven buying a piece of architectural and social history and then hiring a nice gay decorator to go up in there and work the interiors into a fanciful facsimile of what a Palm Beach winter estate is supposed to be. This house has been richly layered over time like a catty wompus wedding cake, every rug, every book, lamp and still life painting adding to the depth and quirky richness giving it that elusive, uber-desirable and strong sense of "place" that decorators and homeowners alike are always trying to create.

No babies, Your Mama does not want any flowered chesterfields, Ming vases or pickled paneling up in our seaside residence, but for this house, in this location, with it's history, there is really nothing to be changed. Except that kitchen, because let's be honest, it's looking rode hard and put away wet what with those broken down blinds and plastic dish drainers from the Wal-Mart over in West Palm. And let's talk about the styling for the photographs. Your Mama understands that some of these photos were taken for a magazine layout, but what's with that Flamenco dress flapping in the breeze on the balcony? Please.

Access to the house appears to be either through or adjacent to a small estate that sits directly on the North County Road and which property records reveal belongs to Christopher Kellogg, a man whom Your Mama assumed had all kinds of cereal money, but The Social Butterfly says that's not the case and that particular Kellogg money, or what is left of it, is also from the Wanamaker fortune. Mister Kellogg is in some way connected by marriage and two or three times removed from Mme. de Heeren, but sorry kids, but we're simply too tuckered out to parse the crazy-making Munn/Wanamaker/Kellogg/de Heeren family trees to determine the exact connection between Mister Chris Kellogg and Mme. Aimee de Heeren. Why don't one of you people do it and let me know what you figure out.

It's quite possible that Mme. de Heeren's Palm Beach estate will come to the sale market as well. Although, wouldn't it be so much better if one fo the remaining Wanamaker/Munn/Kellogg heirs grabbed this horse by the reins? Yes, we think so too.

And Y'all Think Malee-boo Is Expensive?

Come on kids, let's take an imaginary ride on the defunct, too small to stand up in but still fabulous in theory Concord and hop across the pond to discuss some London real estate so expensive that it makes New York City's 15 Central Park West look like the damn ghetto. That's right kids, Your Mama is talking about the Richard Rogers designed residential project called One Hyde Park located in the natty and nabobish Knightsbridge area.

Now puppies, don't even bother to go looking for the website, because this particularly posh apartment block is so insanely expensive and exclusive that the website for the hyper-luxe project does not even allow the average millionaire to ogle and drool over pictures or floor plans. You gotta sign your shit up and request the information, and more than likely the sales people are going to Google your ass to try and figure out if you're at least as rich as the Pope before they start handing out you any information.

Last year, the not yet finished building that overlooks the 350-acre Hyde Park rocketed to real estate gossip fame when one of it's financial backers, a freakishly rich man known as Sheikh Hamad of Qatar, reportedly dropped a record breaking (and obscene) $192,000,000 to purchase one of the penthouse units that is said to measure around 20,000 square feet. That's right kids, $192,000,000

The Times Online, who have thoughtfully mentioned Your Mama and our little endeavor here several times in the past, recently posted an article about the current and exuberant sales numbers for One Hyde Park, and children, the numbers are staggering. So sit right down now and swallow yourself a big fat nerve pill cause you are gonna need one when you learn how much coin it takes to live up in One Hyde Park.

Although the building is not due to be completed until 2010, The Times reports that half of the 80 apartments have already been contracted for sale with an average apartment price of roughly $39,230,000. (Gasps and cries of the impoverished are heard around the world.) That number is so shocking and unbelievable that Your Mama is going to type that again...an average apartment price of roughly $39,230,000.

The Times goes on to report that only 14% of the contracted buyers are British, 11% come from Continental Europe, another 25% hail from the Middle East, and a whopping 39% have been bought by Russians, which makes sense because everyone knows the Russians have new money coming out of their Versace clad crappers.

The interiors of One Hyde Park are being worked over by the well publicized people at Candy & Candy and include marble work surfaces, wooden baths (huh?), and floor to ceiling refrigerators. The building itself will feature 24-hour hotel services for when the richie rich residents have an uncontrollable hankering for a milkshake and fois gras at 3:30am, a private underground tunnel to the nearby Mandarin Oriental Hotel, private elevators with new fangled eye scanner security, private underground parking, a panic room and bullet proof glass. Now kids, Your Mama can understand a panic room. We live in a dangerous world. However, there is simply no way Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would ever fork over $40,000,000 to have neighbors hated enough by dangerous killers that they to want and require bullet proof windows in their home, you know what we're sayin'?

So next time y'all wanna bitch about what a cottage on Carbon Beach costs or the purchase price of a 6 floor townhouse in Manhattan, just try to remember that it ain't shit compared to what all the mega millionaires are paying to shack up at One Hyde Park.

Super Rich Snap Up Apartments... (Time Online)
One Hyde Park (Business Week)
Big Sales... (Luxist)

Wednesday...

Hang tight puppies, Your Mama is running late and we are veh-ree bizzy today doing bizness. Even Your Mama gotta make a living.

We'll be back later with some good stuff for the children.

It's Demo Day for Ellen D.

All the children know that Your Mama fetishistically follows the peripatetic movements and real estate transactions of talk show princess Ellen Degeneres and her ladee lover Portia Di Rossi like hirsute he-men follow professional baseball. We just can't get enough of these two real estate mavens and their near constant buying, selling, renovating and redecorating.

Most of the world knows by now that in December of 2007 Miz D. and Missus dR. coughed up a considerable $29,000,000+ to purchase the newly built Bev Hills mansion of real estate queens Max Mutchnick (co-creator of Will and Grace) and his entertainment attorney man-friend, the unfortunately named Erik Hyman.

Shortly thereafter, the Sapphic sisters purchased the property next door and current records reveal that the ladees paid celebrity real estate agent Jade Mills a whopping $8,500,000 for the 4,580 square foot house with spectacular views over Beverly Hills. Natch, the rumors soon started to fly as to what the gurls planned to do with the house next door.

Now we know. They tore the bitch down.

What remains to be seen is what Miz D. and Missus dR. are going to do with all that extra land. Perhaps a tennis court, something their current house lacks? Maybe a nice park with a gazeebo for star gazing romantic moments? Or maybe she'll build one of those entertainment pavilions she's so fond of and had in previous residences? Or maybe, just maybe they're put in a small stable where Missus Di Rossi can board some of her beloved equine friends?

Welcome to the Wanamaker-Munn Mansion

SELLER: Estate of Aimee de Heeren
LOCATION: East 90th Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $33,000,000
SIZE: 12,200 square feet (approx.),
DESCRIPTION: Built in 1917-1919, this unusually grand mansion was designed by F. BurrallHoffman, Jr. for Charlotte Winthrop Fowler. In the early 1920's it was acquired by Fernanda Wanamaker de Heeren Munn, whose family has occupied the house for 4 generations. Like a large, elegant Parisian "hotel particulier", the effect is extremely grand with staggeringly high ceilings and voluminous, highly decorated rooms and 10 period marble fireplaces. Thankfully, the house retains all its original details and truly represents a "moment in time". Indeed it was a very grand moment when, after Carnegie built his house, now the Cooper Hewitt Museum, such illustrious people as Otto Kahn, the Burdens, Van-derbilts, Warburgs, Whitneys, Bakers and Carharts all followed suit with their own large mansions in the East 90's.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We are hardly the first real estate gossip to discuss this Manhattan townhouse (that pleasure goes to Josh Barbanel at the New York Times), but recently our pal The Social Butterfly brought this magnificent mansion to our attention once again and we thought the churlish children might need a break from all the sun baked behemoths in Los Angeles and appreciate viewing and discussing a legendary and palatial pile in New York City.

Iffin you happen to be a hedge fund honcho, international industrialist or a billionaire biznessmen with $33,000,000 to shell out for a Manhattan mansion, you might just want to perk up your ears and pay attention. And Madonna, all due respect gurl, you might want to pay some attention too. Your Mama understands that you were indeed able to acquire the unit above your already colossal crib on Central Park West, but it wasn't so long ago that you were driving all the New York real estate gossips krazee looking at tremendous townhouses on the Upper East Side. Did you see this one? Because hunny, it is fa-bu-lus and it may make you reconsider rolling that little place upstair into your already big digs.

Anyhoo, the Wanamaker-Munn mansion on East 90th Street was erected in 1917-1919 and was acquired by the very well married Fernanda Wanamaker de Heeren Munn in the early 1920s and has been in the same family of East Coast blue bloods ever since. The original Wanamaker fortune is derived from the the eponymous Wanamaker's department stores (which was absorbed into Hecht's, now the mass retail juggernaut Macy's).

The humongous house, measuring in at a whopping 12,200 square feet according to listing information, was last owned and occupied by Aimee de Heeren, the daughter-in-law to Fernanda W.dH.M and a well known fixture on the international high society scene with important homes New York, Palm Beach, Paris and Biarritz. The Brazilian born Madame de Heeren, who passably spoke six languages and possessed an impressive jewelry collection, passed in September of 2006 at the grand old age of 103. With the house currently for sale, Your Mama assumes, sadly, there is no one in the Wanamaker/de Heeren/Munn/Noble family with the inclination (or funds?) to take over and maintain a house of this plus size proportion.

According to the mouth watering floor plan, the house is extraordinarily wide at 29 feet and the perfectly proportioned public spaces include a ball room sized stair hall, a 720 square foot living room with "staggeringly high" ceilings, a 30 foot long paneled library, a dee-voon dining room capable of seating well over 20 people comfortably, a huge kitchen with a serving kitchen one floor up and adjacent to the dining room, and a small reception hall off the foyer is perfect for greeting guests not important enough to warrant an invitation to climb the spectacular curving stair case to the second floor.

On the upper floors are five family bedrooms, and Your Mama counts 4 full and 2 half bathrooms. An additional 5 bedrooms a 2 bathrooms for live in staff are located on the sixth floor and behind the kitchen sits a servant's hall for additional staff who are brought in daily and/or for special events such as when all the conservatively coiffured and immaculately dressed ladies who lunch came by to nibble on crustless sandwiches and discuss the doings at Doubles.

The children will note that Mme. de Heeren was well known in her upper crust circle as an excellent housekeeper, and as such we imagine that every one of those staff rooms was occupied by live-in people paid to wash windows, greet guests, shine the parquet floors, scrub the terlits and cook exquisite meals. Because let's face it, such a large and lavish house is not kept spit shine clean by a high cost service that drops in just 2 or 3 times a week. Oh no puppies, the owner of a house like this will surely require a few gurls who are well paid to dust and wax silently in the middle of the damn night so as not to disturb the slumbering ladee of the house.

Although the house is both gracious and elegant with such necessary townhouse appointments as an elevator serving all floors and a dumb waiter for efficiently getting hot food from the main kitchen to the massive dining room one floor above, this old bird will likely require some updating by the new owner. Mister Barbanel's report from October 2007 indicated that several through-window air conditioners protrude from the windows on the front of the house. While this is not unusual in even some of the finest buildings in New York City, most current day buyers with $33,000,000 to dump on a house are gonna want some central heat and air.

As the children know, Your Mama is loathe to speak ill about the day-core of the dead, and in this case, we have gotten lucky because we got nothing negative to say. While the interior spaces are indeed a bit fussy and French for our personal aesthetetic, it's impossible not to recognize that Mme. de Heeren's exquisitely dignified rooms reveal a timeless sophistication and a soupçon of high class whimsy. The (blessedly) monochromatic color scheme seen in each of the rooms spares them from looking like decrepit, dusty and outdated mausoleums of interior design, and Your Mama could not be more thrilled that Mme. De Heeren and her team of nice gay decorators did not clutter up the rooms with too much furniture and cover the windows with that horrid funeral home style drapery all too common in the homes of less elegant and less cosmopolitan rich people.

There are 10 period fireplaces, elaborate plaster moldings and impressively maintained wood work. Be assured that any number of world class crafts people are required to keep a house looking as superbly maintained as this one does. Remember children, Mme. de Heeren died at 103 years old...the fact that this house looks as meticulous as it does is a great credit to her breeding, fortitude and flawless housekeeping.

In addition to her great house in New York, Mme. de Heeren is said to have owned an Paris apartment, an estate in ritzy Biarritz on the West coast of France near the border with Spain, and she famously owned and meticulously maintained the Addison Mizner designed Louwana estate in posh Palm Beach.

The great sums of money to be paid in real estate commissions by the sale of Mme. de Heeren's hoity toity house in New York City will apparently be staying in the family. Our pal The Social Butterfly kindly drew us a little family tree which indicated that the listing agent, a well educated Mister Henckels, is married to plucky socialite Fernanda Munn Kellogg, and Miz F. M. Kellogg's well bred mommy was none other than Fernanda Wanamaker Munn who was Mme. de Heeren's half sister-in-law.

The House of Munn (New York Social Diary)
End of an Era... (New York Times)

Mariah Carey Has Island Fever

BUYER: Mariah Carey
LOCATION: Island Road, Windermere Island, Bahamas
PRICE: $4,900,000 (last list)
SIZE: 4,000 square feet (approx.), 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Whistle register songstress Mariah Carey has become filthy rich writing and singing dumb ass pop songs in which she effortlessly rides the ear splitting and hackles raising roller coaster of her 4 octave vocal range. Don't get Your Mama wrong kids, it's not that we can not recognize the rare and obvious vocal talents of Miss Mariah. It is that Your Mama just does not care for that particular genre of saccharine pop music where two syllable words are gleefully stretched into 47 notes, including ones piercing enough to shatter glass and induce a damn migraine.

Anyhoo, in addition to her questionable acting talents, her many hit songs and immensely popular vocal stylings, Miss Mariah is also well known by all the gossip glossies as a ladee who likes to strap her mammoth mammaries into a teeny bikini and beeline for the beach. She's often been photographed in next to nothing in St. Barts, and last summer she was rumored to have coughed up somewhere in the neighborhood of $350,000 to rent Tommy Hilfiger's ocean front hideaway in East Hampton for just one month. Lately, however, the butterfly obsessed songbird has been spending a considerable amount of time in the Bahamas and the rumor is she's done bought herself a purdy pink palace on Windermere Island.

Well children, here's what Your Mama hears through the gossip grapevine. According to Chatty Charlie–who we suspect has a bit of a "thing" for Miss Mariah–and someone we'll call the Bahamian Bigmouth, the Long Island born babe did by a dee-luxe getaway on Windermere Island, a slim sliver of sand adjacent to Eleuthera. Windermere Island, connected to Eleuthera by a single, guard gated bridge, has long been a favorite vacation destination for rich people who desire and require exclusivity and privacy. Which of course is purr-fect for the wickedly famous Miss Carey who does not need any looky-loo fools strolling around behind her house with crappy digital cameras while she's baking her very voluptuous all together in the sunshine. You know what we're saying?

