A Country Place for Reese Witherspoon

BUYER: Reese Witherspoon
LOCATION: Del Norte Road, Ojai, CA
PRICE: $6,950,000 (list)
SIZE: 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: A one of a kind Wallace Neff architectural masterpiece. Amazing equestrian compound. Perfect 6+ acre hideaway nestled in fabulous Ojai Valley, a short drive to one of LA's most sought after vacation spots. Beautifully re-designed by Kathryn Ireland. Fabulous new master suite. Incredible privacy. Fantastic opportunity.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Oscar winning actress, major Hollywood power player, and dignified southern woman Reese Witherspoon prefers to do things on the down low. You certainly aren't going to see this ladee out at some velvet rope Hollywood hot spot flashing her baby maker as she gets out of her car, nor will she be ringing up the paps to come snap a few pictures of her as she crosses the parking lot at the Brentwood Country Mart to buy some lip gloss at Marie Mason Apothocary. Some initially called it a faux-mance, but even her year long relationship with Oscar nominated actor and well known privacy nut Jake Gyllenhaal has been conducted largely outside the blinding glare of flash bulbs and gossip glossies.

So it should come as no surprise to any of the children that just a few weeks ago, the recently dee-vorced mommy of two very quietly purchased an historic 6+ acre ranch in Ojai, a picture perfect slice of California gorgeousness just 1.5 hours outside of LaLa Land and just north of Ventura, a tawdry little town in which Your Mama happens to have spent a lot of time in our youth.

Just between us chickens and as a meandering aside, we have many fond and funny memories of our favorite foul mouthed Aunty Jennie, piling Your Mama, Sister Woman and cuzzins Lois and Toddaroohoo into her powder blue 1970 something Ford Galaxy–an automobile we all lovingly called The Blue Vomit–and heading down to the Golf and Stuff in Ventura that sits right up next to the Highway 101. As we pulled up to the front we'd each be handed five clams to last us until Aunty Jennie and Your Mama's Mama finished their mai tais down the road at The Elephant Bar. Your Mama can not tell you how many times we finagled free rides on the mini car speedway by acting penniless and pathetic. Good times. Good times.

Anyhoo, property records sort of reveal and our wickedly well informed pal Lucy Spillerguts confirms, that Miz Witherspoon purchased what is commonly called The Libbey Ranch in the Arbolada area just north and west of bustling downtown Ojai. Before Your Mama begins to bore the children with how green with envy we are over this place, let's have a bit of the history. The Spanish Colonial casa was originally designed in 1923 for glass tycoon Edmund Drummond Libbey by noted California architect Wallace Neff with later French Country style additions and out buildings by Austen Pierpont. The house has had a number of owners since 1923 including actor/director Harold Ramis and was most recently owned and fully restored by interior designer and textile goddess Kathryn M. Ireland. Before she sold the ranch to Miz Witherspoon, Miz Ireland (who is not the moe-dell Kathy Ireland by the way) allowed House Beautiful to snap some pretty pictures of all the rooms looking dee-voon, drowning in pillows and draped with a pleasing cacophony of brightly colored fabrics.

Property records show Miz Witherspoon closed on the property only a few weeks ago, but as of this morning Your Mama is unable to confirm just how much of her Legally Blond boodle she had to cough up to buy the place. Listing information shows the property carried a $6,950,000 asking price and a recent article in US magazine refers to her "new $5.8 million ranch in Ventura County." And guess what kids? They were right. According to Jim Nasium, a man who would know, Miz Witherspoon and her people drove a hard bargain and paid $5,800,000 for the historic compound.

According to listing information, the main house has a soaring beamed ceiling living room and gigantic fireplace, a large kitchen dining room, a library loft with fireplace and 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. An interesting quirk of the house, which will no doubt bug and bother some of the children, is that one must walk through an outdoor breezeway to get to the bedroom wing from the main house.

There are also two detached guest cottages, each with private bath and fireplace, a stable block for the equine inclined, a gatekeepers cottage, a four car carriage house garage, a stunning walled and private swimming pool, and a smithy, a somewhat obsolete feature where Your Mama imagines a burly, sweaty and seriously sexy man once used to forge the iron to shoe the horses and fabricate all the door handles and hardware for the property.

Your Mama can simply not say enough how covetous we are of Miz Witherspoon's new country digs. So we're just going to shut our big trap, spend the next few hours drooling over the dee-lishus photos of this California real estate dream and let the children praise and pick apart the details while all Your Mama's beloved Chicken Littles yammer on about how this place will only be worth a million in a year or two.

When not hiding out at her new ranch, Miss Witherspoon clearly prefers life behind gates where she can live her life without paps doorstepping her every move. As far as property records (and our spider web of sources) are concerned, she continues to live in the same 6,956 square foot house on Brentwood's guard gated N. Gunston Drive that she shared with ex-hubby Ryan Phillippe before they went splitsville. Property records would also indicate that in April of 2005 the $29,000,000 actress paid $760,000 to purchase another house on Moultrie Park in a gated community in the tony Belle Meade area of Nashville. As for her privacy loving boyfriend Jakie Gyllenhaal, you ask? When not camping out at Reese's place in Brentwood, he very discreetly pilots and parks his Mercedes up a long driveway on Woodrow Wilson drive in a house that is extremely well shielded from any prying eyes and long lenses that might be cruising up and down the street hoping to snap a shot of him pulling out of his driveway or wrapped in spandex and pumping his bi-cycle up and down the twisty streets of the Hollywood Hills.

They're sayin'...

...That surly, sour and filthy rich American Idol judge Simon Cowell has gone and bought a $5,000,000 house in the Bev Hills for British singing sensation Leona Lewis, who took home the top prize on the UK's X Factor last year.

Could be. But do we dare believe the British tabs? Since Your Mama has started this little blog they've been seriously wrong on the celebrity housing front. So truthfully kids, we're not sure. It certainly sounds suspicious. But who knows.

What we do know for sure is that Mister Cowell is putting the finishing touches on his newly built house on N. Palm Drive in the flats of Bev Hills, and Mister Big Time reported last week that Mister Cowell's ladee friend Terri Seymour recently paid $4,600,000 for a house on N. Doheny Drive. Property records to indeed show Miss Seymour as the buyer of the house, but could it be that the tabs and gossips across the pond think this is the house Mister Cowell allegedly bought for Miss Lewis?

Moby Needs Your Help...

...and he's willing to fork over $75,000 for it.

A few years ago, be-spectacled musician Moby thought it sounded like a good idea to move from his long time home on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to a quadraplex in the tower of the legendary and dee-luxe El Dorado building on Central Park West. Yes, children, a quadraplex. That's four floors of lung busting and boo-tox toning luxury.

After spending $4,500,000 to purchase the 2 bedroom co-operative and quite a few more dollars renovating the quirky cake topper apartment, 'ol Moby decided he didn't actually like living in the upper reaches of Manhattan and last summer he high tailed back downtown and put the freshly renovated apartment on the market with a $7,500,000 asking price.

It wasn't long before a deep pocketed buyer turned up who was willing to pay something close to the asking price. However, the the all powerful co-op board rejected the buyer. Rejected. The. Buyer. Uh-oh. That might sound strange to all you single family residence homeowners, but in New York City, co-op boards hold and wield all the power to approve or deny potential buyers. They can reject a buyer for any or no reason at all and, are you ready for this children, co-op boards are not obligated to provide any explanation for a rejection. New York is a tough town folks.

Anyhoo, Moby's uptown digs have languished on the market ever since the rejection debacle and the one man band recently and reportedly sent out an email to his friends that said, "If you find someone to buy the apartment I'll happily give $75,000 to you or your favorite charity."

Given that rather large number, Your Mama suggests the children get bizzy running through their Rolodex of rich friends and associates who might have seven and a half million clams to spare on a four floor Manhattan aerie. What are you waiting for? Go!

Jonathan Sheffer Makes Beautiful Real Estate Music in East Hampton

SELLER: Jonathan Sheffer
LOCATION: Ocean Avenue, East Hampton, NY
PRICE: $18,500,000
SIZE: 6 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Circa 1888 restored charming village 1880s published Dutch Colonial house with 6 bedrooms and 5.5 baths set on multi-acre site steps from village and ocean beach. Gorgeous gunite pool and spa, all weather tennis court and separate cottages with gym, 2 car garage and guest house. One of a kind compound.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama has become quite accustomed to listening to some of the Honda driving children wax, whine and complain about the obscenely pricey properties in Malee-boo sitting far too close together and that for eighteen some millions of clams of their money they would require enough land not to be subjected to the sounds of neighbors farting and fornicating. Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter happen to L.O.V.E. us some Malee-boo and aren't so bothered by the proximity to neighbors, but we can certainly understand the desire many have to put a little distance between themselves and the crabby Mrs. Kravitz next door. With that in mind, Your Mama is pleased to start the week with some multi-acre Hamptons happiness which offers plenty of room to roam and enough privacy to sunbathe nekkid, nood and in the buff without being watched by the porno loving neighbor who's always trying to snap photos of your naughty bits with his mobile phone camera.

Located on Ocean Avenue between East Hampton's boo-teek lined downtown drag and the swanky sands of Main Beach, sits this dignified Dutch Colonial with the well preserved shingled skin of another century stretched over updated interiors that have been fitted and kitted with all the mod-ren conveniences required by the pampered princes and princesses of the East End who do not care to rough it on summer weekends.

Property records show the owner is a gentleman named Jonathan Sheffer who some of you–although not likely many of you–will know as the young and charismatic composer and conductor of the Eos Orchestra in New York City. Before Mister Sheffer set up shop with Eos, he studied under the Mister Leonard Bernstein, and scored a slew of cinematic treats such as Zits, The Omen IV and Grandpa's Funeral. It's true. Look it up. Mister Sheffer also conducted the orchestras for films like The Good Sheperd, Interview with the Vampire and the Batman and Robin franchise.

All of which, apparently, paid may-jor money because Mister Sheffer was able to buy, maintain and go to town de-ko-ratin' a generously sized compound in the Hamptons that he recently put up for sale with an impressive $18,500,000 asking price. Listing information for the property shows that there are 6 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms as well as several detached buildings that include a two car garage (where the Dr. Cooter would park the vintage 450SL, natch) and a large and lofty guest house at the rear of the property. A home gym occupies another small cottage on the property. Your Mama realizes that many rich, vain and well toned people spend the big bucks to have private gyms installed in their homes, and we understand they're convenient and all that crap. However, if we're being truthful, and we always are, home gyms usually make Your Mama cringe and (no offense intended) feel a little sorry for the owners of the torturous exercise contraptions. It's something we're working on with our lovely lesbian therapist, but for now we're still a little creeped out by them.

Other features of the sprawling and high-hedged compound include acres of lawn for running the dogs and playing gin and tonic fueled Bocci tournaments, a spectacular in ground swimming pool shaped by several interconnecting hexagons, and an all weather tennis court tucked into the back of the property. Can anyone explain an "all weather" tennis court to Your Mama? Who plays tennis in the rain or snow? Generally speaking, isn't tennis a fair weather sport and not an all weather sport?

Anyhoo, moving inside, Your Mama is loving the large living room with its dark floors, two fireplaces and warehouse full of white slip covered furniture. (We can't help it, we love white slip covered sofas. It's a sickness we can't explain much like we're unable to explain our dysphoria regarding home gyms.) The children will note the artwork casually placed on the mantles and Your Mama would like for Mister Sheffer to give us that shin bruising but gorgeous gnarled wood coffee table because it would look amazing in Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's beach house living room too. If we had our way, we would instruct someone to immediately remove the slip covered slipper chairs which make us gag a little (too much of a good thing is just too much) and surely there was a more elegant solution for the flat screen than sticking it to the wall like a used piece of chewing gum, right?

We know some of you will not like it, but Your Mama thinks the dining room has been magnificently pared down to the barest necessities required for eating...a shiny table (that beautifully mirrors the gorgeous glossy wainscoting), 8 or 10 mixed and matched chairs, and an austere chandelier (on a dimmer, of course). The kitchen, while not blazing any new paths of high design, is fully functional and looks like a nice place to make coffee and eat donuts.In truth, as the children might expect, the only real issue we have with the kitchen is that crazy pot rack hanging above the sink waiting for just the right moment to give the dishwasher a concussion. Mister Sheffer, please understand that in the main Your Mama adores your house and the simple beach house day-core, but your potentially lethal pot rack gives us hives and has us reaching for the Xanax.

The bedrooms at Mister Sheffer's, at least some of the six of them, appear to provide guests with sitting areas perfect for smoking pre-dinner joints and playing before bed checkers. Sitting areas in guest rooms are really great if you like to make your house guests comfortable enough to want to extend their stay well beyond your invitation, which Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter most certainly do not. Our guest rooms are tiny. Cute. Comfortable. But tiny. Makes 'em ready to go back to their own damn home after just a day or two, which is just the way we like it. In and out.

In our humble and totally meaningless opinion, Mister Sheffer's East Hampton getaway is a nice change of pace from the old-school chintz and Chinoiserie palaces that are all too common in the Hamptons. It looks and feels like a kick off your flip flops East Cost beach house done up for an arty farty (and very rich) New York City fella and Your Mama is down with that whole bizness.

Your Mama feels deep in our ever expanding gut that the house will be sold quickly to someone really rich who will pay a premium get their nice gay decorator in there to whip the place into shape before the East End social season begins in earnest on Memorial Day. We wish Mister Sheffer well as he moves on to wherever it is he may be going...and seriously, dude, have your people call Your Mama's people if you're looking to get rid of the coffee table.

Weekend Mish Mash

1.
It's baaaack. After disappearing from the market several weeks ago, the much altered but still lovely to look at Richard Neutra designed house in Bel Air that was built for Teledyne tycoon Henry Singleton and is currently owned by octogenarian hair guru Vidal Sassoon is back on the market with an asking price of $19,950,000, which is exactly the same asking price it was listed at before.

Due to it's architectural pedigree, the house garnered lots of publicity and attention when it first hit the market last summer. Your Mama even heard that talk show maven and house hopper Ellen Degeneres went up for a look see. But alas, no one with big bucks and modernist dreams stepped up to buy the 5-acre Mulholland Drive property.

Now, all you architectural purists go scream and yell in the comments section about how Mister Sassoon butchered this house during the renovation, because we know you want to.

2.
The $22,500,000 house in the Holmby Hills that every gossip glossy thought Ben Garner and Jennifer Affleck (or whatever their names are) were gonna buy is back on the market with a substantial $3,000,000 price reduction. Perhaps the new $19,950,000 asking price will attract some filthy rich exercise nut who will gleefully consider the exceptionally long walk from the motor court to the front door as an opportunity to work a little extra cardio into their day.

3.
Aussie singer/actress Olivia Newton John seems to be getting sear-ee-us about selling her Malee-boo mansion and recently karate chopped the asking price of her 6,482 square foot sprawler up in the guard gated enclave of the Serra Retreat from $14,000,000 to $12,950,000. Miz O.N.J.'s 5 bedroom and 6 bathroom crib sits di-rectly next door to the Love Shack where much on the mend Britney Spears and her Fed-Ex used to live in wedded bliss before she lost her damn mind and starting flashing her baby maker all over town. Remember those days kids? Your Mama is happy as a clam that Miss Spears is pulling her shit together, and Miz Newton John is prolly even happier that those two young muffins sold their house next door because hovering helicopters filled with paps trying to snap pix of their tawdry doings might have been a real problem for a potential buyer.

4.
All the New York City real estate gossips and property fiends are on pins and needles waiting for deceased society doyenne Brooke Astor's Park Avenue duplex to hit the market. The NY Observer reported earlier this week that Mrs. Astor's suspicious son Anthony Marshall and his rather controversial wife Charlene (who left her preacher huzband to be with the Astor heir) recently interviewed a handful of high end brokers to determine who would get the plush and plum listing.

It's expected that the two floor terraced co-operative apartment at hoity toity 778 Park Avenue will have an eye popping asking price of $46,000,000 or more. That gigantic number isn't so difficult to fathom when you consider that this is the very same super swank building where billionaire industrialist Ira Rennart recently and ever so generously forked over $33,600,000 (in cash) to purchase Vera Wang's full floor 14-room apartment for his daughter Yonina. Lucky damn Yonina.

Anyhoo, Miz Astor's legendary duplex reportedly includes several fireplaces, three to five bedrooms depending on who you ask, extensive staff quarters, a separate apartment for guests or staff, and interiors by the inestimable high society decorator Albert Hadley who famously did up the library with lacquered red walls.

There has been much public hullabaloo and scads of private outrage over the care Miz Astor received in her last few years (or the lack of it by some accusations) as well as serious questions regarding her wills and wishes since her death in August of 2007. If you care to read up, here's a good article that covers the salacious situation.

UPDATE: Joe Babajian

All the children who follow the trials and tribulations of high end real estate in Los Angeles are more than well acquainted of the once high, mighty and extremely successful real estate agent Joe Babajian and his spectacular, very public and much discussed by Your Mama fall from grace last year when he and his bizness partner Kyle Grasso (and a number of other industry folks) were indicted on several uglee charges of fraud and money laundering charges.

Shortly after the indictment ol' JoeBabs put his house in the Bev Hills house on the market with an asking price of $6,995,000 which very quickly had a sliver of a reduction to $6,985,000. After several months of not selling and a few short weeks off the open market, the house was re-listed in January 2008 with a proper price adjustment to $6,595,000. Sure enough, a buyer soon responded to the decrease in asking price and bit the bullet and bought the fully renovated 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom house on Carla Ridge in the Trousdale Estates.

Thanks to Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills, Your Mama has learned that the house sold and closed very recently with a sale price of $6,510,000. The owner is listed as a limited liability corporation, but thanks to a quick call to the insanely well informed Lucy Spillerguts Your Mama has learned that it appears the buyer is a young Serbian playboy named Marko Miskovic who is the son of one of Serbia's richest bizness tycoons Miroslav Miskovic.

According to an April 2006 report in the Times Online, the ol' JoeBabs crib is not the only property that is owned by the jet setting dilettante Marko. Sometime in early 2006 it was reported that Mister Miskovic the elder dropped a stunning £25,500,000 to purchase a mansion for Mister Miskovic the younger in London's posh Kensington neighborhood. The lucky scion also reportedly maintains a £550,000 yacht in Montenegro and has a thing for dating Serbian pop stars.