Windermere Island has long been known as a place where British royals go to put their pasty white bodies in bathing suits and cook their skin until they look like a damn lobster. It was widely reported that Windermere Island is where Prince Charles and Princess Diana honeymooned long before the shit hit the fan in their tawdry, complicated and public lives. However, fun and fascinating as it may be to consider the vomitalicious vision of Prince Charles collecting shells along the beach in a thong bathing suit, we are not here to yak about British royals, but rather to discuss the rumored real estate doings of one of America's pop music queens.

Your Mama has yet to figure out how to access public records in the Bahamas, so this particular discussion on Miss Mariah turns on the gossip and rumor provided by our sources and is not confirmed by property records. You got that kids? Just gossip and rumor here. We can not prove this house was purchased by Miss Mariah Carey, but our sources, one of whom plays the real estate game in the area, claim the property pictured above is the place where Miss Carey now bunks in the Bahamas.

According to listing information, the nearly 3-acre gated compound features four detached buildings painted a very light blush pink to match the color of the slightly pink sand on the beach out back. Is anyone surprised that Miss Mariah would buy a pink pile that overlooks a beach with pink sand? The four structures are connected by 3,500 square feet (approx.) of marble walkways and terraces and include an open air great room with living and dining areas overlooking the jewel toned water and two fireplaces that will take the edge off a sea breezy evening. Behind the open air great room is the "kitchen house" with it's fully updated and upgraded package of appliances where Miss Mariah's private chef can whip up whatever sort of fancy feast it is that she and her entourage like to eat. Also located in the kitchen house are a large storage area, laundry facilities, and a bedroom and marble bathroom.

Flanking the kitchen house are two cottages each with a large living room and attached bedroom and dee-luxe bathroom. Below the south cottage is a two care garage and below the north cottage is a separate apartment with kitchen, living area, bedroom and bathroom. Facing the Savannah Bay is a forty foot long infinity edged pool and a beach cabana offers shade for the sun weary.

Listing information reveals that the compound is entirely protected by computer operated camera security surveillance system. So a word or advice to any of you wing nuts with a passport, expect several angry police people to toss your stoopid ass in jail if you go any where near Mariah's mansion.

Island rumor is that Mariah is having some work done on the compound which likely includes some customizing of the buildings, possibly installing a recording studio, and Your Mama imagines she's got her team of nice gay decorators up in there painting the interiors pinks and stuffing it full of frilly pink furniture, because everyone knows that Miss Mariah luvs her some pink.

Although we have no way of sorting out how much Miss Mariah paid for the Bahamian compound, we understand from an island source that the property was last listed for sale at $4,900,000 and had previously been available for lease at $24,000 per week during the high season (staff gratuities additional, natch).

Now that Miss Mariah is rumored to have her own island getaway in the Bahamas, does this mean that St. Barts and East Hampton will no longer be graced by the presence of Madam Butterfly, her cute dog Jackson P. Muttley, and her big ass entourage?

More Mish Mash

Not to worry children, Your Mama will be back to our normal posting routine soon enough, but we keep getting all these small items in our inbox and on our voicemail that we think are interesting enough to merit another day of mish mash. Don't like it? Too bad. Suck it up. We don't want to hear about it neither because we are in no mood to listen to the children whimper and whine.
1.
Looks like Dan Aykroyd and his wifey Donna Dixon are looking to leave La-la Land entirely. Just last week the couple sold their allegedly haunted house on Woodrow Wilson Drive to dee-voon actress Beverly D'Angelo for $3,800,000, and with an assist by The Property Pimp, Your Mama has learned that Mister Aykroyd has listed another Los Angeles property for sale with an asking price of $2,595,000 (pictured above). Mister Aykroyd has long owned the West Hollywood property with his younger brother, the actor and psychic researcher Peter Aykroyd.

According to property records, Messrs. Aykroyd laid out $732,500 in December of 1987 to purchase the imposing 4,176 square foot house with 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms that occupies the high point of a triangular shaped lot on Selma Avenue in the foothills of the Hollywood Hills.

Listing information reveals that the house was built in 1922, has two fireplaces (living room and master bedroom), a grand staircase, a formal dining room with walls covered in murals, a smoking lounge (who the hell is fool enough to smoke anymore?), and that each of the upstairs bedrooms have access to a terrace. While there is no swimming pool or guest house, listing information indicates there is room for each.

According to multiple reports, the home was at various times occupied by one or other of the brothers, and there have long been rumors that this house was the base of operations for the Aykroyd sibs intense and long standing fascination with parapsychology and the paranormal.

Records reveal the Aykroyd/Dixon clan also own a spread on Martha's Vineyard, they are rumored to own a big house by a lake in Ontario, Canada, and the couple are also trying to unload their triplex condominium on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for $7,000,000.

2.
The children will recall that in the Spring of 2007, not long after coughing up $30,500,305 to purchase a humongous house on Calle Vista Drive in Bev Hills, religious zealot Tom Crooz, the smartly coiffured but disturbingly blank eyed Missus Crooz and their cute little offspring Suri moved out of the leased Crooz compound on N. Alpine Drive where they were rumored to have shacked up with various family members, staff, and "minders."

Once the impeccably groomed odd couple vacated the premises, the owner of the property put the nearly 3-acre estate out for lease with a blistering $100,000 per month asking price. The real estate rumor is that moody Oscar winning Aussie actor Russell Crowe has recently moved his burgeoning family into the well located and super secured property. The couple is said to be leasing short term only.

Your Mama also hears that even though their new digs were recently renovated by its previous owner (celebrity real estate agent Kurt Rappaport), the kooky Crooz couple are none the less doing a fair amount of work on their new mansion. Perhaps they are creating his and her bedroom suites? Because according to old reports in the gossip glossies, Mister Crooz reportedly snores so loudly that in order to get a good nights rest, young Missus Crooz has to sleep in her own bedroom in a separate wing of the house. A separate wing? Chew on that one for a while.

3.
We hear from a lovely ladee named Leticia Lipsmacker that even though singer/songwriter Michelle Branch and her gee-tar pickin' huz-band Teddy Landau recently sold their big casa in Calabasas and just bought a modest house in the swanky Belle Meade neighborhood of Nashville, they are already back in Calee-for-nigh-ay looking for another Calabasas crib.

4.
We continue to receive more gossip and information about the $22,500,000 Holmby Hills house that BenJen or AffNer (or whatever they're called) are rumored and reported to have purchased. One of Your Mama's more reliable and better looking sources whom we'll call Mister Sunshine tells us that the a-list couple are indeed in contract to purchase the 15,000 square foot, 7 bedroom and 12 bathroom mansion. Your Mama hopes these two can tolerate live in staff, because to maintain a house of this magnitude they're going to need at least one gurl to dust and another one to scrub all them terlits. And that's not even taking into account the nannies, the landscapers, the window washers, the hopefully pulchritudinous pool people, the private chef (who has time to cook when trying to manage a large household?), and that kinda creepy dude who will come to your mansion and detail your car each week for a princely sum.

Saturday Mish Mash

Sorry to disappoint kids, but Your Mama is a little worse for the wear this morning and we simply to not have the inner chutzpah and moxie to work up a full scale discussion of a single celebrity property. So we're gonna do like we did yesterday and give a few juicy niblets and tid bits that have recently come across our desk in the last 24 hours.
1.
CSI: Miami diva and brown skinned bombshell Khandi Alexander has but her khrib up behind the Chateau Marmont on the market for $4,495,000. The gravelly voiced actress with the big bazooms appears to have purchased the 4 story, 4,126 square foot house with 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms in December of 2001 for $2,850,000.

Although the current listing does not provide any of us looky-loos with any pretty pictures to drool over (which is why we just have the sorry one above), it does indicate that the Woodshill Trail property was recently renovated, has 5 fireplaces, a gym, library, office, a 3 car garage, a swimming pool and spa as well as a "grassy side yard for dogs," which you know piqued Your Mama's interests being the sort that generally prefers the company of dogs over people. The property climbs down the slope with a big view right into the windows of celebrity hideaway Chateau Marmont and, natch, the house has the full complement of security one would expect from a ladee who well plays a coroner on T.V.

2.
More rumor and gossip spills into our inbox about the alleged sale of socialite and philanthropist Nancy Daly's monumental manse in Malee-boo. First we heard that is sold for $50,000,000 to some young hedge hog and his slim hipped wifey. Then we heard it was a done deal at $55,000,000. The latest information we get says, "Uh, no. It didn't happen at all."

All of our sources on this one, even if they are offering conflicting information, are very impressively connected, so we don't know who to believe. Well, actually we do. We think the place sold and all the other stuff is smoke screen to deflect attention until real estate gossip Ruth Ryon can get her mitts on the real story. But until then it's all just rumor and gossip kids.

3.
In Touch Weekly reports that BenJen, AffGar, or whatever it is that Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck are called by the celebrity media machine, did indeed purchase the huge house in the Holmby Hills that Your Mama discussed in early February. The gossip glossy printed a big spread with full color photos of the property which carries a whopping asking price of $22,500,000. To be honest, Your Mama had no idea these two had that much paper and coin. GarFleck's people are not confirming, but one of the tawdry tab's inside sources is quoted as saying, "They have put in an offer that's been accepted and all is moving ahead." As of this morning, the listing still appears as active and available in the MLS. Hmm.

4.
A very well connected source we'll call Henry Happypants did a little digging into the nasty foreclosure brouhaha reportedly being faced by property developer Robert Bisno and his wifey Jeanette. If you're not hung over or still sotted with booze this early Saturday morning, you'll recall that we discussed the couple's big Bev Park house and how it is scheduled to be auctioned off on February 29th if they're not able to sort out and settle their mortgage mess.

Well kids, Mister Happypants said it's all much more murky than would appear on the surface. The property has been transerred back and forth between Mister and Missus Bisno several times, several loans have been taken out (and appear to have been paid) that were secured by the property, including the $4,000,000 loan by a private lender which apparently was not paid back and who is looking for its money and has initiated the foreclosure proceeedings.

It's certainly not a foregone conclusion that the Bisnos are going to lose their home. Rich people have all kinds of financial tricks in their arsenal and up their bespoke sleeves. None the less, according to Happypants, it's likely to get more confusing and dicey before it all gets cleared up.

And a correction: The Bisnos bought their Bev Park building lot in 1998 and completed their 11,984 square foot pile in 2002. In our previous discussion we erroneously reported that they bought and built in 2002. Sometimes we're wrong just like everyone else.

Now go on and enjoy your Saturday like you're supposed to be doing. See some art. Go to a movie. Have lunch in a divey diner. Love your loved ones. That's what we're going to do.

There's Foreclosure Trouble in Paradise

Oh dear.

Even the assumed to be wickedly rich sometimes have cash flow problems, which seems to be the unfortunate situation for the Los Angeles based and controversial property developer Robert Bisno and his wife Jeanette whose big Beverly Park mansion appears to be headed into foreclosure. Uh-oh.

Thanks to an early morning missive from our Fairy Godmother in Bev Hills, and according to several records databases we accessed, Your Mama has learned that Mister and Missus Bisno are in default on a $4,000,000 mortgage. With all the interest and penalties, records show they are in the hole $4,622,000 and 128 smack-a-roos. The process has proceeded far enough along that a February 29th auction date has been set. (Is this a leap year?) It is just a little difficult to believe that the once high flying Bisno couple can't cough up the four and something million clams required to save their property. Does this hint at a larger financial problem? Has Mister Bisno been caught over-leveraged in the midst of a mortgage meltdown and a sagging economy? Is this all some dreadful misunderstanding that will be cleared up once Mister and Missus Bisno complete a complicated debt restructuring?

Property records show these Bisno people bought and built their 11,894 square foot house in 2002. All signs point to the residence having 4 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. Records on file with the County Assessor show that some kind of transfer of the property occurred in October of 2007 with a $7,000,000 consideration. Your Mama can not confirm, but we think this may have been one of those restructuring and refinancing situations that stupendously rich people do to shuffle around their debt, protect their assets, and put a little hard cash in their pocketbook at the same time. Don't quote us on that one kids, because we're just speculatin'.

Although no one but the heartless enjoys seeing anyone's home foreclosed on, Your Mama does not imagine that the Bisnos' big name neighbors will be crying much when and if the moving vans come to haul away the Bisnos' crap. See children, several years ago the Bisnos caused quite a kerffufle with a large, and some said lewd sculpture they installed in their motor court. There was also considerable consternation over garbage cans and motorized drive gates that were deemed "too Vegas" by the Beverly Park architectural review committee. Which is kinda rich when one considers the outsize and overdone nature of most of the behemoth Bev Park residences.

Why the neighbors would give a shit about a sculpture that they would unlikely be able to see as they rolled by in their Bentleys and BMWs is beyond Your Mama scope of understanding. But the fact that the other fat livin' Bev Park residents did care about something that would have little or no visual impact on them should be an indication to all that the Bisnos were probably not the most popular couple in Beverly Park.

And this being Beverly Park, their neighbors are, of course, exceptionally successful entrepreneurs, entertainment industry bigwigs, and ridiculously rich royals. Across the street from the Bisno mansion is airplane lease billionaire Steve Udvar-Hazy and his 28,660 square foot palatial pile that sprawls across three prime parcels. Next door is the comparatively modest manse that Hollywood hot shot Mike Medavoy and his notoriously high maintenance wifey Irena currently have on the market for $23,500,000, and behind the Bisno property are three monstrous mansions that Your Mama understands are owned by several members of the Saudi royal family.

Of course, foreclosures on multi-million dollar estates are somewhat rare, but the Bisnos are far from the only seemingly stinking rich folks who are grappling with the sticky and tangled web of foreclosure. Your Mama has (too) many times discussed the drama of Michael Jackson's never ending financial fracas with Neverland Ranch, and we've well covered the nasty bizness of socialite and bible scholar Veronica Hearst's ongoing money troubles over her mammoth Manalapan mansion that is reportedly headed for the auction block.

Should the Mister and Missus Bisno be booted from behind the hallowed gates of Beverly Park, Your Mama is not overly worried that they will end up parking their Rolls Royce in front of a dumpy Hollywood apartment complex or in the car port of a run down double wide in San Bernadino. We presume that the couple own several other dee-luxe properties in Los Angeles and Berkeley (where they were at one time based). Let's just hope for their cash strapped sake, they're not carrying monstrous mortgages on those places too.