Watch out Britney Spear because now that you're back in your right mind and wearing panties under your mini dresses, young Mister Miskovic might be looking for a piece of your American pop stardom.

UPDATE: Michael Jackson

Roger Friedman, who pens the mighty Fox 411 gossip fest, included a wee blurb in his column today that reports that the much publicized May 14 foreclosure auction for Neverland Ranch is full speed ahead.

Now children, we got no reason to disbelieve the typically very well informed Mister Friedman...except for what we hear from Mister Plum, a seemingly well connected informant who whispers something a different in Your Mama's big ear.

According to Mister Plum, The White Lady has miraculously managed to get Fortress Investment Group to once again restructure his massive loan on the forlorn and falling apart Neverland Ranch so that the former King of Pop can sell it privately to a group of LA based investors. Now go put on your thinking caps children, because this is where it gets even more confusing. Mister Friedman has repeatedly reported that an L.A. based investor named Jason Castero has put $46,000,000 into an escrow account and will likely be one of the bidders standing on the steps of the Santa Barbara County courthouse on May 14.

However Mr. Plum, who claims to have connections at Fortress, says he's quite certain the foreclosure sale won't happen and there is another LA-based investment group that is NOT headed up by Jason Castero who is also making a play to purchase the property directly from The White Lady...that is IF the beleaguered and financially strapped Gloved One will sell the property.

Here's the thing: Your Mama has a very, very difficult time believing that Fortress would be in any mood to want to work with Mister Jackson on this long defaulted on $24,500,000 loan. We simply can't figure out how a refinance on the 2,600 acre ranch is in their best interest particularly if they know that this Castero fellow and perhaps another group of cash rich investors are chomping at the bit to buy the property.

Mister Plum tells Your Mama that it's going down this way because "Mister Jackson does not play that way," referring to the foreclosure and auction bizness. But with all due respect to Mister Plum, Neverland Ranch is already in foreclosure and Mister Jackson really isn't in any position to pull the real estate strings and play any way anymore. It all seems to have moved far beyond his ability to control the situation and call the shots, much as he might like to, of course

So then we'll all have to sit tight until the scheduled May 14 auction draws near and then see how all this rumor and gossip will sort itself out and into a place of truth and reality.

Photo/Sculpture: Jeff Koons' Michael Jackson and Bubbles (1986) via World of Art

Mary J. Blige Goes Big in Sadde River

BUYER: Mary J. Blige
LOCATION: Saddle River Road, Saddle River, NJ
PRICE: $13,900,000 (asking)
SIZE: 18,250 square feet (approx.), 8 bedrooms, 8 full and 3 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: The ultimate estate! This magnificent stone and stucco country French manor features approx. 18,250 square feet of luxurious living space. Located on 4.2 beautiful acres, this one-of-a-kind estate features the ultimate in design and craftsmanship. This remarkable home offers the very best in luxury: huge gourmet chef's kitchen w/ fireplace, great reception rooms for entertaining, incredible master suite, movie theater with seating for fourteen, wine tasting room, fitness center, indoor basketball court, walk-out lower level, elevator, to all floors, huge swimming pool, full service cabana, 6 car and so much more! Truly Pinnacle's most spectacular estate!

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: According to the NY Daily News–and about 1000 other print and online gossip columns–wigged out, blinged up and fur wrapped hip hop chanteuse Mary J. Blige and her record-industry executive huzband Kendu Isaacs recently forked over $12,300,000 to purchase a monstrous mansion in swanky and suburban Saddle River, NJ. Your Mama knows some of the more pessimistic children are in a deep and existential panic about the real estate market and the availability, or lack of availability, of big mortgages. However don't any of you chicken littles out there need to wring your worried hands and fret that the Blige/Isaacs suffered any trouble or trauma securing a fat mortgage for their new crib because children, they paid cash. That's right, C.A.S.H., cash.

Many of you children prolly think all rich and famous folks pay cash for their cribs, digs and nests, however, it's actually less common than you might think. Some of you kids might be flabbergasted and flummoxed by just how many super rich celebs and bizness bigwigs service major mortgages of 4, 8 and 10 million clams. And more.

According to The Daily News and listing information for the 4.2 acre property, the Bronx born "Queen of Hip Hop Soul" drove a hard bargain for the newly built 18,250 square foot (approx.) post-Euro-modern-chateau-ish suburban sprawler. At one point, the property was listed at $17,000,000 and later reduced to $13,900,000 before Miz Blige and Mister Isaacs walked in with their big bundle of cash boodle and managed to convince the developer/seller to agree to a sale price of $12,300,000 for the newly constructed home.

Initially Your Mama was not able to come up with any photos of the property. Then we put dog with a bone researcher B.S. Beaverman on the case and luckily for all the hungry children, she turned up several photos and a floor plan. Everyone bow down to The Beaverman.

According to the floor plan, which Your Mama can not guarantee is 100% accurate to what was actually built, the first floor includes a library, a living room, a billiard room, a great room (which is really just a larger second living room) and a gallery/loggia with built in shelves which Your Mama thinks might be a nice spot for soo-blime Miz Blige to display her gold records and eight (eight!) Grammys. The family quarters include a hexagonal breakfast room and cozy family room, a commodious kitchen where Miz Blige's private chef could easily whip up a meal for 20 or 40 friends, and a maids room and bath next to the garage.

Upstairs the sprawling master suite is accessed by a large and grandiose circular stair case and includes a private sitting room with fireplace, a small terrace and dual bathrooms and walk in closets. Your Mama has to wonder if Miz Blige will be installing a temperature controlled fur closet for her extensive collection of animal pelts, a feature she could make certainly make good use of, but one we're quite certain the PETA people would have a hissy fit over. At the other end of the second floor are the family bedrooms which can also be accessed by a second separate stair tower. We count three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom and walk in closet, a "learning center," and a two room guest apartment with a wet bar and a large bathroom. The listing for the property state the house includes 8 bedrooms and a whopping 8 full and 3 half bathrooms, so we can't be sure if the "learning center" remains in the final floor plan or if it was turned into another bedroom.

Listing information also reveals that the house is extremely well equipped to house someone who requires such unnecessary and dee-luxe amenities as five fireplaces, an elevator servicing all three floors, two laundry rooms, a bar, fitness center, wine tasting room (because only poor people taste wine in the kitchen don't you know), a 14 seat home theater and a private indoor basketball court in the basement.

The grounds include parking for 6 cars, a large swimming pool with a full service cabana, a "grand terrace" at the back of the house for summer time entertaining and 4.2 acres of manicured grounds. According to The Daily News Miz Blige and her huzband, whom she credits with helping her get her past drug issues under control, plans to make some additions/alterations that will allow her to squeeze her tour bus on to the property as well as beef up the security. And children, Your Mama should not need to tell you that the security at this estate will likely be extensive and state of the art, so don't get any crazy notions about driving out to Saddle River hoping to catch sight of Miz Blige as she glides in and out of her electronic drive gates because you can be assured you will be video taped looking like a damn fool with your digital camera stuck to your face.

The listing agent for the property denied any knowledge of the buyer's identity (natch), and Your Mama was unable to verify the sale through property and title records. However, local source told The Daily News that, "Everybody knows Mary J. Blige bought the house." Well, we got not reason to disbelieve anyone, but this is not Your Mama's first time at the celebrity real estate gossip fair, so we'll stick to being a wee bit skeptical until the all the paper work is filed with the local authorities, and you should too.

No offense to all you filthy rich Bergen County Bobs and Bettys, but Your Mama, who freely admits to not having $12,000,000 for any house, would rather amputate our own leg with a rusty nail than drive our big BMW home to gigantic mansion like this in suburban New Jersey. But that is of no matter because plenty of rich and famous folks aspire to and drop big bucks to acquire large and lavish houses in the upscale Saddle River area. Other residents in the area are said to include hip hop honcho Wyclef Jean, the curiously named rapper Ja Rule, professional basketballer Vince Carter, actor Danny Aiello, novelist Mary Higgins Clark, and rapper turned preacher Rev Run, whose Saddle River residence was is still being offered for sale at $5,500,000. And of course, who could forget the mind boggling 35,000 square foot House of Bling that (finally) dee-vorcing moguls Russell and Kimora Lee Simmons called home in happier times that remains for sale with an optimistic $23,888,000 asking price.

It appears from property records and a well connected source we call The Shaggy Dog that Your Mama keeps in our arsenal of tipsters that Miz Blige currently lives on Loman Court in a town Your Mama has never heard of and will probably never go called Cresskill, NJ. Records show that the 1.1 acre property was purchased in June of 2001 for $1,950,000. The Shaggy Dog tells us that Miz Blige is well known among her neighbors for having a large car carrier block the street when she and her entourage decamp en masse to her Los Angeles rental property. We also find addresses for Miss Blige for a modest house on Donald Drive in New Rochelle that we're told was purchased for Mama Blige. We also find an address for Miss Blige at the City Spire building on West 56th Street in Manhattan, but it appears that might be an address for the office of one of her people rather than a private residence for the always well turned out Miz Blige.