Miscellaneous Mash Up

1.
Last June, Your Mama cooed and coveted the modest, low slung and architecturally dignified Mulholland Drive house (pictured above) of screenwriter Naomi Foner and television director Stephen Gyllenhaal when they put it up for a short term lease at $20,000 per month. And now, almost a year later, the old school and down to earth Hollywood couple who produced two big name celebrity children have put their Runyon Canyon adjacent house on the market with an asking price of $4,200,000. Listing information indicates the house contains 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and that two of the bedrooms are currently being used as home offices. Property records show the house has 2,563 square feet, but that seems a bit smallish of a number for a house with 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.

Your Mama happens to love this house and it's juicy Jay Griffith designed landscaping. No babies, we don't love every stick of furniture or every hinge or every finish and pebble, but there really is little we'd alter about this house before moving in with the Dr. Cooter and our two long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly. Perhaps even our sour tempered pussycat Sugar could learn to be happy in a house with floor to ceiling windows looking out over the wilds of the canyon. We doubt it, but it would be worth a shot.

Natch, we don't have any idea where the Foner/Gyllenhaals will be moving their typewriters and enviable book collection. Will they head back east to be closer to daughter Maggie and her baby daddy Peter Sarsgaard and their their toddler who live in Brooklyn? Will they move full time to Martha's Vineyard where they have long maintained a residence? Or will they go to another lovely and well located contemporary house in Los Angeles? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

Since our previous discussion, and with the help of Lucy Spillerguts and Mirakle Mike, Your Mama has learned that His Hollywood Highness Jake Gyllenhaal beds down at night up on one of the better sections of Woodrow Wilson Drive. That is when he's not shacked up with his dee-vorcee ladee-friend Reese Witherspoon in her Brentwood crib, which is where all the tabs and gossip glossies say he's been sleeping a lot lately.

2.
Speaking of Woodrow Wilson Drive...Yesterday–or was it the day before?–Mister Big Time announced that buck toothed beauty Beverly D'Angelo had made the unexpected and unlikely purchase of Dan Aykroyd and Donna Dixon's legendary and rumored to be haunted house in the Hollywood Hills. This house had been on and off the market meh-nee times and Your Mama was starting to think no one would ever buy it.

Your Mama discussed this house and it's ka-rayzee wallpapered kitchen back in September of 2007 when the Aykroyd/Dixons had it up for lease at $30,000 per month, and we discussed it again in early November 2007 when they put it up for sale at $4,200,000.

Anyhoo, the children will recall that the 4,828 square foot house was previously owned by several other quirky and famous people including Ringo Starr and Mama Cass from The Mamas and the Papas. According to Mister Big Time (no link currently available) and property records, the lovely and talented Miz D'Angelo paid $3,800,000 for the 5 bedroom and 5.5 bathroom house. Your Mama could not be more thrilled that this property will continue to be owned by a big name personality who both rides the wave of Hollywood and manages to function outside of it's strictures.

3.
Speaking of four-plus million dollar asking prices...Did Dido get a deal? A few weeks ago, Your Mama discussed the Bird Street aerie that singer songwriter Dido dropped on the market with an asking price of $4,600,000, and it appears that the lucky ladee might have already secured a buyer. Although the house was clearly not without its bothersome issues of decor and layout, the location on celebrity laden Oriole Way makes it highly desirable for another celeb, or some rich someone who like to live around celebs. Or perhaps a developer who plans on building a new palace here and selling it for $9 or $12,000,000? We know nothing, but we certainly would not be surprised.

4.
Speaking of celebrity laden locations...We hear that the scuttlebutt about the surprising sale of socialite and philanthropist Nancy Daly's colossal Carbon Beach mansion is sweeping through the real estate community all up and down the Pacific Coast Highway. Your Mama is now hearing that the deal is done like a Thanksgiving Turkey and that the purchase price is actually closer to $55,000,000 rather than the $50,000,000 number that had first been whispered to us. That's one for the history books children.

The Best Lot(s) in Los Angeles?

WHAT: 138 acres of Hollywood Hilltop
HOW MUCH: $22,000,000

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: People all across Los Angeles are betwixt, bewildered and all atwitter over the uncertain future of the somewhat mysterious and undeveloped 138 acres of ridge line property just to the west of the Hollywood sign that has recently hit the market with a $22,000,000 asking price. According to listing information, the five parcel property includes Cahuenga Peak, which at 1,821 feet is the highest elevation in the region, and serves as a visual back drop for the iconic, beloved and world famous Hollywood sign. The peak and ridge line, a strong visual guide and landmark, can be seen from nearly everywhere in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley Area.

Many in Los Angeles, including usually well informed real estate agents up and down Sunset Boulevard, can be forgiven for thinking the undeveloped land was in some way protected, public lands, or part of the neighboring 4,107 acre Griffith Park. But oh how näive we are. Until 2002 the property had been owned by Howard Hughes' trust ever since the reclusive and often bizarre billionaire purchased the sky high parcels in the early 1940s.

The story goes that the kooky tycoon planned to build a secluded aerie on the property for his then lover Ginger Rogers. She, perhaps wisely, balked at the notion of being so alone and so far removed from the earthly delights of Hollywood below. The relationship soon went splitsville and the land remained undeveloped and a largely forgotten part of Howard Hughes' trust for more than 60 years.

In 2002 Fox River Financial Resources, reportedly a group of investors from Chicago, acquired the property for just $1,675,000, which quite frankly seems like a paltry and even shameful amount of money for the Howard Hughes Trust to accept for the gigantic property.

Ever since, Angelenos in the know and city officials have worried themselves sick and bitten their nails to the nubbins with anxiety about what sort of development plans Fox River might have for the property. The LA Times reported that city officials were given the opportunity to purchase the residentially zoned land but, shockingly, were unable to come up with the funds. Some reports indicate the land was (recently) appraised at $6,000,000, and the much higher price being sought by Fox River is surprising. It also might be unrealistic at best and greedy at worst since they know they have the city, who does not want the land developed, bent over a barrel.

Listing information for the property indicates that the land can be developed into one massive estate with 360 degree views that stretch to the Pacific Ocean and over the San Fernando Valley, or that five large estates can be constructed, each offering jetliner and near total privacy. The home sites would be undeniably spectacular. At this point, it is unclear to Your Mama whether any permits or permissions have been sought or granted to pull up water lines, drag in power cables and etc.

Clearly there would be only a few that would benefit from the development of this land: Fox River, the builder/developer, a few real estate agents and whatever stupendously rich and trophy property seeking people purchase the hilltop estates. Everyone else loses one of the only large and untouched pieces of undeveloped land in West Los Angeles.

Here's the thing...the owner of this land, or any land for that matter, is free to develop it as he or she sees fit as long as it fits in the parameters, zoning restrictions and guidelines that are set up but the locality. However, Your Mama asks...Does this mean that every good piece of land should be developed? At a blistering profit? We are of the opinion that the answer is no. Call us a pinko communist or whatever other silly thing you want, but having been raised in a part of Coastal California well known for its natural beauty, we are sensitive to the notion that healthy chunks of "nature" in its most untouched form are something to be maintained and preserved.

We can only hope that this 138 acres of rugged gorgeousness, which is arguably a part of every Angeleno's psyche, can and will be bought by some ridiculously rich Angeleno who will happily, gladly and generously offer to donate it to Griffith Park. Mister Broad? Mister Geffen? Where are you and your billionaire brothers and sisters on this one?

Homes Could Rise on Ridge... (Los Angeles Times)
Land Next To The Hollywood Sign For Sale (AOL)
Listing information (Teles Properties)

Roma Downey: Touched by a Real Estate Angel

OWNER: Roma Downey
LOCATION: Malibu Colony Road, Malibu, CA
PRICE: $100,000 per month (Summer 2008)
SIZE: 3,829 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: The charm of this beach front Malibu Colony home pulls at your heartstrings. The casual yet elegant decor of this fully furnished five-bedroom home provides for beach living at its best. Pamper yourself in the spacious master suite with two sitting areas and a large master bath. Your family or guests can enjoy the privacy of the separate bedrooms and baths and adjoining sitting areas for conversations, games or TV. Spend cozy evening in front of the fireplace in the living room or master bedroom. Invite friends to spend the weekend an you can all enjoy the pool, built-in barbecue and wide sandy beach.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It may only be mid-February, but according to Mister Braden Keil in his recent Gimme Shelter column in the NY Post, well to do New Yorkers are already getting into bidding wars and cat fights over prime summer rental properties in the Hamptons. So, whether you live on the East Coast or the Left Coast, now is clearly the time to ring your ritzy real estate agent, pull out your checkbook, and jump in your Mercedes E-class with the heated seats and head to the Hamptons or the shores of Malee-boo to lock up your summer rental before you get axed out by some cash carrying 26 year old hedge fund honcho or before Mary Kate and Ashley beat you to the lease on that cute cottage on Carbon or Las Costa.

We know some of you rich people have bizzy schedules jetting here and there, so today Your Mama would like to help out with a lovely and expensive summer rental option in Malee-boo. If you are both a summer renter and a star fucker, then Your Mama thinks this ocean front summeer rental in the guard gated celebrity enclave of the Malibu Colony just might be the perfect choice. Not only will you be body surfing and sunbathing next to folks like Jim Carrey, Ted Dansen, Brian Grazer, billionaire Jerrold Perenchio, and that rough looking Pam Anderson ladee–whom Your Mama frets about considerably–you'll be writing out your rent checks to actress Roma Downey, who most of you will recall as the white ladee from the thankfully canceled namby-pamby Touched By An Angel program on the boob tube. Although this program clearly made Miz Downey bucket loads of money and her co-star, the indomitable Della Reese, was as campy as a drag queen in a krazy wig, Your Mama is just not down with that sort of religious dogma disguised a television show. So no offense and all due respect to Missus Downey and Reese, but Your Mama does not want to be touched by any television angels so we're quite happy that show no longer clutters up our channels.

Anyhoo, Miz Downey is currently married to her fourth huzband, the screamingly successful and filthy rich reality television producer Mark Burnett (Survivor, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, The Apprentice and more), and when they're in Malee-boo they shack up in a commodious ocean front estate Mister Burnett purchased in 2005 from big wig producer and serial house flipper Sandy Gallin for more than $25,000,000. So, obviously Miz Downey has no use for her 3,829 square foot beach digs in the uber-exclusive Malibu Colony. So it might as well make some money for her, right? Thanks to an informant we'll call Mister Malibu, Your Mama has learned that Miz Downey has put her Colony digs out for lease at $100,000 per month for the summer season ($60,000 per month winter short term and $45,000 month year round).

Property records show that Miz Downey purchased the 5 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom quasi-Mediterranean house back in October 1997 when she was still earning the big bucks on Touched By An Angel and was married to her third husband, producer/director David Anspaugh. Listing information for the property indicates that in addition to the white sofa stuffed living room, the galley kitchen and the four family/guest bedrooms, the three story getaway features a mammoth ocean view master bedroom with two sitting areas, a fireplace, a large bathroom, a sleeping area and a private balcony overlooking the roiling surf.

Miz Downey's property happens to be one of the few ocean side houses in the Colony with a swimming pool, a super dee-luxe amenity in any house that sits on the sand just a few feet from the Pacific Ocean. While it would certainly not be required that Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter have a heated pool in our ocean front rental, it's a nice feature if you can afford it because the Pacific Ocean can be shockingly cold even on the hottest of summer days. Listen here puppies, We do not want to hear any lip from you people who desire to claim the Pacific ain't freezing cold...Your Mama grew up on the beach in California and we know exactly what happens to the ladees' and the mens' naughty bits during a dip in the bracing waters of the Pacific Ocean.

The interior day-core of Miz Downey's former digs are far too Shabby Chic for our personal preference and the kitchen is a wee too plain and 1980s for our taste, but the property none the less does look like the cozy kind of place one could comfortably pad around in nothing but a pair of sunglasses moving from one slip covered sofa to the next with a book by David Foster Wallace or an unauthorized biography of the ever so fascinating Elizabeth Taylor.

So, while Your Mama would never allow our nice gay decorator to do up our beach house in the High Pottery Barn style, let's be honest children, it's a rental that the tenants are prolly going to tear the place up. And, due to it's extreme exclusivity, many decorating crimes can be forgiven in an ocean front rental in the Malibu Colony. If you can afford it, you just do like Project Runway's Tim Gunn says and, "Make it work" until you can afford an ocean front getaway of your own to renovate and decorate as you see fit.

It appears that both Miz Downey and Mister Burnett were touched by real estate angels because in addition to this property in the Colony and the above mentioned estate the couple share on the cliffs above Paradise Cove, property records indicate that Mister Burnett owns another ocean front house on Malibu Road. We should all be so lucky as to own $50,000,000 in prime ocean front Malee-boo real estate, right?

Your Psychic Reader's Dollars At Work

SELLERS: Steven Feder and Lou Thomas Trosclair
PRICE: $15,850,000
LOCATION: 25 Columbus Circle, New York, NY
SIZE: 3,050 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Hold on to your brittle britches children, Your Mama knows that 99.99% of you don't have a clue who Misters Feder and Trosclair are. Bear with us, we'll get to letting you know, but first we have got to vent just a little...

Do y'all remember back in the late 1990s and early 200os when all your favorite programs on the T.V. were constantly being interrupted by commercials for some big mouth Jamaican psychic sister named Miss Cleo? Y'all remember Miss Cleo, right? We surely do. There she was, constantly showing up on our television, flapping her jaws, working her turban and working our last nerve with that fake accent trying to get people to ring up some organization called the Psychic Readers Network and cough up a credit card number so Miss Cleo or some other "psychic associate" sitting in some God forsaken office park could run your cards or read your beads or whatever nonsensical service Miss Cleo was purporting to sell.

It just makes Your Mama utterly dee-pressed to think that we live in a world where anyone would think it was ever a wise idea to call up some psychic hotline they saw advertised on the damn boob tube. What in the world is wrong with people? Honestly. If you ask Your Mama, and of course no one did, those lame brain callers deserved to get ripped off for being stoopid enough to pick up their damn telephones and call Miss Cleo like she had all the answers to their existential questions, crises and woes. Please! Have some sense people!

Anyhoo, Is it any surprise to the children that round-about 2002 Steven Feder, the man responsible for setting up and operating the Psychic Readers Network, was investigated by the FCC who outed Miss Cleo as some lezbeeun ladee from California named Youree Harris and forced Mister Feder shut down his ridiculous but obscenely profitable scheme? No, it shouldn't be.

What may be surprising, however, is how much money remains in Mister Feder and his man-friend Lou Thomas Trosclairs's Gucci wallets from the now defunct and fraudulent enterprise. According to real estate gossip boy wonder Max Abelson at the NY Observer, in January of 2008 Misters Feder and Trosclair dumped a fat $24,480,000 to purchase a 4,454 square foot, 75th floor combined unit condominium in the South Tower at the Time Warner Center, which looms over Columbus Circle at 59th Street and and 8th Avenue in New York City.

But children, this is not the first time the two mega money queens from Florida have been to the real estate fair at the Time Warner Center. Oh no. Property records reveal that back in September of 2006, the couple picked up Puerto Rican pop star Ricky Martin's 3,050 square foot unit on the 65th floor of the South Tower for $9,750,000. Mister Abelson also reports that the two gentelmen have since sold the 4 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom condo (pictured above) to a neighbor for $15,850,000, a staggering $6,100,000 profit in just over one year of ownership.

As Mister Abelson noted in his report, the two gentleman spent lavishly on artwork including several pieces that should be quite recognizable to all the arty farty folks. Big name artwork aside, we think the place looks like a caricature of what a sexy New York City apartment owned by two out of town gays is supposed to look like. Blech!

Today Your Mama will spare the children too many more of our notions about the interiors and floor plan issues, but the one bête noire we can't seem to get past and simply must piss and moan about is that windowless kitchen with the stacked washer and dryer shoved into a closet that should be a pantry. Now children, Your Mama has certainly been around the New York City real estate block enough times to know that windowless kitchens are far from rare, particularly in all these new "luxury" high rises. However for this this amount of money, we want at least a small window to air the place out from the stink of last nights Chinese take out that sat on the counter while we watched the new season of Big Brother. (Iffin any of you children care, that awful and exploitative American Idol is out and the tawdry Big Brother is in).

Before we sign off to take a big fat nerve pill, let's touch on that stacked washer and dryer in the kitchen. Yes, of course we know that the super rich residents of this building are unlikely to be doing their own laundry, but Your Mama thinks it's a cruel and inhuman punishment to make Marta the maid fold your nasty skidmarked underwear on the stove, even if it is a baby Viking. We're sorry, but for $15,850,000 that is inexcusable. Was there really no better location for the washer and dryer?

Now we got to go and get our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly outside before they start piddling on the good rugs.

Seeing the Future–or Just Dollar Signs (Court TV)

Diane Keaton Flips Out in Pacific Palisades

SELLER: Diane Keaton
LOCATION: W. Sunset Boulevard, Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE: Unknown
SIZE: 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Anyone with a penchant for preserving historical Los Angeles real estate should probably bow down and kiss the Oscar winning toes of actress Diane Keaton. Yes puppies, she does cut a funky and not always flattering fashion statement as she clomps around Rodeo Drive in her ankle length skirts, funny hats, extra-wide belts, and gloved hands even in the 85 degree mid day heat. But you know what? Your Mama relishes and respects that this intelligent and accomplished woman of a certain age works her own style and does not capitulate to the Hollywood ideal of fake boobies, Botoxed brows and that tawdry, sad and desperate desire to look 30 even when you're 65. That's right, we said it, and all you middle aged ladee ack-tur-usses whose bodies and faces have been sliced, diced, pulled and pumped full of Restylane know we are talking about you. Much to Your Mama's delight, Miz Keaton proudly flips the proverbial bird to all the casting agents, producers, directors and etc. who will only cast young hothouse flowers they want to screw. And we admire her greatly for that.

Anyoo, much as we're fascinated by it, we're really not here to discuss the trials and tribulations of growing older in Hollywood, but rather the real estate transactions of the rich and famous and Diane Keaton qualifies as both. Miz Keaton, a well known property flipper who concentrates her renovation energies on historical houses that were designed by big names in the Southern California architectural lexicon, is at it again and is flipping another legendary and architecturally significant property.

Property records show that in February of 2007, the kooky and clearly architecturally savvy Miz Keaton plunked down $9,100,000 for the Lloyd Wright designed Alfred Newman Estate tucked into the inside of a sweeping curve on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades. Now children, just in case some of y'all don't know, Lloyd Wright was the architect son of the iconographic and iconoclastic Frank Lloyd Wright.

The 2.625 acre property slopes down from Sunset Boulevard with the 4,386 square foot, 6 bedroom and 5 bathroom residence perfectly positioned at the top of the slope to provide peaceful sylvan views over the tree tops of Rustic Canyon. Built in 1948 for nine time Oscar winning film and television composer Alfred Newman, the property includes a natural spring for irrigation, which Your Mama imagines will be a huge asset when the water wars start in California. And mark Your Mama's words children, there will one day be bitter battles over scarce water supplies in California. At the bottom of the sloping property is a riding arena, as well as a small barn and stables for putting up the ponies. Behind the house, Lloyd Wright planned open spaces, an area for outdoor concerts and one of his signature hexagonal swimming pools.

The house itself sort of follows the lines of a sprawling and modified A-frame design, but to compare the house to one of those dime a dozen ski chalets in Big Bear or Lake Tahoe would be criminal and enormously simplistic. The roof lines and exterior articulations, while exuberant and even dramatic, are far more subtle, engaged and intricately planned than the average A-frame. However, Your Mama is almost certain some of you brats are going to say it looks like a stoopid ski chalet anyway and that you'd rather have a big house in Hidden Hills than this uglee piece of shit. Whatever.

The interiors spaces, at least at the time that Miz Keaton purchased the property, include the original parquet floors, acres of simple but beautifully executed mill work, long stretches of floor to ceiling glazing with views rural enough to make one forget they're in the metropolis of Los Angeles, four wood burning fireplaces, and scads of built ins in the unusually shaped rooms.

Your Mama presumes that Miz Keaton did some sort of a restoration number on the house before putting it back up for sale just one year after purchasing the property. However, as of this morning, we're really not sure whether she did any work to the house or not. Anyone want to email Your Mama and fill us in? Although our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air was thoughtful enough to provide Your Mama with some old photos of the interior spaces, we've decided not to post them because we simply don't know if the interior spaces still look the way they do in the photographs.

Among the other properties Miz Keaton and her team of architectural historians and restorationists have worked over include the Lloyd Wright designed Samuel-Novarro House in Los Feliz that was later owned by young actress Christina Ricci (who has since sold it), and an 8 bedroom and 9 bathroom Wallace Neff designed house on N. Roxbury in Bev Hills that she sold to Madonna who in turn sold it in 2004 and which recently transferred again for a whopping $15,680,000.

We hear from the usually very well informed Kenny Kissentell that Miz Keaton has recently been quite bizzy renovating an 8,434 square foot house in the Bev Hills flats on N. Roxbury Drive that property records show she scooped up in February 2007 for $8,100,000 and where we understand she presently lives.

The Alfred Newman Estate has yet to hit the open market despite the large advert that recently ran in the Los Angeles Times announcing that the property was once again available for purchase. The asking price is not yet public, and none of Your Mama's contacts have yet to provide us with the somewhat secret number. But we just know one of you giddy little tattle tales will get in touch with Your Mama soon and let us know.

Michelle Johnson Who?

SELLER: Michelle Johnson
LOCATION: Blue Jay Way, West Hollywood, CA
PRICE: $6,350,000
SIZE: 2,985 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Magnificent celebrity estate. Incredibly beautiful, warm contempo dwntn to ocean view masterpiece. Gated and completely pvt, the home has been completely renovated and has high ceilings, large open floor plan. Fabulous media room. Sumptuous Master, large open eat-in kitchen, dining, living, all look over pool and spa w/ astounding head on views.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama has been getting multiple and daily emails about this high in the hills of Hollywood property ever since it popped up for sale last week. The reason so many folks seem to be interested in this property is because the listing clearly states that the home is "celebrity" owned. Several people suggested to Your Mama that the home belongs to the usually scantily and scandalously clad 60-something actress Edy Williams, who some of the children may remember as the gal who strutted her once fine stuff as Ashley St. Ives in Beyond The Valley of the Dolls. Miz Williams was also famously married to pulp producer Russ Meyer (Common Law Cabin, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!) and was long rumored to be in some sort of a romantic entanglement with LA based "gangster" Mickey Cohen before he died in 1976.

In reality, the current owner of this house on Blue Jay Way is a little less colorful, a lot less campy, and quite possibly far less well known than our dear Miz Williams, who deelishusly inhabits a vaunted and well earned position in the sordid and seedy underbelly of Hollywood that is rarely depicted on the pages of all the gossip glossies.

Property records do in fact show that the outlandish, publicity luvvin' and ever so entertaining Miz Williams did indeed shack up her bawdy beads and baubles in this Bird Street aerie. However, the boob baring senior citizen sold the house back in June of 2002 to a couple of gentleman who quickly flipped the house to its current owner in December of 2002. After digging down and questioning a number of our contacts and sources, Your Mama has learned the house belongs to ack-tur-us Michelle Johnson.

Don't know who she is? We didn't either until we scanned her Internet Movie Data Base resume. Yes babies, this is indeed the actress who played the oft nekkid teenage love interest of Michael Caine in the creepy 1984 romantic comedy Blame It on Rio. Miz Johnson went on to appear on several episodes of The Love Boat as well as a large number of small roles in independent and made for television films Your Mama has never heard of, let alone seen.

While Miz Johnson, all due respect, may have never quite "made it" to the big time in the rough and tumble world of Hollywood, she sure knows how to pick out a nice house in the hills, shove it full of all sorts of Buddhas and luxe looking beige things and dump it on the market with a big asking price.

The recently renovated 2,985 square foot residence with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms has jaw dropping jetliner views and is currently being shopped around with an asking price of $6,350,000, which makes it purr-fect for some stupendously rich and "sexy" LA type who drives a Porsche Cayenne, shops at Maxfield, eats at Koi and drinks behind the velvet rope at Villa.

Your Mama is not usually down with interior day-core in which the dominant color is beige. But for some reason, we like this place. We dig the sleek, if not particularly design forward kitchen. We swoon over the plunge-sized pool and the easy maintenance landscaping. Yes, of course we can see that it's been staged for the photos which gives it that somewhat lifeless look; No, it's not particularly child friendly, but Your Mama does not care for small children that much anyway; And, natch, we'd immediately remove those upsetting Buddha posters in the living room and replace them with real art. But overall, this is a very calming and pretty house if you are able to tolerate and appreciate the beige contempo meets Hindu temple meets West Hollywood yoga studio sort of thing which, quite frankly, seems to be very popular among a good number of the forty-something Hollywood set. Or at least it's popular with their nice gay decorators. Or is it just popular with home stagers?

Anyhoo, here's the thing kids, whether you or Your Mama care for all the Buddha bizness or the monochromatic beige day-core, it becomes somewhat irrelevant when you consider the view. That crazy gorgeous view is the sticky stuff of many Los Angeles real estate wet dreams. It ain't no thang to get a truck all the way up Blue Jay Way to haul away the beige velvet sofas and quasi-religious artifacts, and it's as simple as making a phone call and running a credit card to get a nice gay decorator on retainer to get up in there and whip this place into the digs you desire. But there simply are not that many houses currently available that have this spine tingling and top of the Hollywood heap view.

Also in residence in Miz Johnson's sky high neighborhood are Jennifer Aniston, who has long owned the house across the street where Your Mama hears she's currently holed up waiting for the over haul of her 9,000+ square foot Hal Levitt designed manse on N. Hillcrest Drive to be complete, last year big money making Tyler Perry reportedly purchased the lavish and obscenely contemporary house at the top of Blue Jay Way, and Christophe, hairdresser to all manner of rich and famous Bev Hills types, had a house for sale up Blue Jay Way last year, but it appears to have been taken off the market or sold, although we find no record of a transfer.

Miz Johnson matriculated in the great state of Arizona and was once married to a professional baseball player who swung bats and tossed balls for whatever team it is that is based in Arizona, so perhaps the pretty ladee has decided to go back to her desert roots? We don't know, but wherever she may land, Your Mama wishes her all sorts of peace, which should not be a problem if she takes all that Buddha tchotchke with her.

Paul Oakenfold Knows When to Fold 'Em

SELLER: Paul Oakenfold
LOCATION: Oporto Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $10,000,000
SIZE: 4,573 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: One of the best sited view homes on its own promontory in LA w/ sweeping vus directly above the Hollywood Bowl to the LA Basin, ocean & beyond. Down road's end is this gracious celebrity owned French Provençal updated several years ago & subsequently added onto by the present owner w/ recording studio, formal DR, offices, gourmet kit w/ loft & huge LR. Sultry master w/ FPL overlooking the city. Expansive patios, grassy lawn, pool, spa & bleachers to watch the Hollywood Bowl. A very rare opportunity.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Let this Hollywood Hills property be a lesson to all you budding mixers, scratchers and spinners out there whose parents snipe and whine about you wanting to pursue a career as a DJ, because this hill topper of a house, for sale with an impressive $10,000,000 asking price, belongs to none other that techno/trance DJ and music mix-master Paul Oakenfold. Your Mama is sure that some of you old farts don't have a clue who Mister Oakenfold is or why he has so much damn money. However, Your Mama likes to stay current with what the young people are listening to, so we know exactly who Mister Oakenfold is and the undeniable impact he's had on the shape and sound of modern music not to mention the night lives of audiophile scensters around the world. Some reports say that Mister Oakenfold is in such demand that he is able to command upwards of $25,000 per gig. Not bad work if you can get it, right?

Property records indicate that Mister Oakenfold and his now dee-vorced wifey, the not so successful ack-tur-us Angela Oakenfold, purchased this house on a private promontory overlooking the twinkling lights of Los Angeles in April of 2003 from Baker Bloodworth who appears to be the producer of several animated films and shorts. We were unable to locate the actual purchase price for the house, but all signs point to the Oakenfolds forking over somewhere between $2,500,000 and $3,000,000 for the Oporto Drive property. Now children, don't quote Your Mama on that price. We have pieced that number together in an ass-backwards sort of way, and we may be very close to correct or we might be wildly off track.

Not long after purchasing the house, the former couple embarked on an extensive renovation that included adding a 1,400 square foot second-story addition and, as you might imagine, squeezing in a sound studio. Assessor records put the square footage at 4,763, but we simply don't know if that includes the 1,400 square foot addition, or not. Listing information for the house indicates there are 4 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms as well as living and dining rooms, and eat in and "gourmet" kitchen with a loft space above, an office, a security system, multiple patios and terraces, a long stretch of grass for the kiddies, and a two car garage.

Your Mama has mixed emotions about this house. We are not digging the over all French Provençal architectural thing, if that's what it's called, and we're more than a little concerned about the somewhat unpleasant view of the house from the street (top left photo). We are very pleased to see that the scale and cascading terraces along the side of the house where the swimming pool is located offer a much more hospitable and friendly countenance, although we're still not certain that we like the exterior of house at all.

What we do like is that it appears that most of the major rooms open up to the outside through a stunning number of French doors. We also appreciate there are two fireplaces in the Oakenfold home (1 gas, 1 wood burning), but if we're being honest, and we always try to be, we hate the fussy and yet, not quite fussy enough fireplace mantels in the living room and the master bedroom. The Oakenfolds clearly did not hire someone with a sense of style and taste to do up the interior spaces, and we find furniture choices and arrangements lackluster at best. But let's be honest kids, the furniture, thankfully, goes with Mister Oakenfold and the new owner will likely hire a team of nice gay decorators to work their fairy magic on the interiors.