Anyhoo, this ladee has impressively pulled herself up by her Bronx born bootstraps and with raw talent, intense determination and sheer force of will has put herself in the enviable financial position to plunk down a huge amount of money for the house of her dreams. So while we may think the house is too big and too uglee, who are we to rain on Miz Blige's real estate dreams? That said, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter sincerely wish Miz Blige and her man all the best and no more drama in their new home.

Enrique Murciano Above Hollywood Boulevard

SELLER: Enrique Murciano
LOCATION: Hillside Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,795,000
SIZE: 2,123 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Stunning gated house with Hotel Bel Air vibe. Grand living room with gorgeous high-beamed ceiling. Marvelous master with romantic sitting room-sized balcony great for reading the morning paper. Wonderful eat-in kitchen. Outdoor balcony awesome for dining. Two additional guest bedrooms plus office. Two fabulous patios open to the swimmer's pool and grassy area. Incredibly charming.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: If Your Mama is being honest, and we always are, we didn't know who this Enrique Murciano person is until we looked up his resume on the Internet Movie Data Base. Turns our he's a scruffy faced and squinty eyed Cuban-American hottie who landed several small film roles (Speed 2, Traffic, Black Hawk Down) before securing a regular role on television drama Without a Trace where he's been acting off his cute keister and earning a good living since 2002.

A little further research on the internets and we learn that good looking Mister Murciano has a thing for cooking, cars, motorcycles and moe-dells, natch. Super moe-dells to be more precise. Since his long term love affair with Miss Molly Sims went kaput in 2007 it's rumored and whispered that the Latino lover has been hooking up with Victoria's Secret panty princess Angela Lindvall, who still manages to look dy-no-mite marching her mannequin down the runway in her underwear even after popping out two babies.

Anyhoo, Property records reveal that Mister Murciano purchased his modestly sized 2,123 square foot house just above Hollywood Boulevard back in March of 2004 for $1,425,000. Listing information tells us the house has 3 bedrooms an 2.5 bathrooms as well as an office space. Very tall hedges and a sliding electric gate stretch across the front for maximum privacy and maximum privacy is a good thing in our real estate book even if you don't have the paps on your tail.

Your Mama recognizes this house could use a bit of curb appeal assistance (the white garage door is a bit of an eyesore, isn't it?). But children, Your Mama freely confesses that we are smitten with this house. Do we like the strange pattern made with the pavers in the driveway? Absolutely not. How do we feel about some of the dark paint colors? Icky but easily changed. Would we leave the glass block, brass fixtures and rose pink counter tops in the master bathroom? Oh hell no! But given that Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter prefer a home that does not require a terlit scrubber be up an in our bizness 27 hours a day and we swoon over shaded and covered out door terraces perfect for escaping the blistering Southern California sun, it should be no surprise that we're thinking we should be calling our man at Smith Barney.

We love the large and long living room with it's classic California peaked ceiling and cozy fireplace surrounded by bookshelves (not pictured) and although we would not make the same choices in counter tops and cabinetry, we can deal with the smallish kitchen until such time as it's time to rip it out and start anew. The secondary bedrooms appear to be on the wee side, but who wants to encourage guests to stay longer than a few nights with large comfortable guest suites? No offense friends and family, but not Your Mama.

But it's really the back yard and the outdoor spaces that have Your Mama considering a call to our banker and hunting for our checkbook in the bottom of our beat up Louis Vuitton document carrier. Yes children, we know the yard is small, particularly for all you real estate size queens who feel hemmed in unless there's an acre of lawn out back. However, there's just enough grass for our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly to piddle in peace, a petit pool perfect for plunging on warm days and a soothing spa in which the Dr. Cooter can camp out with a nice bottle of wine after a long time setting people heads right.

And let's not forget the three covered patios that provide perfect and quiet spots to lounge around in the shade sipping gine and tonics, flipping through the gossip glossies and re-reading David Foster Wallace short stories.

Normally Your Mama does not get into discussing the hard working real estate agents who list and sell all these celebrity homes in the finer zip codes across the country, but Mister Murciano's gal deserves a shout out. Her name is Sharona Alperin and you might recognize her name because in her dewy youth a band called The Knack recorded a hit song called My Sharona that was written about her. Yes puppies, turns out Sharona was indeed a living, breathing and very young gurl. Your Mama can't help but to love that sort of sideways celebrity...she's not really famous, yet how many children can still sing the refrain from that song? My Sharona was the single on the very first album that our Sister Woman ever purchased with chore money and between the two of us we played the damn song on her portable record player until the grooves in the record were done worn away.

Anyhoo, we wish Mister Murciano well as he moves on to bigger and better digs. Now leave us alone so Your Mama can call our man at Smith Barney.

UPDATE: Sidney Kimmel

In some parts of sunny Florida the real estate market is in the terlit. In fact, some developers in the less desirable zip codes are practically giving away newly built houses to anyone with twelve dollars and a pulse. However, down in posh Palm Beach there seem to be plenty of buyers at the very tippy top of the purchasing pool.

It was only late February 2008 when octogenarian apparel titan and quasi successful film producer Sidney Kimmel pushed his Thierry Despont designed ocean front pile onto the market with a breathtaking $81,500,000 asking price and already the house is rumored and reported to be under contract for a number above $75,000,000.

All the hoity toity and high class real estate agents involved in the spine tingling deal are mum on who the big bucks buyer is, but listing agent Paulette Koch is on record with the Palm Beach Daily News as saying that there were at least 20 qualified parties who eyeballed the 32,316 square foot limestone clad colossus. Now here's where Your Mama recommends the children hold on to their britches because according to Miz Koch numerous offers were presented in the last few weeks. Numerous! For an $81,500,000 damn house!

Miz Koch, well known around Palm Beach as one of the finest and most successful real estate agents plying her trade up and down Ocean Boulevard, says that other interested parties included celebs, hedge hogs, stinking rich sports figures, a Saudi prince (who you know has more than enough money to buy this place and then brazenly knock it down), as well as Fortune 500 CEOs, Europeans with favorable exchange rates "and other captains of industry." Naturally, the dignified Miz Koch didn't call anyone a hedge hog or stinking rich. But Your Mama did. Yes we did.

Anyhoo, it's only a matter of time before the name of the buyer is leaked and all the real estate gossips go berserk trying to be the first one to report and confirm the name. In the meantime let's take out our bedazzled abacus and spend a few minutes quietly figuring out the mind numbing yearly taxes.

Jessica Simpson Says No

The ever present cameras of gossip juggernaut TMZ caught Jessica Simpson yesterday as she exited a Chili's restaurant in Encino...let's just take a moment of silence to breathe that in children.

A damn Chili's restaurant in Encino? Anyhoo, when asked if she bought a big house in Nashville the singer/ack-tress/former reality television star said "No, absolutely not."

Well then, maybe the gurl's got the good sense not to buy a 10,000 square foot mansion in a town she doesn't actually live after all.

Michael J. Fox Loves Him Some Quogue

BUYER: Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan
LOCATION: Quogue Street, Quogue, NY
PRICE: $6,300,000
SIZE: 7,000 square feet (approx.), 6 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: About 100 years ago Your Mama was chatting with a very nice gentleman we'll call Freddy Flapjaw who swore up and down that Emmy winning actor Michael J. Fox was looking to buy a multi-million dollar house in Quogue, a sleepy and (some might say) staid village at the western end of the Hamptons that is wall to wall with old school estates carpeted with vast lawns and anchored by gigantic shingled summer "cottages."

Your Mama unable to confirm or deny the "rumor" about Mister Fox's purchase at the time, but Freddy Flapjaw said, "You'll see." Turns out ol' Flapjaw was indeed speaking the truth and according to the real estate gossip gurls at Newsday, the Parkinson's afflicted actor and his actress wifey Tracy Pollan recently plunked down $6,300,000 for a newly built shingled "cottage" on tony Quogue Street smack in the geographic center of the village.

Having spent many a-summer day frolicking in the riptide at Dolphin Beach on Dune Road, Your Mama knows thing or two about this particular neck of the Hamptons. The general consensus among summer people in that area is that if you want glitz and glamour, keep driving your shiny late model Mercedes further down Montauk Highway to East Hampton where the restaurants are filled to capacity with perfectly bronzed famous folks in designer duds paying big bucks to eat gore-may meals. If you prefer competitive cribbage played pool side, putting 5,000 piece puzzles together on the screened porch, and being surrounded by old and quiet money, then Quogue just might be a finer fit for you.

The new Fox/Pollan property reflects that special brand of Hamptons hodge podge architecture where a dignified and shingled Dutch Gambrel marries a quirky Victorian ladee who secretly has an affair with a giant farmhouse who paws her with his wide porches. Throw in all the mod-ren conveniences and the result is a sprawling 7,000 square foot house with gleaming cherry floors (they're cherry, right?), acres of simple but pleasing mill work, seven fireplaces, a wine cellar, a commodious master suite with two fireplaces, a sitting room/office and private water view terrace, and a gunite pool with a pool side guest cottage all sitting on 1.1 acres of meticulously maintained and supernaturally green grass.

With six en suite bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms, the Fox/Pollan summer house should provide plenty of room for the four Fox children. However with just four bedrooms on the second floor, the Fox twins will either have to bunk together or one of the older Fox children will need to claim the bedroom on the ground floor or the one above the garage that is accessed by a private stair off the kitchen...which is without a doubt the room Your Mama would have chosen as a teenager because it features a small private balcony perfect for a rebel teen to puff ciggies and other illegal substances. As an aside and for the record, Your Mama has long quit smoking cigarettes and so should you. No offense intended to any of you smokestacks, but it's a dirty, nasty, filthy, stinky and seriously bad habit that invites and even happily welcomes The Dreaded Cancer.