But the view. Oh lawhd have mercy on our snarky soul children, that damn view has sent shivers and goose bumps up and down Your Mama's spine. Your Mama can feel in our femurs how dee-luxe and full tilt Los Angeles glammy it would be to sit out on that flagstone pool terrace with a big pitcher of gin and tonics and watch the sun go down over the distant Pacific as pedicure princess Twan-Woo and her assistant Kim Chee work Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's toe nails.

Then we would go inside to the corner master bedroom with all the French doors and the staggering view and snuggle up and settle in our big king sized Tempur-pedic with our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly for a long night of reality television trainwreckery. That's right children, while Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are educated and subscribe to (and read) such high minded journals as The New Yorker and Harper's, we also love us some terrible T.V. We are so beside ourselves with excitement for the upcoming and sure to be upsetting Housewives of New York on the Bravo that we can hardly contain our giddy glee and schadenfruede.

Another quirky and cool element to his property is that it sits just above the world famous Hollywood Bowl. Mister Oakenfold has cleverly installed a small group of terraced bleachers that make it easy to pull out a pair of binocs and watch the show without having to pay for tickets, deal with the traffic, the parking or the inevitable drunk dude one row back who berates his hooker/gurlfriend and vomits on her scuffed and open-toed slingbacks. Of course, if the performer is not one you care for, we can imagine that this very close proximity to The Bowl could easily works one's last nerve. We can only hope that Mister Oakenfold and his architects installed sound proof glass in the row of French doors that line that side of the house.

Anyhoo, Your Mama thought the $10,00,000 asking price seemed a bit, well, surprising. But then again we are no expert and what do we know? So we got on the horn and called up a big name real estate with whom Your Mama is friendly and asked his educated opinion of the price, and we quote, "$10,000,000. Doesn't seem like a real price..." None the less, we can imagine that given the perfectly private location and the jetliner views, that there will be interested parties eager to tour the Oakenfold digs. Only time will tell children. We never would have imagined that the Steve Hermann designed house on Nightingale would fetch more than $10,000,000 and it recently sold for a staggering $12,600,000. So, again, what does anyone really know? A house is worth exactly what someone will pay for it, high or low.

Your Mama Hears...

...That Nancy Daly, the estranged wife of Los Angeles' really rich ex-mayor Richard Riordan, has very quietly sold her Carbon Beach compound at a price that will have even the most jaded real estate queens in Malee-boo peeing in their pants. Our sources, and there were several helpful insiders on this one, whispered in our big ear that the colossal Craftsman style house was sold to a young hedge fund honcho and his wife who coughed up somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000,000. Yes, children, you read that correctly, fifty million clams.

Just a little more evidence that even as the middle class is getting foreclosed on right and left and the economy makes an ugly spiral toward recession, those that grease, turn and manipulate the financial wheels of the great U-nited States are still swimming in money like pigs in shit.

The 15,000 square foot (approx.) house sprawls across a leviathan ocean front lot that Miz Daly smartly pieced together from several smaller contiguous lots and is located smack in the middle of billionaire's row with Dreamwork's Jeffrey Katzenberg on one side and former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel on the other.

While we have no doubt that Miz Daly wished to keep things hush hush, the reality is that one can not sell a $50,000,000 house without people talking and all the real estate gossip's tongues wagging. Just keep in mind kids that all this comes through the gossip grapevine and until a transfer records, it's all just rumor and gossip.

Although most of our sources did not have the nicest things to say about Mister Riordan, by ALL accounts Miz Daly is a lovely, kind, discreet, and philanthropic woman. Your Mama wishes her all the best as she pockets her massive wad of cash and moves on to whatever piece of prime property is in her future.

Peter Morton Flips Out in Malibu

SELLER: Peter Morton
LOCATION: Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA
PRICE: $7,695,000
SIZE: 1,916 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Absolutely charming East Coat style on desirable West end of La Costa Beach. 4 bedrooms. Master with extra high ceilings and large deck. 2 other bedrooms up plus one down. Living room with bar and large kitchen all opening to a nice deck. Best deal on La Costa

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: This morning we awoke to an email from Benny Beeswax who whispered through the wires that ridiculously rich restaurateur Peter Morton was selling off an ocean front house in Malee-boo. Well Your Mama's jaw dropped and our eyes practically popped out of their sockets because we thought perhaps Mister Morton might be selling off his spectacular and newly built contemporary compound on Carbon Beach, which would likely fetch well over $25,000,000. But no. Instead, he's flipping another, less grandiose ocean front property on not quite as swanky La Costa Beach.

In case the children do not know, let Your Mama provide a brief lesson on just who this Peter Morton and his family are and why we bother to include them in our discussions. In short, the Mortons are a modern day food service dynasty. Peter Morton co-founded the once hip now impossibly mainstream Hard Rock Café (there's one in every mall in America it seems). Before that, Peter's father Arnie Morton, the real tycoon in the family, founded the world famous Morton's The Steakhouse, as well as several other high end eatery chains that are a part of the Morton's Restaurant Group. Peter's young son Harry, who among other Tinseltown starvelets used to famously date a pre-rehab Lindsay Lohan, entered the family food bizness when he founded the luridly named Pick Taco restaurants.

Property records indicate Mister Morton hasn't owned the 4 bedroom and 3 bathroom property very long having purchased it only in March of 2007. The sale price was undisclosed (or at least we could not find it), but at the time of the sale, the property was listed at $7,500,000.

If we had to guess–and we're just guessing here children, so don't any of you go yakking to yer friends about this like you know what you're talking about–we would say that Mister Morton picked up this place at a very good price, installed a few high-hats and too many yards of oatmeal carpeting, slapped on a coat of fresh paint, hired a stager on a minimal budget to bring in a few slip covered sofas, then called his real estate agent to sell this bitch off at a profit of a few hundred thousand dollars. The modestly sized house measures 1,916 square feet (as per assessor records) and has hit the market with an asking price of $7,695,000.

Naturally, we are not one iota impressed with the lackluster and uninspired interiors of Mister Morton's flip and, as the children might correctly imagine, Your Mama is of the mind that the place needs a small army of nice gay decorators to get up in there do the place all up with some new floors, a new kitchen, and a driftwood chandelier. Yes children, that's right, we said it, a driftwood chandelier.

It is too bad there isn't more deck space on the ocean side of the house, but what's there we like. Yes, the perimeter bench could be a mite precarious for all Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's boozier guests like The Chicken and Falsetta Knockers, who we dare say will easily tipple back two or seven before dinner. But that's no real worry because our wobbly heeled Miss Knockers prefers not to be in the sea air anyway because it just fucks up her weave.

It's also too bad that the hugely vaulted ceiling in the master bedroom only gets to be enjoyed by the homeowner and with whomever they're currently fornicating. With a big enough budget, the new homeowner might wisely consider bringing the public spaces upstairs and putting the private quarters on the lower floor. Do the children have any thoughts on that?

We know some of you children are going to whine about not "getting" the appeal of Malee-boo. And some of you will piss and moan that you think it's crazy for people to pay so much money to be slammed up next to their neighbor. But Your Mama, a child of the California Coast, has no problem with beach houses being so close that one need not even leave their own property to borrow a cup of sugar or a water bong from the aging hippie neighbor.

Listen kids, like it or not, living in close proximity to your neighbors is just part of the package along the Pacific Coast Highway, as well as in many other coastal communities around the U-nited States. It's no different in Laguna Beach, La Jolla, Oxnard, Santa Barbara or even farther up the road in less glitzy Cambria and Cayucus. And unless you're talking about estate sized properties in Palm Beach, along the rugged coast of Maine, or the Eastern reaches of the hoity toity Hamptons, it's that way up and down the shorelines of Florida, along the Gulf Coast of Alabama, and even in Galveston, Texas. We don't know where you all go to the beach, but most (not all) beach communities Your Mama is familiar are chock-full of tightly packed properties lined up like shoulder to shoulder soldiers on the sand.

Don't like it? Don't live at the beach.

In addition to the for sale flip on La Costa Beach and his impressive new compound on Carbon Beach (just up the sand from billionaire David Geffen's even larger ocean front compound and next door to former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel's ocean front getaway), property records indicate Mister Morton also owns a 5,533 square foot house on Woodruff Avenue in Bev Hills, as well as another much larger and more impressive estate on N. Carolwood Drive in the western shadow of Suzanne Saperstein's $125,000,000 pile Fleur de Lys.

UPDATE: Howard Gittis

Yesterday, research queen B.S. Beaverman forwarded an article from the Palm Beach Post that reports that the magnificent Palm Beach water front estate of the late Howard Gittis has already gone to contract for purchase less than six weeks after hitting the market with much fanfare and ballyhoo by real estate gossips like Your Mama. The children will recall that Your Mama discussed the art filled manse back in early January.

According to the article, the Palm Beach real estate scuttlebutt sweeping up and down S. Ocean Boulevard indicates that the buyer is New York City real estate tycoon Lloyd Goldman. Read up on Mister Goldman kids, he's got all sorts of fascinating connections to iconic Manhattan real estate including being intricately involved in securing developer Larry Silverstein's purchase of the 99 year lease on the World Trade Center just weeks before the towers were taken down by terrorists on September 11, 2001, a cataclysmic event that Your Mama witnessed from a far too close a vantage point.

The article goes on to report the rumor that Mister Goldman is rumored to be forking over "about $22,000,000," for the 12,620 foot mansion on Via Palma, just under the asking price of $23,500,000. Listing agent Paulette Koch told the Palm Beach Post that there was great interest in the property by all sorts of moguls, blue bloods and stinking rich nabobs and that the 6 bedroom and 9.5 bathroom house was sold unfurnished. Naturally, the big name and blue chip artworks were not included in the sale and are without doubt worth far more than the real estate. Your Mama imagines all that gorgeousness is locked inside somebody's Fort Knox like vault until it can be donated to a world class museum or sold at auction.

The children will also note that Your Mama gets a very generous and friendly shout out by the good people at the Palm Beach Post who previously had this to say about our little online endeavor. Hey! Show some love for the Palm Beach Post children.

Westerly, Mister Gittis' swanky and sprawling Southampton estate remains unsold as far as Your Mama knows and is currently on the market for a mind bending $59,000,000.

The Sweet Life of A Billionaire's Baby

BUYER: Megan Ellison
LOCATION: Nightingale Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $12,600,000 (sale)
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We ramble and digress today children, so get ready.

A couple of weeks ago Your Mama discussed the John Bersci designed residence that writer/executive producer Aaron Sorkin recently scooped up for $6,100,000 and in that little discussion we casually mentioned a Bird Street property that was being sold to a billionaire's daughter. Remember that children? One of Your Mama's knowledgeable sources, a chatty gentleman who calls himself The Property Pimp, revealed to us that he'd heard through the Hollywood Hills gossip grapevine that a glitzy and glassy Steve Hermann designed house on Nightingale Drive was being sold at an astronomical and record breaking price to the daughter of a big name California billionaire.

So naturally and immediately Your Mama got on the horn with a few more well placed and in the know sources and sho' enuf, Miss Megan Ellison, the young and rumored lezbeeun daughter of multi-billionaire software tycoon Larry Ellison, did indeed drop a record breaking and jaw dropping $12,600,000 for a 3 bedroom and 4 bathroom contemporary confection on Nightingale Drive overlooking the glittering carpet of lights of West Hollywood all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Now children, Your Mama truly does not care a lick whether young Miss Megan is a ladee lover or not. The Gurl can kiss on and fool with whomever she wants as far as we're concerned. What Your Mama does care about is her apparent access to Big Daddy Ellison's unfathomably deep pockets and, yes, we confess, the enviable perks of being a beloved baby of a billionaire.

If Your Mama had $12,600,000 of our Momma's money to spend on a new crib in Tinseltown–and we don't–this would certainly not be our first choice for a home. We are none the less cowed by its uniquely Los Angeles architectural decadence. We're sure some of you snotty Jealouseenas will call little Miss Megan an unworthy and spoiled rich gurl. Or worse. But Your mama asks that you think about this before gettin' all righteous: Iffin your daddy had twenty six billion bucks, wouldn't you let him buy you an obscenely expensive house? Be honest. That's right. Don't give Your Mama any of this "I'd rather work for what I have" bullshit because we know that given the opportunity, few of you would actually refuse to let your Big Daddy write that check.

Miss Megan's new digs have been for sale quite some time and although the listing information we received from Jim Nasium indicates the asking price and the sale price were the same ($12,600,000), Your Mama remembers this house was priced just over $10,000,000 in the fall of 2007. Or somewhere around ten million. Our feeble mind can hardly remember yesterday, so it certainly fails to recall the exact asking price from all those months ago.

Some of you people who are television freaks like Your Mama might remember this house was featured in The Spice Gurl's Coming to America "reality" show special. Miz Spice toured this house on her little program during her search for appropriately expensive and lavish real estate in which house her stud huzband and three children. As we (and The Property Pimp) recall, Miz Spice joked about the narrow and rail-less terrace at the rear of the property where one could too easy tumble over the sheer cliff as a result of a broken heel or one too many gin and tonics.

Developer Steve Hermann, the man responsible for the somewhat cliché and obviously designed to impress house, is well known for transforming ordinary properties in the Hollywood Hills into slick, sexy, and pricey pads. His many projects include the Devlin Drive house durty mommy Christina Aguilera called home until she and huzband Jordan Bratman recently decamped to the more family friendly Ozzy Osbourne mansion on Doheny Road in Bev Hills.

As far as we know, nobody actually lived in this house after the full scale renovation, so what we see in the photos is likely the work of a property stager with a big budget and knack for modern day-core. Or maybe, as a reader notes, it's the handiwork of Mister Hermann himself. Although it's not Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's cup or interior design, it's admittedly quite lovely in that somewhat sterile W Hotel sort of way. What would be interesting to see is how a house like this adapts to and accommodates the personal possessions of the owner. A few books here and there, some well chosen and high-priced knick knacks from dee-luxe trips to exotic locations, Jo Malone and Keihl's lotions and potions spread across the bathroom counter tops just might work in turning this souless hotel like environment into a place to call home.

Although Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's house gurl Svetlana would probably lose her damn mind like that poor Britney Spears trying to keep all that floor to ceiling glass free of dog nose streaks, the spine tingling fabulousity of the view is truly undeniable. As some of you architectural crazies likely do too, Your Mama notes the fully glazed prow-like living/dining/kitchen space references and pays loving homage to architect Pierre Koenig's Case Study House #22, his soo-blime tour de force widely known as the Stahl House.