Freddie Flapjaw also whispered to Your Mama that the Fox/Pollan clan already has some residential roots in the area having forked over large sums of cash to rent a large house in Quogue the last few summers. Therefore, Your Mama imagines the sometimes wary and buttoned up Quoglians will be happy to welcome the Fox family with open arms this summer just as long as his celebrity doesn't attract any long lensed paps or freakos who think it's cute to sit out front of his house in their Hondas hoping for a glimpse of the bathing suited family.

Seriously children, don't do that...don't go to any of these celebs houses that Your Mama discusses. These people don't need you beating on their door acting like a damn fool thinking you're so clever for finding them. That just makes you an asshole. Don't think it does? Just ask anyone who's famous what they think of those "fans."

Anyhoo, if Your Mama is being honest, and we always are, Mister Fox is not really on our real estate radar so we're not sure where else Mister Fox and Miz Pollan own property. We do find some indication in property records that they own a Park Avenue apartment in New York City as well as a large house in pretty and pretty rural Sharon, Connecticut. It's also quite possible the Fox/Pollans own property in his native Canada and it's a pretty good guess they own a manse in one of the better zip codes in the Los Angeles area.

Is Jessica Simpson Going Country?

BUYER: Jessica Simpson (reportedly)
LOCATION: Northumberland, Nashville, TN
PRICE: $3,470,000
SIZE: 10,925 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 8 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: This home is called The Queen of Northumberland. Magnificent stone work on cornices, window trim and entry door. Tennis court. Swimming pool. The perfect home theatre. Fabulous landscaping.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Rumors and reports have long swirled that fast fading pop/reality/film star Jessica Simpson was packing up her hair extensions and decamping to Nashville, TN in order to work on a country music album. Yesterday the Nashville Post reported that Miss Simpson may have forked over the big bucks for a fancy place to park her pick up truck and cowboy boots. Much as we'd like to say otherwise, Your Mama does not know much more than what was reported in the Nashville Post, which is that maybe Miss Simpson bought a big house. Here's where things stand:

A giant house in the fancy gated Northumberland community just outside of Nashville recently sold for $3,470,000. The trust that purchased the 2-acre spread is represented by well known Music Row money manager Mary Ann McCready, a ladee whose name appears on property records for all sorts of rich and famous country music folks including new Nashvillian Kelly Clarkson and Aussie ex-pats Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman, who Your Mama hears through the gossip grapevine might also be on the look out for a Los Angeles outpost.

It's unclear to Your Mama why the good folks at the Nashville Post think it might be Miss Simpson who purchased this house and not one of the other many music celebs Miz McCready represents, but they do. Perhaps they know more than they are saying?

Anyhoo, with the help of Tennessee Tatler and Nashville House Whore, two of Your Mama's country crooning tipsters on the ground in Nashville, we have learned a little something about the house in question. Located in a gated enclave that is secured like Fort Knox, the 10,925 square foot house known The Queen of Northumberland features a whopping twen-tee rooms spread across three floors of living space. Unless the entire Simpson clan and Miss Simpson's hair weave honcho Ken Paves are picking up and moving to Nashville full time, it is Your Mama's humble and meaningless opinion this palatial pile is entirely too much house for one gal and her round robin of male suitors (currently quarterback Tony Romo from the Dallas Cowboys).

Listing information for the sizable and stately manor indicates there are 7 bedrooms, 8 full and 2 half bathrooms (can the children say live-in terlit scurbber three times fast?), a living room that measures a gigantic 32' x 21' and a 23' long dining room. Other rooms in the manse include a den with a cozy fireplace, a home thee-ay-ter, and a thirty foot long hobby room. Now, what kind of hobbies do the children suppose Miss Simpson has? Scrap booking? Model trains? Quilting?

The Nashville House Whore, who swears he's been up in this mansion, whispered to Your Mama that it's a "nice crib," in a very secure "gated ghetto" with amazing grounds, but that the interior day-core was "dated and very old white lady" with lots of antiques. Sounds like Miss Simpson will need to drop another bundle on a nice gay decorator to do the place up properly.

Although the gated community includes a private club house with tennis courts and swimming pool for all the other rich residents, The Queen of Northumberland quite naturally has it own pool and tennis court which means that Miss Jessica and Kenny Paves need not fraternize and frolic with the other well booted music industry residents who live in the ritzy enclave if they do not wish...not that Miss Paves ever gets her hair wet in a swimming pool. We tease.

As far as we know, and property records reflect, Miss Simpson continues to own her 5,500 square foot Beverly Hills house on "guard gated" Lime Orchard Road that she bought for $5,275,000 in the aftermath of her dee-vorce from ex-boy band beau-hunk Nick Lachey.

If all this rumor and gossip is true and Miss Simpson did indeed by this big house in suburban Nashville, we sincerely hope her new country album does a lot better than her last few film and music projects because with a couple of multi-million dollar mortgages and a daddy-manager to support, gurl needs a serious income. Good luck hunny. Your Mama wishes you all the best, 'cause all due respect, yer gonna need it.

Next stop, The Surreal Life. Oh! Ouch! Did we say that out loud?

YOUR MAMAS UPDATE: Somehow, researcher extraordinaire B.S. Beaverman located a small cache of photos of this house that we did not have when we first discussed the property. To be honest, we don't know where she got them or how, but they are nicely done photos that Your Mama imagines cost the real estate agent a good slice of her commission. We are of the opinion that other than the soo-blime and so-fisticated color palettes in the master bedroom and bathroom, Miss Jessica's nice gay decorator has his work cut out for him.

We do sincerely hope that it wasn't Miss Jessica that bought this house but rather some other more established country music star who has a family to fill up those big rooms. Can you imagine how lonesome and forlorn Miss Jessica would look sitting all alone in that family room knitting or sitting down to dinner alone in that dining room? Yikes. Please, Miss Jessica, tell Your Mama you have more sense than to buy a 10,000 square foot house in Nashville.

Monday Mish Mash

Your Mama has loads of properties lined up to discuss but before we begin Your Mama needs to clear out some of our over flowing inbox and voicemail that is chock full of juicy celebrity real estate tidbits and updates.

1.
After posting our little screed and link over to This Is London that presented a long (but apparently not complete) list of properties owned by Sir Paul McCartney, Your Mama received a flood of email and phone calls, not the least of which was a communication by the always high-larious Kenny Kissentell. Mister Kissentell, a man who roams the streets and byways of Celebrityville each and every day, whispered to Your Mama that the house on Heather Road in the Bev Hills that reportedly belongs to Sir Paul does indeed belong to Sir Paul...it's just held in a trust with someone else's name on it.

Anyhoo, not only did Kenny K. wax rhapsodic about the long and curving driveway that curls ups to a "tree-d out country cottage with ranch style dressing," he went on to tattle that when Prius driving Sir Paul is in residence, a phalanx of security descends on the itty bitty and sleepy side street. As if that were not irksome enough, Kenny K. swears to Your Mama that the security goons question all the other ritzy residents of Heather Road as they attempt to slide their Mercedes' onto to the block. How annoying would that be when you've got ice cream melting in the truck?

2.
The splashed across the front page of the New York Post story about insanely rich professional club swinger Tiger Woods dropping $65,000,000 or so on a high-fallutin' Hamptons hideaway just won't die.

Although the lucky listing agent from Sotheby's International Realty and Mister Woods' people deny deny deny that the golfer and his blond wifey Elin are the buyers of the gigantic Gin Lane oceanfront estate, the NY Post people are sticking to their story and they have recently received a little bit of back-up from Long Island Business News blogger David Winzelberg who reported that his East End sources think Tiger Woods is indeed the buyer.

Oh dear. This is really getting messy isn't it?

Mister Winzelberg goes on to report that the behind the hedges scuttlebutt is that retail fashion icon Ralph Lauren may have floated an offer for the property in his hunt for "something old on the ocean," and hedge hog billionaire Eddie Lampert is rumored to have offered $60,000,000 for the fatabulous 5.9 acre property but apparently lost out to the higher bidding buyer, whoever that may be.

Along with all the other real estate gossips, this whole Woods bizness is driving Your Mama and the Doctor Cooter to the drink, so let's hope that the truth comes out before we have to call Betty Ford and beg for a group rate.

3.
So, what's up with Avril "The Spitter" Lavigne's house in Mulholland Estates? Anyone? Ever since the pop princess married that dude from Sum 41 and bought Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler's old digs in the gated Bel Air Crest community, she's had zero luck in unloading her old mansion in the gated Mulholland Estates community.

The asking price started all the way up near $7,000,000 and was last seen at $5,800,000 after at least two deals went kaput on the 6,894 square foot house. Then last week, (or was it the week before?) the listing went poof. Vah-moose. Ba-bye.

Is this just another attempt to re-jigger the listing to attract new buyers or did someone fi-na-lee sign on the dotted line to purchase the property? We hope the latter, because to be quite honest, Your Mama is tired of losing sleep over Miss La-Veen's real estate fiasco.