Now then, let's discuss the swimming pool located in the courtyard at the center of the house. It certainly is something, isn't it? In a twisted sort of way, Your Mama likes that there are enough benches and cushions surrounding the perimeter of the courtyard that a large crowd can comfortably watch Miss Megan as she dips into her petite pool and relaxes in her spa. But to be honest, this pool area looks a little too much like the sort of "sexy" set up Mid-Western house fraus and their middle management huzbands eagerly expect to find on a Carnival cruise ship. We can perhaps live with that unfortunate association, but what we find most bothersome here is that the big view over the city can not be enjoyed while dipping in the waters and sunbathing in the nood.

Miss Megan's new neighbors include screenwriter Russell Gerwitz (Inside Man) just dumped $3,600,000 of his new found riches on a house around the corner. Real People co-host turned media mogul Byron Allen, owns but does not live in the Steve Hermann designed home next door, and up the street on Nightingale Drive is Nebil Zarif, the wine making father of Hollywood scion/club denizen/lay about Brandon Davis. Los Angeles based fashion designer Nabeel Jaber (Lords) recently paid $3,225,000 for his new Nightingale Drive digs, and property records also reveal that investment banker Ken Rickel, who happens to be Brandon Davis' step-daddy, also recently dropped a wad of cash for a house on Nightingale Drive. We can't imagine why Mister Rickel would buy the somewhat modest house because he reportedly lives at Lionsgate, the massive (and for sale) Bel Air estate that belongs to his West Coast socialite wifey Nancy Davis, who is of course the daughter of dead billionaire and Hollywood mogul Marvin Davis.

Oh children, Your Mama does go on and on today, but our mind is mush and sometimes we just can't help but to ramble. Don't like it? Too bad. We don't want to hear about it neither so go whine and complain to someone else.

P.S. We are swooning over the screening room. That is a home thee-ay-ter Your Mama could easily settle into.

Megan Ellison Loves the Ladies (Valleywag)
Stahl House (Los Angeles Times, Wikipedia)
Nancy Davis' Race to Erase MS (New York Social Diary)

In Other Foreclosure News...

Oh dear.

Your Mama is guessing The Widow Hearst's desperate dance of debt refinancing didn't bear much fruit because her monstrous Manalapan mansion is indeed headed into the tawdry and messy world of foreclosure. The sprawling Mauricio Fatio designed Villa Venezia is currently scheduled to be auctioned off on the Palm Beach County courthouse steps on February 25th. GASP! Somebody pass Your Mama the smelling salts.

The 28,000 square foot, 52-room behemoth has been on and off the market for years and was recently listed at$27,000,000, far less than the $29,900,000 Veronica Hearst and newspaper heir Randolph Hearst paid for the oceanfront property just a few months before ol' Randy kicked the bucket back in 2000. But children, even a full price purchase by some filthy rich lock jaw won't begin to cover the three mortgages on the property which are reported to total a vomit inducing $45,000,000.

Yes children, Mister Hearst did leave a gigantic amount of money behind, but it must be tied up in all kinds of complicated trust that aren't very accessible to Miz Hearst because she wasn't able to convince the trustees to crack them open even though the aging Bible scholar can beg and plead in seven languages.

What Your Mama wants to know is did the apparently cash poor Miz Hearst mortgage the hell out of this Palm Beach property to pay for her lavish Fifth Avenue society bee-hawtcha lifestyle?

Although Miz Hearst claims to have plenty of money, the poor thing–and we mean it in the financial sense–is so strapped for cash to pay the $600,000+ per year maintenance bills for the Villa Venezia that she's reported to have mortgaged part of her art collection.

Oh children, unfortunately for The Widow Hearst, this can only end in tears and humiliation.

Foreclosing on Hearst Widow (NY Post)
Veronica Heart's $27M Must-go Manse (Radar Online)

Michael Jackson Pays Some Back Taxes

Your Mama luvs us Roger Friedman at Fox News who reports far and wide that in addition to the bothersome $23,000,000 in loans that The White Lady secured against his former and essentially abandoned Neverland Ranch in rural Los Olivos (just north of Santa Barbara, CA), he apparently also owed more than $600,000 in back taxes that resulted in a state lien against the 2,700 acre ranch. Oh dear jeezis in heaven, this man is a financial disaster zone, ain't he?

Mister Friedman reports today in his Fox 411 column that county assessor records indicate Mister Jackson recently coughed up the $600,000+ (which included fees, and penalties) necessary to satisfy the lien, but he has yet to make good on the $23,000,000 he owes Fortress Investments. Those monstrous loans remain in default and the foreclosure deadline on the former Jackson fun house passed two weeks ago which means that Fortress can begin foreclosure proceedings at any time.

Fasten your seat belts children. Your Mama predicts that if Neverland Ranch does indeed hit the auction block it's going to be an ugly circus of uber rich developers making low ball offers.

Our Mister Friedman goes on to reiterate his previous jaw dropper that his sources have indicated that supermarket mogul and Bill Clinton buddy Ron Burkle may (or may not) have stepped into secure an extension on the Fortress loans. How very nice of him, but we don't understand why he would do that.

Whatever the case, Mister Jackson remains in deep financial doo-doo in regards to Neverland Ranch. Someone in the know please tell Your Mama that The White Lady has authorized the listing and sale of his once beloved home so this part of his real estate nightmare can come to an end.

Jacko Coughs Up $$$ (Fox 411)

Ricky Martin's South Florida Sell Off

Perhaps no one told perky nippled Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin that the South Florida real estate market is a bit dicey right now? Not only is He of the Bubbly Booty attempting to flip an ocean front residence in sleepy Golden Beach, FL for a stunning $22,500,000 (he paid just $16,250,000 for the property in April of 2007), word is spreading up and down Collins Avenue that the bon bon shaker has re-listed his Miami Beach residence for $19,500,000.

The 9,491 square foot N. Bay Road property with its 7 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms had previously been listed at $16,900,000 before being taken off the market five months ago. According to one of Your Mama's Miami Beach tattle tales, Mister Martin didn't make any improvements to the property while it was off the market, so Your Mama simply can not fathom what justifies the $2,600,000 price increase for a house that didn't secure a ready, willing and able buyer at $16,900,000 just five months ago. But, what do we know, right? This certainly wouldn't be the first time that raising the price of a home was a successful tactic for locating a stinking rich buyer.

Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter have recently booked a trip to Miami (first class tickets and an ocean front room, natch), so perhaps we'll call one of our local real estate agent pals to give us a tour of Mister Martin's big mansion on Biscayne Bay. Then again, we might just want to sit on the beach and let some good looking and shirtless beach attendant keep our gin and tonic glasses full.

The children shouldn't worry about where Mister Martin will be hanging his itty bitty bathing suit next. As far as we know, he's still got his big casa in Dorado, Puerto Rico and the somewhat newly acquired multi-million dollar pied a terre at the uber exclusive 40 Bond building in Manhattan. We also imagine (but have no proof or information) that Señor Bootylicious out looking for a new Miami Beach area residence with a good looking and well connected real estate agent.

Ricky Martin Re-lists (South Beach Condo Blog)

A Little Chupi-cabra for the Afternoon Commuters

According to the good people at New York Magazine, bespectacled editrix and art world insider Ingrid Sischy penned an article for the March issue of Vanity Fair–Your Mama's favorite terlit reading for the somewhat sophisticated–that follows 1980s art star turned film maker Julian Schabel as he moves and settles into his newly built Palazzo Chupi that rises in all it's pink and gaudy gloriousness in Manhattan's far West Village.

And there are pictures!

As the children know, the building is widely and wildly reviled by architectural snobs and neighborhood know it alls who don't appreciate its size (too big), its color (too pink) or its bizarre and unexpected articulation that includes a mish-mash of window sizes and styles and balconies stuck on to the side of the pink beast like gum on a wall.

None the less, Your Mama lurvs it. We can't help it. We just adore a rule breaker and Jeezis Mary and Joseph this building is breaking all the rules.

We love the fish out of water building even more after seeing a couple of photos of the Mister Schnabel's quirky and art filled private rooms. No babies, this is not how everyone should live, but it suits the painter and his bigger than life personality pefectly. This, in our feeble mind, is flawless interior day-core. Not because it adheres to any standards of good taste, but rather because it decidedly does not and even better, it does not care a whit about "good" taste or its Prada clad arbiters.

As for the swimming pool...well, we wish the far wall didn't look like it had gangrene, but otherwise we're melting with envy. Bravo Mister Schnabel! When do we get to come by for our own up close and personal tour?

Photos: Robert Polidori for Vanity Fair

Toot Toot Tooting...

...our own horn.

The Queen of Mean's Weekend Retreat

SELLER: Estate of Leona Helmsley
LOCATION: Close Road, Greenwich, CT
PRICE: $125,000,000
SIZE: 23,000 square feet (approx.), 7 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Dead billionairess Leona Helmsley may have been widely and infamously known as the "Queen of Mean" who epitomized 1980s consumerist greed, but the lurid lipped and bug eyed bee-hawtcha sure knew how to choose, buy and hang on to a prime piece of real estate.

At the time of her death in 2007, not only did the once convicted and imprisoned tax evader possess a gigantic and sumptuous suite at the eponymous Helmsley Park Lane Hotel on Central Park South, which she also owned, natch, she had a majority interest in the Empire State Building, and she owned Dunnellen Hall, one of the crowning jewels among the many large and lavish back country estates in uber swank Greenwich, Connecticut. Some of the children may recall that it was in fact Dunnellen Hall that became the focus of Miz Helmsley's 1989 tax evasion trial wherein she was accused of illegally billing millions of dollars in renovations to the estate back to her company...apparently a real no-no as far as the federal government is concerned.

Since the often snarling and notoriously prickly Miz Helmsley kicked the proverbial bucket and left her dog Trouble a stunning $12,000,000 and two of her four grandchildren nothing, there has been much speculation about when the 40 acre Connecticut estate on Close Road would hit the market, and for how much. Now we know.

Thanks to the eager B.S. Beaverman, Your Mama was directed to a recent Wall Street Journal article by the always well informed Christina S.N. Lewis who reports Dunnellen Hall will be listed with an affiliate of Christie's Great Estates with a blistering $125,000,000 price tag (now reduced to $95,000,000). The princely price tag not only puts it among the most expensive homes available for purchase in all of the U-nited States, it guarantees heaps of publicity from all the real estate gossips like Your Mama who get light headed and drool with delight over the unseemly spectacle of such gargantuan asking prices.

The estate of Miz Helmsley can certainly ask what they want for the approximately 23,000 square foot neo-Jacobean brick behemoth, but keep in mind children that the highest price ever paid for a Greenwich property to date is somewhere around $50,000,000. Finding a ridiculously rich house hunter willing to fork over the obscenely big bucks asking price is most assuredly easier imagined than done, even with all the disturbingly rich hedge fund heavies who call Greenwich home.

Madam Mean and her hotelier huzband Harry Helmsley (who died in 1997) purchased Dunnellen Hall in 1983 for $9,000,000. The couple paid an additional $2,000,000 for the furniture and at the time, the combined purchase price was the second highest price ever paid for a single residential property. When the big spending Helmsleys purchased the estate it included just 26 acres. The couple later added 14 acres to bring it's total size to an impressive 40 acres.

Built in 1916-8 as a wedding gift for filthy rich financier Daniel Grey Reid's only daughter (see this article for some excellent background on the property), the monstrous mansion includes a decadent marble stair case, a 47 foot long reception hall and an 86-foot long gallery that crosses the entrance hall. The 1,125 square foot living room features dee-luxe and gor-gee-us teak floors, a massive carved limestone fireplace, and a spectacular molded plaster ceiling. The oak-paneled library sports more of the jaw dropping molded plaster ceiling patterns that are seen throughout the house and the carved stone fireplace mantel is almost as old as our saucy pal Fiona Trambeau and dates back to the 15th century. The kitchen and dining room complex includes a walk in silver vault, an extravagence rarely seen in modern houses. Upstairs are seven bedroom suites including an entire wing devoted to a master suite with his and her bathrooms (or his and his or her and her as the case might be for the new owner), two dressing rooms, and a sitting room. Somewhere in the big pile there is a marble floored ballroom the Mister and Missus Helmsley added after they purchased the already mammoth mansion.

Naturally a house of this magnitude includes a staff wing, and Dunnellen Hall proudly features 8 staff rooms with an attached sewing room in the main house. Now children, why rich people prefer to have staff living up in the main house is just beyond Your Mama's ability to comprehend. If you've got 40 damn acres to work with, why not build an entirely separate residence for the staff? Who needs or wants these people, or any other people for that matter, privy to your morning gas release, fornication rituals and knock down and drag 'em out arguments? If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times to all the enormously rich people out there with live in staff who launder their designer duds, vacuum the heirloom Aubussons and scrub the damn terlits: If you think your live is staff does not pay attention to what you're doing, who you're doing it with and how, you're simply being naïve. And if you don't know that when you're away they all set around drinking your booze, wearing your furs and snickering about your every misdeed and misdemeanor, well, you're just being stoopid.

Anyhoo, back to Dunnellen Hall...The extensive and manicured grounds feature a monumental motor court, sculptured gardens, a koi pond, reflecting pools, acres and acres of rolling lawns, a tennis court that Your Mama can't imagine Miss Leona ever used, an outdoor pool that appears to be full of algae, an indoor pool, and up on the third floor of the main house there was once a concrete floored handball court, although it's unclear to Your Mama whether this particular piece of unusual exercise equipment is still functional.

Also on the grounds appear to be a small shack for a security guard to monitor coming and going guests, a large potting shed that Your Mama hopes houses an impressive fleet of rider mowers, and a detached garage complex that appears to include more staff quarters or office space. Anyone know?

As for the interiors, well, it all looks like the sort of 1980s left over hotel furniture we would expect to find in the haughty hotelier's house. But children, don't look at the dee-pressing furniture, look at the architecture, because like it or not, they don't build many houses like this anymore. Your Mama is breathless trying to calculate the yearly taxes and seriously high maintenance bills, not to mention the cost of heating this brobdingnagian pile of bricks.

When the estate does finally sell to some Croesus rich family in need of 23,000 square feet of opulence that will require a dozen or more full time staff to run smoothly, the proceeds will not be directed into the pockets of any of Miz Helmsley's (few) heirs, but rather into a charitable trust. Who knew that the not known for being generous ladee infamous for hissing, "Only the little people pay taxes" would care to actually help the little people with her vast and wealthy billion dollar estate. Hmm, we may all have to rethink our not so nice impressions of Miz Helmsley after all.

Check out all the real estate porn pix here.

Michelle Branch Goes Country

BUYER: Michelle Branch
LOCATION: Forsythe Place, Nashville, TN
PRICE: $1,350,000 (sale)
SIZE: 3,706 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Custom built home featured in Nashville Lifestyles Magazine 2006. Viking appliances in kitchen. Vaulted ceilings in living room and den. First floor built-in stereo; surround sound in rec room . Master bedroom & master bath on first floor.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It's been widely reported by real estate gossips that in November 2007 singer/songwriter Michelle Branch sold off her big suburban house in Calabasas, CA, packed her gee-tars and headed to Nashville, the center of the country music universe. Property records reveal that back in June of 2006, Miz Branch and her much older bass playing beau Teddy Landau purchased a $290,000 condo at the Lofts at Werthan Mills in Nashville's Germantown, where Your Mama presumes that there were once a lot of German people living.

Loft living must not agree with Miz Branch and Mister Landau because a recent report in the Nashville Post reveals that the strummin' and pickin' couple scooped up a single family house in the tony and old money section of Nashville called Belle Meade. According to the Nashville Post and listing information kindly provided to Your Mama by the Tennessee Talker, Miz Branch's new corner lot digs measure 3,706 square feet and feature 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms.

Unfortunately for the children, Your Mama was unable to locate any interior photos of the recently built stone faced cottage that includes an attached two car garage, an eat in kitchen and a first floor master bedroom. And it's thanks to the above mentioned Tennessee Talker that we have the lovely exterior photo of Miz Branch's new Nashville nest.

We don't mean to minimize her considerable success, but to be honest children, Your Mama doesn't know the first thing about Miz Branch, her music or why she and Mister Landau would find it advantageous to relocate to Nashville. Is she a country songstress? Is he a country crooneer? Whatever the case we wish the two of them a happy home in horsey and hoity toity Belle Meade.

UPDATE: 1040 Fifth Avenue

Thanks to Eagle Eyes Earnest, Your Mama has learned the booze baron Edgar Bronfman Jr. is flipping the 10-room Fifth Avenue co-operative apartment property records show he closed on at the end of January 2008 for the full ask price of $19,500,000. The children will recall that Your Mama discussed Mister Bronfman's purchase back in August of 2007. Apparently Mister Bronfman has changed his mind about moving into Jackie-O's old building because the full floor unit with heart stopping views over Central Park has popped back up on the market with an asking price of $24,000,000. No idea why Mister Bronfman opted not to move his family into the 5 bedroom and 5.5 bathroom unit that features three fireplaces and a large staff suite/play room. Maybe he simply wants to make a few million easy bucks?

In other news about the uber dee-luxe and delishusly dee-vine 1040 Fifth Avenue, property records also show that hedge fund honcho Scott Bommer and wifey Donya sold their 10-room, full floor co-op for a spine tingling $21,000,000 to Jeff Blau, the obviously well paid president of The Related Companies, a prolific developer of New York City real estate. The children will again recall that Your Mama discussed the 14th floor Bommer/Blau unit back in early December, 2007.

Mister Blau's $21,000,000 purchase looks like child's play compared to the Bommer's new digs up the Avenue at 1060 Fifth Avenue (scroll down) where property records now reveal the young, socially connected and philanthropically minded couple coughed up a cajones kicking $46,000,000 for the two floor penthouse that includes 17 rooms, 7 bedrooms, 2 libraries, two kitchens, 4 wood burning fireplaces and a staggering 114.5 foot long terrace hanging over Central Park.

Oh lawhd children, between the Super Tuesday jitters and the unfathomably huge purchase prices discussed above, Your Mama is headed to the booze cabinet to mix a big pitcher of gin and tonics and swallow a wee Xanax to settle our frazzled nerves and get us through the rest of the day. We suggest you do the same.

In response...

...to Mister Big Time's request for information about a house on 20th Street in Santa Monica that was sold by a celebrity sounding trust with a celebrity friendly money manager: Your Mama has learned from one of our better placed sources that the house was owned by Australian actors Rebecca Rigg (Ellie Parker, L.A. Doctors, All Saints) and Simon Baker (L.A. Confidential, The Guardian, The Devil Wears Prada, Smith).

Your Mama understands that the couple, who sold their house in December of 2007 for $2,895,000, purchased another, much more expensive home in Santa Monica that better accommodates their three small children, one of whom claims fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman as a porcelain skinned godmother. The Rigg/Baker's new home, with 6 bedroom and 5 bathrooms in 4,755 square feet, cost the couple more than $4,500,000, so they must be doing alright in the scratch your eyes out world of Hollywood.

Jann Wenner's a Little Bit Country

BUYERS: Jann Wenner and Matt Nye
LOCATION: Woods Road, Tivoli, NY
PRICE: $5,800,000 (listed at $6,750,000)
SIZE: 69.1 acres, 4,068 square feet (approx.), 4 bedrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Left leaning media mogul Jann Wenner (founder of Rolling Stone, Us Magazine, Men's Health) and his fashion designer man-friend Matt Nye prove that not all screamingly rich and good looking New York City homosexuals pack their non-prescription "meds" and itty bitty bikini bathing suits and head east to The Pines, the exuberantly and unapologetically capital "g" Gay ocean front mecca clinging to the sandy spit that is Fire Island.

In fact, Mister Wenner has long been a Hamptonite going way back to the late 1980s and early 1990s when he and his former wife Jane (and their three kiddies) shared a spectacular, flat roofed house on East Hampton's swanky Further Lane. After Mister Wenner went gay in the mid-1990s, he appears (but we can not confirm) to have given full use of the Further Lane property to the ex-wifey, which sits right next door to the massive ocean front estate Jerry Seinfeld bought from Billy Joel some years ago.

Several post split reports indicate the hetero turned homo leased several Hamptons houses, including one owned by big gay artist Ross Bleckner. Although Mister Wenner's name still appears on the deed records for the 11.5 acre Further Lane estate, Your Mama finds no property records that indicate Mister Wenner and Mister Nye currently own another Hamptons house. However, there are plenty of reports in the Hamptons social and gossip columns that suggest he does indeed own a Hamptons getaway. Could Jann, Matt and Jane all be shacking up together? Anyone in the Hamptons want to fill Your Mama in on this?

The somewhat scandalous coupling of the now 62 year old and still ruggedly handsome Mister Wenner and the much younger male modelesque Mister Nye was followed with great interest by all the New York City gossips. Many figured the May/December man on man romance would not last. But it has. Not only has it lasted, the gentleman have added children into the mix. Several years ago, the couple welcomed a son by surrogate to their union and they are currently "with twins," also by surrogate.

Now puppies, this ain't none of our bees wax, but Your Mama is of the mind that 62 is simply too old to be fathering children. Seventy years old and schelpping seven year old kids to karate and swim lessons? Uh, no. By the time those twins are graduating from Dalton or Choate, their dear daddy will be 80 and will prolly need to be wheeled in to the graduation ceremony in a damn wheelchair. Yes, he can provide for them financially, which is a good thing, but a man of a certain age should be having grandchildren, not children. Just my meaningless and judgmental two cents.

Anyhoo, now that the gay daddies are soon to be a family of five (not to mention the three other grown children from Mister Wenner's hetero marriage), the glammy and bespoke suited men about town have gone and bought a big spread in Tivioli, a sleepy and rural hamlet in Northern Dutchess County in upstate New York. The 69.1 acre estate, called Teviot, hangs over the mighty Hudson river and had been on the market for $6,750,000. Several reports have surfaced (including this one first forwarded to Your Mama by Molly Motormouth) regarding the purchase and the local newspaper, the Daily Freeman, reports that records filed with the county indicate Mister Wenner and Mister Nye paid $5,800,000 for the picturesque getaway which had previously been owned by the family Livingston since the 180os.

In addition to tens of acres of lawn that roll gracefully down to the Hudson, the property includes a small pond, a swimming hole/pool, a complex of red barns and a small cottage. According to listing information for the property, the main house with its wide and inviting rocking porch was built in the "European Romantic style" in 1843 and includes four bedrooms. We weren't able to assess how many terlits are up in this place, but given that it's a grand old ladee of a house we're thinking the Wenner/Nyes would be lucky to get two in it's current condition. Our guess is that the house will soon see a slew of architects with german engineered eyeglasses and a team of nice gay decorators sprinkling fairy dust and turning this lovely and genteel but aged turnip into a flaw-less diamond.

Your Mama has spent considerable time in Upstate New York and in fact, before there was a Dr. Cooter, we had a big house on a big piece of land up near Woodstock. But despite the breathtaking beauty of that Catskills and the soo-blime elegance and power of the Hudson River, we hot-footed it back to the beach after one hunting season where we too often saw burly men carrying shot guns walking on the road and too many dead deer tied up in trees ready for skinning.

Property records would indicate that Mister Wenner and Mister Nye currently inhabit the West 74th Street townhouse that Mister Wenner purchased and renovated in the aftermath of his mostly amicable split with Jane, who appears to have continued on in the West 70th Street townhouse the couple shared before Mister Wenner confessed to his wife that he likes boys better than gurls. Reports from the time of the dee-vorce indicate that Mister Wenner was likely to hang on to the Sun Valley, Idaho retreat for himself and his new man lover.

Your Mama extends a sincere hope for patience and calm in a household with three small, and more than likely very loud children. We suspect that unless the two men hire an army of nannies, they will be tied up raising babies for years to come and are unlikely to be seen at many of the glitzy charity events that take up time and money in the Hamptons and define the fall social season in New York City for an entire strata of the upper class moneyed elite.

Jennifer and Ben Out House Hunting. Again.

WHO: Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck
LOCATION: S. Mapleton Drive, Holmby Hills, CA
PRICE: $22,500,000
SIZE: 15,000 square feet (approx.), 7 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Sophisticated 15,000 sq. ft. Traditional in the Federalist style completed in 2008, by the classically trained architects, Nicholas Budd Dutton, on prestigious Mapleton Drive. A two story foyer, bathed in natural light, exquisitely paneled, leads one thru public room, ideal for entertaining, to private, intimate family spaces. Situated on a lot that is almost an acre, the house is place for maximum light exposure and yet retains luxurious expanses of green grass for the lifestyle. Superb!

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Almost two weeks ago, Your Mama (and many others) let the cat out of the bag that Juno actress Jennifer Garner and her Oscar winning huzband Ben Affleck were out house hunting despite having dumped a buttload of time and money into building a not yet completed family house in Brentwood's lower Mandeville Canyon area. We understand from Mirakle Mike, one of Your Mama's many in the know sources, that Affner or JenFleck or whatever they're called by the tabs are looking at houses in the $20,000,000 range. We understand that the somewhat improbably a-list and admirably low key couple looked at Meg Ryan's Bel Air residence which is, according to a couple of very rich and well placed sources, always for sale but never actually listed.

Over the weekend, bazillions of additional blog reports came out that the dungaree donning duo were out peeping at potential domiciles again, including a very modest Venice cottage that Your Mama imagines would be for housing the nanny and not the security conscious pair. We certainly don't now all the homes the not very smiley couple looked at, but we do know they had a nice long look see at a newly built behemoth on S. Mapleton Drive in the Holmby Hills that looks like the Beaver Cleaver house all pumped up on steroids.

The 15,000 square foot sprawler, located just down the street from the obscenely large and lavish Spelling mansion, includes substantially sized public spaces and even more impressive private spaces including formal living and dining rooms, a gorgeously paneled library, bar, a gourmet kitchen open to the family room, breakfast room, a large laundry room with two washers and two dryers, and an enviable mud room with plenty of space for the children and the pets to shake off the wet and dirt and stash the muddy shoes.

Listing information for the property indicates there are 7 bedrooms and a somewhat distressing 12 bathrooms, including a master with sitting room, bedroom, dual bathrooms and dressing areas and a separate massage room. While Your Mama loves the idea of a room dedicated to having Sven rub his strong and oiled hands all over our tired bah-dee, we'd much prefer this special room not be a part of the master suite, but rather part of the swimming pool complex.

We don't know much about these two rich and famous people, but we do know that a house this huge and this spaciously swanky requires at least two full time staff to dust, de-fingerprint, and to scrub all them terlits. Miz Garner is known to be a down to earth famous ladee, but we don't imagine she's so down to earth she wants to be spending half her Wednesdays and all day Sunday scrubbing 12 damn terlits when she could be schlepping young Violet to play dates with Courtney Cox's child and keeping an eye on that huzband of hers that he don't sneak over to the Playboy Mansion, just a two minute jog away.

While we have no doubt that this house is exquisitely done, as it should be for a pocketbook busting $22,500,000 asking price, and the interior spaces are generously and pleasantly scaled, Your Mama finds the exterior massing too large and monolithic for our delicate sensibilities and we worry considerably about the location of the front door. See puppies, the automobile gates and motor court are on the North side of the property while the front door faces due West. This means that guests will need to park their Jaguars, Bentleys and Yukons in front of a series of uglee-ass garage doors and walk their Jimmy Choos and John Lobbs down a long stone walkway to the front door. Either that or they'll slip in the side door and not be treated to entering through the grand and hugely scaled front entrance hall. And it would just be a pity to spend upwards of $20,000,000 and miss out on impressing the dinner guests and all the rich bee-hawtchas in the Mommy and Me club by having them squirreled in the less than glammy back door.

Now babies, we don't have any idea if Mis Garner and Mister Affleck are gonna buy this house or even if they liked this house. We only know they had a nice long look see. So in some ways there's no news here, and in other ways the news is that these two are indeed looking for a big and expensive house to raise up a family celebrity style.

Currently, the family of three hole up in Brentwood in the N. Tigertail Road house that Miz Garner purchased during her bachelorette days. Property records reveal that Miz Garner purchased the 4 bedroom house in June 2004 for $5,500,000.

Tom Brady Unloads Back Bay Condo

SELLER: Tom Brady
LOCATION: Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA
PRICE: $5,285,000 (sale)
SIZE: 3,412 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 full and 1 half bathroom
DESCRIPTION: Rarely available, Back Bay's crowning jewel–The Burrage Mansion. The epitome of style and opulence–magnificent 3 bedroom floor-through residence featuring gorgeous museum quality lobby, elevator access to elegant foyer, fabulous kitchen opening to fireplaced family room, separate dining room, fireplaced living room, all overlooking the Commonwealth Mall. Beautiful master bedroom suite with marble bath and custom closets.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Just like Butterfly McQueen in Gone With The Wind didn't know nuthin' about birthin' no babies, Your Mama don't know nuthin' about football. We are not so ignorant that we don't know the Super Bowl is happening today, but until this morning, when we received correspondence from The Bostonian Bigmouth, we remained blissfully unaware of which teams will be duking it out in their tight pants and shoulder pads.