4.
You just gotta love the Jackson family, who really stick together when times are tough and the press corps is bearing down and asking questions. As some of you may have seen or read, Jermaine Jackson has been out yakking to the paps at TMZ that Neverland Ranch will be sold "over my dead body" and that the much publicized foreclosure on the Santa Ynez Valley spread is a "myth."

Whaaat?

Jermaine hunny, we got nuthin' against you. In fact, we don't even know who you are or what you do for your money. But we do know that you should listen to Your Mama for a bleedin' minute before you go out flapping yer yaw to the press and sounding like a damn fool again. The foreclosure and the scheduled March 19 auction date (now moved to May 14) can be confirmed with public records on file at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse. Read that again slow baby and make sure you understand the words. On. File. At. The. Santa. Barbara. County. Courthouse.

If you still prefer to suffer the illusion that the foreclosure and impending auction is a "myth," Your Mama recommends you get on the horn right away to the folks at Fortress and try to persuade them into your fantasy land because they are currently planning to auction off your brother's scene of the alleged crime on May 14 unless someone comes up with $24,500,000 (or so) to pay off the loan they hold on the 2,600 acre property.

Call it a hunch, call it an uneducated and a snarky guess, but somehow Your Mama does not imagine Mister Jermaine or any of the other Jackson siblings have or are willing to cough up the big bucks necessary to save their troubled and younger brother's once beloved now busted and broken down Neverland Ranch.

And none of this Neverland Ranch bizness begins to touch on the tawdry tax troubles that surround the family's long time compound in Encino. Word on the real estate gossip street is that Michael, who is the owner of record on the Hayvenhurst Avenue house, is having a devil of time hanging on to that place too.

It's all just so sad children. Sad, sad, sad.

Spend Easter With Sir Paul McCartney's Properties

The Easter Bunny will not be bringing Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter a big basket of hard candies, Peeps and hard boiled eggs this year, but the cotton tailed hopper is bringing us a brand new BMW, so Your Mama has to cut out of here right quick so we can meet the E.B. at the automobile dealership.

None the less, we don't want to leave the children high, dry and hopped up on sugar and blood of the lamb so here's a link to a recent article from This Is London that outlines the impressive real estate holdings of Sir Paul McCartney, who, all due respect, has to be one of the stoopidest men on the planet.

Despite that silly Say Say Say song he sang with Michael Jackson back in the 1980s, Sir Paul is without question a musical genius, a star of the highest magnitude and and an icon who will live on in the hearts and minds of Beatles fans forever. But he's also a dumb ass with hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in assets who married that one-legged ladee without a pre-nup. Your Mama is of the meaningless opinion that the smart, articulate and strong minded Miz Mills suffers from a classic case of Gold Digger and should be ashamed of herself for thinking she's entitled to $50,000,000 after just four years of marriage. However, Sir Paul could have headed this all off at the pass if he had only listened to his hoity toity designer daughter Stella and had Miz Mills sign a damn pre-nup.

The lesson for all your Richie Riches who believe love conquers all is that when it doesn't, you better have a pre-nup or be prepared to pay up.

Anyhoo, according to the folks at This Is London, Sir Paul owns a butt load of high priced residential real estate including several swanky state side properties. There's the the Hamptons house located in low-key Amagansett, a narrow New York City townhouse occupying prime property just off Fifth Avenue, and reportedly, a house in Beverly Hills which our research indicates does not actually belong to Mister McCartney.

The Beverly Hills house that is pictured in the linked article sits tucked away on Heather Road just above Coldwater Canyon Boulevard. The house was formerly owned by fluffy lipped and lovable train wreck Courtney Love who records show sold it on to a buddy of the Beatles. While there is much information that links both George Harrison (who apparently died at this house) and Sir Paul to the property (we understand from Mirakle Mike that Sir Paul does indeed stay at the house when he's bobbing around the West Coast), Your Mama, property records and our wide network of sources have been unable to pin down any 411 that reveals Sir Paul actually owns the house.

Whatever the case, have a look-see at the life of a deep pocketed Beatle and see what you think of Sir Paul's real estate choices.

Get Lost at Harold Perrineau's Place

SELLER: Harold Perrineau
LOCATION: Westbourne Drive, West Hollywood, CA
PRICE: $2,399,000
SIZE: 2,341 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Gated and secluded 2-story Spanish compound with detached 2-story guest house, 3 bedrooms + 3 bath (main home), formal living w/ open beam trusses, formal dining, gourmet kitchen opens to grand family room/media area, numerous serene outdoor entertaining areas with pool & spa.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama was recently corresponding with Mirakle Mike, a proven thoroughbred in our stable of sources and tipsters and a man who knows more than anyone ought to about celebrity real estate. During our exchange, Mirakle Mike casually mentioned that noted television actor Harold Perrineau recently put his West Hollywood house up for sale. The screeching of our brain brakes went off and we cried, "Whaaat!?"

Your Mama adored Mister Perrineau when he well played the wise and wheelchair bound narrator on the heart stopping and libido jumping Oz program, but we did not follow his booty over to Lost where he currently plays a character named Michael Dawson. Although Lost has an almost cult-like following, Your Mama does not tune in to that particular program because it has too many damn characters and too many interweaving plot lines to adequately or simply follow. While we love a big, fat, and wandering novel and we swoon over thoughtful and complex films, we prefer our boob tube programs to be easily absorbed by a brain marinated in a large pitcher of gin and tonics.

Anyhoo, just like Mirakle Mike mentioned, Mister Perrineau and his wifey Brittany have indeed put there Spanish compound on West Hollywood's Westbourne Drive on the market with an asking price of $2,399,000. Property records show the couple only purchased the home in July of 2006 for $2,050,000.

Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter both find the Westbourne Drive location highly desirable. Naturally, Bev Hills Bettys and Hollywood Hills hoes won't care for the not very glitzy flatland location, but it's perfect for a booze imbibing real estate gossip who would like to be able to walk to the Beverly Center food court occasionally, and it also works for the Dr. Cooter who might relish the opportunity to treat all the celebs and starvelets who roll into Cedar Sinai when they're suffering from "exhaustion," "dehydration," and "sleep deprivation."

Property records show the house measures 2,341 and listing information reveals there are three bedrooms and 3 bathrooms in the main house as well as all the normal rooms: living, dining, den/office, eat in kitchen and a good sized family room (with a disturbingly large television and a strangely small juke box). A detached guest house provides an additional bedroom and bathroom which works perfectly for guests who snore too loudly, stay too long and/or for visiting family members who might be too eager to get up in your personal bizness if they were to stay in the main house.

Generally speaking, Your Mama feels quite positively about this house. No puppies, we don't care for the counter tops in the kitchen or the b-grade appliances. We find the dining room day-core is entirely too urban-country for our personal taste, we're not 100% on the stair case but it doesn't hurt our insides, and the master a bathroom is a bit to Russian hotel looking, but we concede it may just be a wacky photo of the room. But day-core aside, this is a house that Your Mam could easily whip into a comfortably stylish home.

Listing information indicates there are numerous and serene outdoor spaces. Your Mama might go a little more contemporary with our patio furniture, but overall we love the semi-tropical courtyard feeling. We're sure some of you with children will say it's disappointing there is any green grass (there is however a patch in the walled and gated front courtyard) and also that the swimming pool is too small to the point of useless. But frankly, Your Mama does not care to have young and loud children swimming in our pool so we're good with the plunge sized pool.

Your Mama hasn't a clue why these Perrineau people would up and leave this house after owning for just two years. Perhaps they want something larger? Maybe they are looking for something more celebrified? Whatever the case we wish them well and look forward to the day that Mister Perrineau once again plies his craft on an easily digestible television program that Your Mama can well understand after tipping a few over.

Le Rêve!

SELLERS: Hubert and Norma Humphrey
LOCATION: Trammel Road, Cumming, GA
PRICE: $45,000,000
SIZE: 47,000 square feet (approx.), 7 bedrooms, 12 full and 11 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Le Rêve! One of the most significant premier estates in the world! This European inspired home was designed by noted architects Norman Askins and sits on 78 gently rolling acres north of Atlanta. The property features a golf course, lake, tennis court, stables, guest house, home theater, 2 lane bowling.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: No children, despite it's extraordinary size and Ritz Carlton like day-core, the pictures above are not of a hotel or a corporate retreat, but rather the private home of Hubert and Norma Humphrey just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. A private home!

According to a recent article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that was forwarded to Your Mama by Georgia Peach, the obviously stinking rich Hubert Humphrey, a former freight train conductor who founded a marketing and mortgage company called World Leadership Group, spent three years building their dream mega-manse called Le Rêve, which was only completed in 2007. For some reason unknown to Your Mama, the Humphreys have already put their recently completed "European inspired" behemoth up for sale with a blistering $45,000,000 price tag.

Perhaps it's just to big for a couple middle aged empty nesters? Imagine that.

Jeezis, Mary and Joseph children, how many times have we seen screamingly rich people spend years and tens of millions of dollars building gigantic residential shrines to their vast wealth only to whip around and put them up for sale before the paint is dry or the staff have time to unpack their uniforms?

The two examples of such real estate excess that come quickly to mind are Fleur de Lys, the silly sized $125,000,000 Saperstein pile in Los Angeles, and Champ d'Or in Denton, TX, the 48,000 square foot residential ree-dick-u-losity that carried a whopping $59,550,000 asking price and is widely rumored to have been (recently) sold. Both properties were quickly flipped back onto the market very shortly after being completed.

The lesson for all you Richie Riches out there who ache and pine for a 40,000+ square foot residence is that herculean houses are generally far too large in which to live comfortably. We didn't say they're too large to entertain on a massive scale or house a few polygamist families, we said they're too large for most people and their immediate family to live comfortably, and there is a radical difference between those things.

Perhaps the best way to absorb the overwhelming magnitude of Le Rêve is by the numbers. Are you ready puppies, because the numbers are a-stounding and have Your Mama reaching for a giant gin and tonic to steady our nerves. Here we go:

Ninety acres of rolling (and mostly manicured) grounds, 47,000 square feet spread over 4 floors, 300 miles of high-tech wiring, 82 rooms, (a shocking) 62 televisions, 7 bedrooms, 23 terlits spread through 12 full and 11 half bathrooms, a 12 car heated and cooled garage, 10 fireplaces, a 4-acre private lake, a 2 lane bowling alley, 2 elevators and a private 18 hole golf course called the Humphrey National. Oh, and the steel and gold leaf front gates weigh 7,800 damn pounds.

Some of the interior spaces, which were done up by Miz Humphrey with a team of three decorators, include a 28 foot long foyer, a spiraling stair case in a rotunda, living and dining rooms, offices, den, exercise room, computer room, a keeping room (whatever that is), library, a family room with at least 4 televisions, a virtual golf room, and a home theater modeled after the Fabulous Fox in downtown Atlanta. And that's not to mention the massage room, the toy train room, and an arcade room. Yikes.

Is it just Your Mama, or do others also think that rotundas are best reserved for civic and commercial structures?

In addition dozens of acres of lawns that surely require a half dozen groundskeepers be mowing 24-hours a day, the extensive and sprawling grounds include an enormous heated swimming pool, pool house, spa, a private playground for the grand kiddies, stables, tennis court, a 1,200 foot long great lawn/allee, (extremely expensive to maintain) formal gardens, and a guest house, because there's simply no room to squeeze guests into the 47,000 square foot main house.

What we really want to know is how much space has been provided for staff because a house this grandiose needs a huge number of full time people to answer the door, scrub the terlits, whip up meals, and to provide directions so that guests will not get lost on their way from one side of the house to the other.

We're not sure how many people in the Atlanta area can afford a $45,000,000 house, not to mention the yearly maintenance and taxes, but did anyone call Elton John, because just might be ready to trade up from his big spread at the Park Place on Peachtree condo tower in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood.

P.S. The house has it's own website. Oh. My. Gawd.

UPDATE: Shelter Island's Shorewood Manor

With the the scent of summer coming on the spring air, real estate obsessed eyes turn towards the Hamptons to see who leases a slice of seaside serenity or plunks down the big bucks for a high priced trophy home. One such estate looking for a new owner with deep pockets, a world class architect, and a really good nice gay decorator is Shelter Island's Shorewood Manor, a graceful grandma of a sprawler that sits on 8.5 prime bluff top acres overlooking the Great Peconic Bay.

Your Mama first discussed this aging beauty back when it first hit the market in April of 2007 with an optimistic asking price of $33,000,000. We then discussed the property again in September of 2007 when the listing was ripped from one upper crust brokerage and given to another with a may-jer price reduction to $24,900,000. Your Mama still thinks that number is optimistic, but it's also far more realistic than the initial asking price.

Formerly owned by former New York State governor Hugh Carey, the 8,500 square foot (approx.) summer house with 11 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms sat empty for many years before it was purchased in early 2007 by a local man named Chris Knight for just $10,000,000. Mister Knight, seizing an opportunity to make a few million easy dollars, quickly and brazenly flipped the house back on the market at more than three times what he paid after making only minor cosmetic improvements to the house which, quite frankly, is in need of just about everything.

Every couple of weeks Your Mama receives a nice email from a real estate hungry child who wants to know what's happening with the property. Ordinarily, Your Mama does not have any news for little lambs. Until now.

Your Mama hears from a well placed source we call the Shelter Island Snitch that several big name real estate agents are quietly scratching each others eyes out in the hopes of securing the listing if Mister Knight decides to change brokers before the spring/summer buying season gets into full swing. We stress the "if" part because he may in fact chose to leave the listing right where it is.

Snitch also whispered in Your Mama's big ear that the perfectly private property has been eyeballed and circled by a number of hedge hogs, natch, several developers, natch again, as well as a prominent political family, a famous designer of beads and baubles, as well as a professional sports figure, who the Snitch declined to name.

Maybe Tiger Woods should have a look-see at Shorewood Manor since it seems the swimming in money professional golfer didn't buy that $65,000,000 Southampton spread after all. Plenty of room for sand traps, roughs and greens here. And, perhaps even more enticing, down to earth Shelter Island is fancy free of prying paps trying to stick their long lenses through the high hedges.

UPDATE: Veronica Hearst

According to the gossips at Page Six of the New York Post, the Palm Beach palazzo that poor Veronica Hearst lost in the public and nasty tangle of foreclosure has a new owner, and it's not professional golfer Greg Norman who attended the foreclosure auction and was rumored to be interested in the ostentatious 52-room Italian Renaissance style pile.

Although we have not been able to independently verify the information, the new owner of Villa Venezia is reported to be filthy rich Washington D.C. based financier Franklin Haney who bought the sprawling ocean front behemoth from New Stream Secured Capitol. The children will recall that New Stream took ownership of the property after Miz Hearst defaulted on a $45,000,000 loan that was (at least in part) secured against the Palm Beach property.

Mister Haney reportedly plans to embark on a restoration of Villa Venezia and Your Mama imagines The Widow Hearst and her clutch of high priced attorneys and accountants are working overtime to ensure that New York City socialite hangs on to her pa-lay-shul Fifth Avenue co-op and her 45-acre estate in New Castle, NY even though she still owes New Stream millions more than the sale of Villa Venezia brought in.

Jesse Metcalfe Heads for the Hills of Beverly

BUYER: Jesse Metcalfe
LOCATION: N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $2,200,000
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: This extraordinary home has been completely remodeled with the finest materials possible. Beautiful hardwood floors, custom cabinetry, hand-hewn tiles, leaded glass windows, and exquisite stonework inside and out. The backyard has a spa with a cascading waterfall, koi pond, built-in barbecue, exotic landscaping and grassy area. A separate guest house w/ its own parking & private yard.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The hardworking Mister Big Time announced the other day that former cougar screwin' Desperate Housewives gardener Jesse Metcalfe unloaded his Rodgerton Drive house in the Hollywood Hills. Because we like Mister Big Time so much (and we just can't help ourself), we'd like to offer him a friendly assist on the sale price of Mister Metcalfe's crib and some additional information on the sexed up and usually shirtless actor's recent move to the hills of 90210.

From a source we call Jim Nasium, Your Mama learned that the recently rehabbed and meretricious Mister Metcalfe managed to sell his Mediterranean style mini-mansion for it's full asking price of $1,495,000. The children will recall that Your Mama discussed Metcalfe's former digs back in mid-January and we were not entirely complimentary about muscular Mister Metcalfe's mostly misguided day-core.

There was much speculation and snickering about where Mister Metcalfe and his beefy gay porn body might settle once his Hollywood Hills house sold. Some opined that he might move his bubble booty to London where is alleged ladee friend Nadine Coyle lives. Others figured he might be headed back to wherever he came from since his career appeared to nose dive after leaving Desperate Housewives.

But children, according to the Internet Movie Data Base, Mister Metcalfe has actually been quite bizzy making movies. Movies! Which explains why hot stuff was able to move his tighty-whities on up to a new multi-million dollar nest in Beverly Hills. According to the wickedly well informed Lucy Spillerguts, and with the help of Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills, Your Mama has learned that Mister Metcalfe recently forked over $2,200,000 to purchase a freshly renovated 3 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom house with a detached guest house on N. Beverly Drive, a long two lane canyon road lined with homes that could be easily considered uneventful. One snobby Bev Hills type with whom Your Mama is acquainted even hissed at us that N. Beverly Drive is where people live who lust for a 90210 zip code but can't afford the real Beverly Hills. Oh. Ouch.

Property records show Mister Metcalfe's new casa measures in at a modest 2,000 square feet. But what house is 2,000 square feet exactly? We suspect the house is around 2,000 square feet. Listing information for the property indicates the Mediterraean-ish style house includes living and dining rooms, a den, family room, two fireplaces, and a driveway that features a rather upsetting stone inlay of a star, a priceless irony that needs no comment from Your Mama's corner.

Out back, amid the "exotic landscaping," is a built-in barbecue, lovely stone patios which will provide quiet and contemplative spots for Mister Metcalfe to ponder the nothingness. Up the hillside at the back of the property and reached by a curving stone stairway, is a sunken spa where, if inclined, Mister Metcalfe can entertain all the plastic boobed Hollywood hussies who foolishly think fooling around with Mister Metcalfe might actually score them a meeting with someone reasonably important in "The Industry." People are funny, aren't they.