As all the sportier children well know, one of the teams strapping on their cleats for today's big game is the New England Patriots whose quarterback is the oft in the tabs and gossip glossies Tom Brady. We understand from our ball obsessed pal Fiona Trambeau that Mister Brady is a crack quarterback. Being the sexed up beast that she is, Miz Trambeau couldn't resist also telling us she thinks Mister Brady is a delectable piece of hot buttered bread. Naturally, Your Mama only knows Mister Brady as left alone in Lamaze class ack-tur-us Bridget Moynahan's baby daddy and super model Giselle Bundchen's latest big name romantic conquest.

Now then, let's get to the real estate which is the real reason we're all tuned in here. This morning Your Mama learned from The Bostonian Bigmouth that Mister Tom Brady recently unloaded his big Back Bay condominium on Commonwealth Avenue, which we understand to be one of Boston's finer locales. And for a sale price of $5,285,000 (listed at $5,390,000) it had better be a fine ass neighborhood. Property records indicate that Mister Brady paid $4,125,000 for the 3,412 square foot condo in the dee-luxe Burrage Mansion in June of 2004. In addition to three bedroom suites, including a master with a large bath and dressing room, the 10 room condo features living and dining rooms, a library/study, three working fireplaces, and parking for two cars in a below ground garage.

The historical and wickedly ornate Burrage Mansion, built in 1899 for philanthropist, attorney, and entrepreneurial tycoon Albert Burrage, was designed and erected in the manner of Gothic French chateau and spoke loudly about the social stature and big bank account of it's builder and owner. The gargoyle and griffin laden confection was converted to a physician's offices in 1948 and just about 5 years ago were converted to luxury condominiums. Fortunately for architectural historians everywhere and lucky residents of the distinctive and deeply decorated building, the Boston Landmarks Commission required the developers maintain and preserve the gloriously grand entrance hall, stair well and second floor landing.

Listing information provided to Your Mama by The Bostonian Bigmouth only included a couple of photographs of the interior spaces of Mister Brady's full floor flat, but it's clear that the man has decent and acceptable taste in decorators. This particular brand of beige traditional meets modern amenties (wall mounted plasma T.V.s) and funky fabrics (the Louis-ish armchair in cowhide) is not how Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter choose to decorate, but it's clearly very tasteful, very elegant, and leaves little to beef and snark about. Keep in mind that these photos were likely taken once Mister Brady had removed his personal belongings which would explain a slight but palpable emptiness in the rooms pictured.

So where has Mister Brady moved his many sports awards and his three (soon to be four) super bowl rings? Although Your Mama was unable to confirm, The Bostonian Bigmouth whispered to Your Mama that the ball tosser moved into the penthouse of a Beacon Street building he had a hand in developing.

In early 2007, the beauteous ball thrower put his 2,910 square foot New York City digs on the market for $16,500,000. Mister Brady purchased the 74th floor unit in September of 2004 for $14,000,000 and the rumors were that he ponied up the big bucks for the Time Warner Center in order to be closer to then gurlfriend and current baby momma Bridget Moynahan. However, according to Braden Keil at the NY Post, the quarterback ended up leasing the 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom unit out to a financier for six months at an impressive $60,000 per month. All the New York based real estate gossips expect this apartment will come back on the market any day now.

Now while the rest of you lay back in your tatty recliners sipping Budweiser, staring at your big screen T.V.s and eating a planetary sized pile of pigs in blankets, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are going to the movies where we can swill soda and chaw through a big box of Milk Duds with all the other arty farty don't care about football freaks.

P.S. Thanks to Sandpiper for sending up over to the floor plans which we've decided to include her. Thanks gurl!

Dido Moving From Her Really Good Bird Street Block

SELLER: Dido
LOCATION: Oriole Way, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $4,600,000
SIZE: 3,739 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Star-studded Bird Street beauty w/ breathtaking views facing Downtown, & the Westside/ocean. Walled & gated, lge motor court, expansive grounds. Ample upside for a buyer interested in making this an even more major property. Dramatic LR in Hollywood Regency style w/ fireplace & views to pool/grounds. Media room w/ gorgeous views, lge DR w/ French doors. Kitchen beautifully remodeled. Enormous master suite w/ fireplace, sitting areas, adj. gym, huge closets, & marble bathroom. 2 add'l bedroom suites.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We confess. Your Mama really does not know much about British born singer/songwriter Dido other than that a few years ago she had a huge hit called Thank You that made her mountains of money. A quick search across the internets and we find a few tidbits such as she was raised without television, plays at least three instruments (the recorder, piano and violin), credits white rapper Eminem for launching her into the world of singing super stardom, and back in 2004 she made it on to somebody's list of the music world's biggest earners. We also discover that her real name is Florian Cloud De Bounevialle Armstrong, a lovely combination of syllables, but it's no wonder the ladee goes by the much easier to remember and pronounce Dido.

We don't know whose list it was that claimed she was a big earner in 2004, but it must be accurate because it was shortly thereafter than the money train pulled into Miss Dido's station and she dumped an undisclosed amount of money on a big Bird Street aerie. Property records indicate that Miss Dido bought the somewhat non-descript 3,739 square foot house in September of 2005.

Listing information reveals that in addition to the three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, the single story sprawler features a library/study, media room, a remodeled kitchen, a "dramatic" living room, and a huge master bedroom with big closets, big marble bathroom, fireplace and an adjacent home gym set up. Perhaps the best feature of this house is that it possesses long views in two directions...both towards the downtown skyline and also across Bev Hills towards the Pacific Ocean.

The big name listing agent for the property dropped a telling bomb in the listing description when he said, "Ample upside for a buyer interested in making this an even more major property." Now babies, this does not mean there is anything wrong with Miss Dido's day-core per se, but rather that the house itself is wonky enough to merit a redo to take if from well located ho-hum to bring it home to Jeezis fabulous.

In the main, Your Mama feels just fine about Miss Dido's house. No, it does not look like a nice gay decorator spent too much time in there (as evidenced by the sofa mashed uncomfortably into the corner of the master bedroom), but the media room looks rather dee-luxe with it's sensual wood walls paired with a pair of deelishus white sofas (y'all know how much Your Mama loves a white sofa) and the view from the tub is classic Hollywood Hills iffin you like to sit in your own dirt.

Normally we don't much care for grand pianos taking up too much precious square footage in living rooms, but given that Miss Dido actually plays this big black thing, it's more than acceptable. In fact, it's fantastic. We don't however care for the fireplace awkwardly pushed off center of the back wall. This off center thing seem an unintended and not recommended motif. Hmm.

There appear to be several areas for outdoor entertainment. The swimming pool is good for all those health conscious sporty sorts who actually enjoy swimming laps, and we can imagine comfortably whittling away warm afternoons with a pitcher of gin and tonics and a pile of gossip glossies on the terrace overlooking the flats of West Hollywood and beyond. And who does not like a fiercely competitive game of ping-pong? Who?

As the listing reveals, the immediate neighborhood is "star-studded" and area residents including comic book king Stan Lee next door and set designer/kooky entrepreneur Boyd Willat lives across the street. King of the Hollywood Hills Leo Dicaprio holes up with his various moe-dell paramours in his newly built fortress down the street, and Tobey Maguire and family are temporarily camping out close by in Leo's other house presumably while they plan and build a family manse on the Brentwood lot they recently purchased. And last, but certainly not least, Ricardo Montalbán's own private Fantasy Island is just around the corner.

So who knows what's what here? Is Dido headed back to the UK? Is she buying an even bigger and better house in LA? Or is she cashing in on a well located and high priced piece of real estate like so many other rich and famous folks in Hollywood?

Grant Show's Somewhat Winning Abode

SELLER: Grant Show
LOCATION: Hollyridge, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,995,000
SIZE: 3,483 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathroms
DESCRIPTION: A stunning view of LA's skyline launches this gated Hollywood Hills retreat into the top tier of homes in the area. The 3BR/2.5BA home combines Moorish architectural elements with classic Spanish design featuring 20-foot ceilings, wrought-iron accents, gleaming wood floors, and walls of windows. A 3,483 sq. ft. floor plan provides perfect flow for large events or intimate nights lounging on expansive balconies. A gourmet kitchen and a massive master with a spa-like bathroom make this a winner.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The television viewing world first took note of Mister Grant Show when he paraded his bulging biceps and moody bad boy attitude around on the boob tube juggernaut that was Melrose Place. Since that golden nugget of television obsession ended in 1997, Mister Show has plied his sexy stuff on recurring roles on Six Feet Under, Strong Medicine, Point Pleasant, Dirt and some show in production called Swingtown, which given the current writer's strike prolly leaves Mister Show twiddling his hunky thumbs like most other working actors in Hollywood.

Your Mama imagines he occupies some of his unexpected spare time running his sorta newly opened Sunset Boulevard bar/restaurant called The Happy Ending, which looks like a real beer, hot wings, and vomiting gurls sort of place to Your Mama. He is also, according to tipster Tommy Talksalot, selling his Beachwood Canyon house. Property records indicate Mister Show purchased the three story, 3,483 square foot Mediterranean meets Moorish mish-mash in 1997 for just $560,000.

We like 1927 vintage of the 3 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom house, and it's nice that Mister and Missus Show, whose name is improbably Pollyanna, have updated the place with a new kitchen and baths. But what's the deal with the anemic decor? We realize that not every working actor has the interest or pocketbook to hire a nice gay decorator to overhaul their homes, but maybe they should anyway?

All the furniture, including the Gustav Stickley sofa in the living room and the too narrow dining room table feel under scaled for the generous room sizes. The children will also note with a significant and justified amount of consternation that beyond the beveled mirror in the master, the walls are entirely art free. Do Mister and Missus Show harbor some bizarre religious belief that forbids them from choosing a few nice pieces of art or family photographs to hang on the barren and lonely looking walls?

The kitchen walls and ceiling have been tiled up like a surgery suite (is all that stuff original?) and the the strange looking ceiling articulation with the slit down the middle is a little more abstractly vulgar then Your Mama would prefer in a room where we feed our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly, bake box cakes, and sliver carrots for Chinese chicken salad.

Because we try to find at least a couple of redeeming features in every property we discuss, Your Mama will confess that we rather enjoy the grape cluster-like chandelier in the dining room, we feel the master bath has been nicely done over, the view is magnificent, and there really are few things that Your Mama likes better than a protected courtyard entrance. And in the main, we are indeed digging Mister and Missus Show's front courtyard with it's raised panel antique gate and saltillo tiles laid at a soothing 45 degree angle to the house. But, and we regret to inform the children there is indeed a but about the courtyard, we are deeply disappointed Mister and Missus Show did not find a more suitable location for the barbecue pit. We like to barbecue as much as the next meat lover, however Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter have a not insignificant aversion to seeing a filthy barbecue pit every time we enter and exit a house. Perhaps there is a better spot for that hot coal contraption?

Although we sometimes give Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota sharp verbal stabs and jabs, it is our humble and meaningless opinion that the second rate decorating dynamo could work this place into something more attractive even on a fairly limited Pottery Barn budget.

The Show house overlooks the circular parcel estate formerly owned by Chuck Berry and recently purchased by Danny Masterson and bad gurl turned not so bad Bijou Phillips for $2,995,029. Next door, soap ack-tur-us Victoria Rowell lives in a 4,354 square foot house, and Tommy Talksalot says PETA spokesperson Eva Mendes lives up the street, or at least she did until she recently checked herself into Cirque Lodge in order to deal with some "not critical" "personal issues" which y'all surely remember is Little Lindsay Lohan's former rehab facility in Utah.

Your Mama Doubts She Did It Again

Your Mama knew something was fishy when all these stories started spinning about that poor Britney Spears gurl buying herself a new house in sleepy Hermosa Beach, CA. Yes, we heard through the gossip grapevine that Miz Spears had checked out a few properties in that neck of the woods. In October of 2007, there were even several reports that showed Miz Spears holding real estate marketing materials for a big house in Hermosa with a hefty asking price of $8,585,000.

But the beleaguered and erratic Miz Spears had recently toured a few high priced houses in Brentwood too, so cynical real estate gossip that we are, we figured that the unstable pop princess was simply peeping at property for publicity reasons. The oft bewigged bee-hawtcha seems to enjoy toying and trickin' the media and daily drives her Mercedes Benz around at all hours of the day and night for no damn reason, so why not look at a few high priced houses while the paps snap their money shots and let all the people think she's looking for a new house?

Then came a press release on PR-Inside.com about her driving a hard bargain and dumping $6,000,000 on a new crib in Hermosa Beach that was listed for $8,500,000. Then came the article in the National Enquirer (no link available) about Spears buying a house in Hermosa. The article included photos of a large house overlooking the Pacific Ocean that Your Mama determined sits on Tennyson Place in Hermosa's Hill Section, the very same house at which Miz Spears was photographed back in October 2007. Then came the deluge of folks contacting Your Mama like they thought we'd spoken to Miz Spears herself at the UCLA Medical Clinic where she's currently being held on a 72-hour 5150 hold.

This morning we woke to a bit of clarity with a communication from crack researcher B.S. Beaverman who linked the house on Tennyson Place to Dani Brubaker. And sho' enuf, the house belongs to professional photographer Dani Brubaker and her husband. Surely all the children who read the blogs, tabs and gossip glossies remember who Dani Brubaker is and the photo fracas that erupted over private pictures she snapped (sans signed confidentiality agreement) of Miz Spears and her fractured family in late 2007 that wound up in OK Magazine. The media lambasted Miz Brubaker for selling and profiting from the photos and she vehemently and publicly denied selling the pix. In mid January reports came out declaring that Miz Spears was planning on suing Miz Brubaker over the brouhaha, and then, Ta-Da! Later reports claimed it was Miz Spears herself who sold the photos to OK Magazine. She's certainly got some serious issues, but we are of the uninformed opinion that the gurl is also crazy like a fox children. Crazy like a fox.

Anyhoo, Your Mama can't with any real certainty say that the unpredictable Miz Spears did or did not buy a house in Hermosa Beach. However, we still find no evidence of a current sale in that price range and we find no evidence of a sale of the Brubaker house on Tennyson Place even though it does appear to have been taken off the market. We also think it would be very odd that the Brubaker's would accept $2,500,000 less than the asking price for their house from a young, rich and unstable celebrity who has no doubt propelled them into a harsh limelight and caused them considerable grief.

So, we don't completely solve the mystery of the alleged home purchase in Hermosa Beach, but perhaps we get one step closer?

Now then, let's all take a moment to wish Miz Spears well. While we gossip and giggle about her supposed and mysterious real estate transactions, she and her family suffer in very real and very painful ways. The Spears family bleeds just like everyone else, and Your Mama genuinely aches for her and her family. We may not much care for Miz Spears music, and we may in fact participate in the schadenfruede of the whole mess, but in truth, Your Mama would much rather see Miz Spears well and raising them kids of hers than watch her mind all too publicly run off its rails.