Anyhoo, the interior spaces of this house make Your Mama feel a little queasy, but we're no going to go there in this discussion since the furniture and knick-knacks are not, and we repeat are not the choices of Mister Metcalfe, but rather the previous owner, who is not a celebrity as far as we know.

LeAnn Rimes' Nashville Nest

SELLER: LeAnn Rimes and Dean Sheremet
LOCATION: Hillsboro Pike, Nashville, TN
PRICE: $2,395,000
SIZE: 7,034 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We're going out on a limb with this one children, so if Your Mama has to put up a retraction, you'll remember we warned you that this discussion is currently based on rumor and gossip received from a well placed source.

Last week, the Naughty Nashvillian whispered in Your Mama's big ear that country crooning sensation LeAnn Rimes is about to put her Nashville, TN house on the market for around $2,300,000. Back in February of 2002, when she was a just bee-stung and Inuit-eyed canary of 19, little lovable LeAnn married herself off to a toothy and slim hipped dancer named Dean Sheremet. Now children, we know there is a lot of lurid speculation floating around the internets about Mister Sherement and his allegedly ambiguous carnal desires, but much to your potential chagrin, Your Mama will not be going there this morning. Well, okay, maybe we'll go there a little.

Property records show that in April of 2003, the newly wedded youngsters, barely old enough to vote and still too young to drink liquor legally, bought their stone faced luv nest for $1,700,000. All due respect to Mister Sheremet, but dancers just don't usually make very much money, so call it a hunch, but Your Mama imagines that it was mostly Miss Rimes' pile of money that was sunk into the down payment. Any of you people who have a problem with that can just put your old fashioned gender role notions back into your old fashioned pocketbooks. In this day and age where women work and earn their own boo-coo dinero, there ain't nuthin' wrong with a woman choosing to take care of her man the way that Miss Rimes does Mister Sheremet and all his hair gel.

While there isn't currently a listing for the property, good ol' Naughty Nashvillian sent us a cache of photos of the Rimes residence which sits on three flat acres out on bizzy Hillsboro Pike in an area south of Nashville that crawls with big name country-western stars. In fact, Australian cowboy Keith Urban and his frozen faced Australian actress wifey Nicole Kidman recently unloaded their barely lived in Nashville digs around the corner on gated Bancroft Place for $2,360,000.

Good heavens children, why would someone with Miss Rimes' big ol' bank account want to live on such a bizzy damn road? Your Mama confesses that we are not that familiar with the highways and bi-ways of Nashville, but this road has got to be bumper to bumper with speeding cars if it's called a "Pike," right?

We know that some of you uppity design snobs are going to scream and yowl that this place looks like the decorating version of dog vomit, and certainly this kind of upscale Pottery Barn style day-core is not Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's cup of sweet tea. However, we think that these two, and their nice gay decorator, have done a fine job in that the house looks livable and doesn't feature much that jumps up our day-core hackles or works on our gag reflex. Well, except for that upsetting wallpaper in the kitchen and that big ass romantic portrait of the the loving couple hanging up in the family room. We know many of you young married types love these big glossy things, but unfortunately, Your Mama takes a more cynical view of these saccharine and over posed portraits of wedded bliss.

Anyhoo, property records show the Rimes residence measures in at a grand ol' 7,034 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms, which means that baby faced Dean must spend a great deal of time on his hands and knees scrubbing all half dozen of them terlits every week while the talented Missus brings home the big bacon working the stages and stadiums around the U.S. of A. We tease, we josh.

In addition to all the bedrooms and bathrooms, the domicile includes a big brick circular drive with loads of parking for guests, a large eat in kitchen that connects to the family room with its impressively coffered ceiling, and a "fun room" upstairs that includes one of those stoopid pool tables. Then there is the "man room" a long, narrow room stuffed full of leather club furniture and a lofty beamed ceiling. These two country cuties room is called the "man room" because Miss LeAnn personally picked out a giant portrait of a nekkid Asian ladee that's hanging over the fireplace and has generously placed a Playboy magazine or two around so that when dancing Dean needs a vagina visual, he's he's something at hand to reference.

Not to get all HGTV on your asses, but first floor master bedroom's focal point is clearly that fireplace stuffed full of candles that we think is meant to add an element of romance. And let's not forget the big four poster marital bed that apparently does not get as much bouncing action as horndog Dean might like, at least that what he says, repeatedly, on an old MTV Cribs episode you can see on the YouTube.

Out back there's plenty of room for a pool, spa and tennis court, but alas, there property currently offers none of those things. Your Mama doesn't imagine the usually touring Miss LeAnn has much time for flopping around in a pool or flinging a racket on a tennis court anyway.

If indeed the Naughty Nashvillian is correct (and we think he is) and Miss LeAnn and Dean are selling up and moving on, Your Mama has to wonder, why? At 7,000+ square feet, this house is surely comfy and large enough to raise up a few kids when they get ready to have them. But then again, perhaps it would be safer to live in a house where the Rimes/Sheremet offspring can't so easily and disastrously sing and dance their way onto a Pike. Whatever the case and wherever these two may next land, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter wish them a happy home

Tiger Woods: Oh No He Dih-ent

Listen children, you can stop emailing Your Mama and leaving snotty little comments regarding the $65,000,000 Hamptons house that it has been widely reported that Tiger Woods purchased.

Because, turns out, he didn't.

At least not according to the his people or the lucky listing agent for the posh property.

UPDATE: Michael Jackson

Hold on to your boots babies, because May 14 marks the day that the lights will finally go out on Neverland Ranch. Your Mama means the figurative lights, of course, because the Pacific Gas & Electric probably turned off most of the real lights at Neverland Ranch long ago.

Anyhoo, over the last few days the always spectacularly informed Mister Roger Friedman, who writes the fantabulous Fox 411 column, dished all kinds of dirt on the doings and the oh no they didn'ts concerning the foreclosure and re-fi fracas surrounding Neverland Ranch. If any of you kids have an unhealthy interest in The White Lady's real estate saga the way Your Mama (and apparently Mister Friedman) does, we strongly suggest you boogie your nosy booty over to Fox 411 to get the 411 on the situation (links above). In the event you don't have that kinda time or inclination, let Your Mama attempt to summarize the scandalous tidbits:

According to Mister Friedman, who is adamant on the matter, Mister Jackson's people were most definitely not able to come to terms with Fortress Investments Group, the angry as a hornet lender who holds the in default $24,500,000 loan secured against Neverland Ranch. Mister Jackson's people were, however, able to push back the foreclosure auction date to May 14 when this whole shenanigans will (hopefully) be resolved on the steps of the Santa Barbara County court house.

Also according to Mister Friedman, the last few weeks of financial finagling have not only been unsuccessful but utter chaos. A clutch of people, who claimed to represent Mister Jackson, sought a private investor to refinance the loan from Fortress. Much to Your Mama's surprise, these folks did somehow manage to find an L.A. based investor named Jason Castero who, all due respect, was foolish enough to put $46,000,000 into an escrow account. Castero's cash was meant to buy the loan from Fortress as well as to perhaps put a few pennies in Mister Jackson's threadbare pockets.

When the group who claimed to represent Mister Jackson informed Mister Castero that they would be skimming $4,600,000 off the top of the escrow account as compensation for their troubles and effort, the talks broke down. Why? Well, according to Mister Friedman, the deal fell apart because it seems Mister Jackson new nothing about the deal and indeed, the group was not representing Mister Jackson with his consent. Uh oh.

As wild as that shit is, the real kicker is–are you ready for this kids?–one of the people allegedly involved in this bit of attempted fraud is rumored and reported by Mister Friedman to be none other than that krazy talking Raymone Bain ladee, who is actually no longer employed as one of The White Lady's people. Naturally, Miz Bain, through her people, refutes the accusations and innuendo. Who knew Miz Bain even had people?

Here's something that Mister Friedman did not report but was reported here and there last week...Do the children recall that Your Mama's cuzzin' Lois used to drive that krazy train at the Neverland Ranch? Well, hand to Jeezis she did, and the other day Your Mama got a message from our precious cuzzin' Lois who told us that the improbably (but actually) named Billie Jean Jackson was recently arrested for trying to jump the fence at Neverland Ranch.

The not quite right in the head ladee has been going around for years claiming to be The White Lady's wife and as the real Billie Jean Jackson, the little lamb thinks she owns the damn place too. Poor Billie Jean Jackson. The 60 year old ladee has become a bit of a local legend around those parts due to her numerous arrests for trying to escape INTO Neverland Ranch. Not to mock her tenuous hold on reality, but what will Billie Jean Jackson do when the Neverland Ranch finally gets sold out from under her? Your Mama does not imagine that the new owners, whoever they may be, will tolerate the mentally blitzkrieged Billie Jean Jackson roaming around the ranch any better than Mister Jackson's bare bones security detail does.

Like Mister Friedman, Your Mama wonders how much of this crap Mister Jackson knows or cares about. He seems to be living in a vacuum over there in Las Vegas where he and his three children are reported to be shacking up in a suite at the neon encrusted gambling palace that is the Palms Hotel. Jeezis H. Christ, what a place to be raising up them kids.

Versace's Villa Fontanelle, Sold!

SELLER: The House of Versace
BUYER: (reported to be) Arkady Novikov
LOCATION: Lake Como, Italy
PRICE: £26,000,000

YOUR MAMAS UPDATE (Later Same Day): Lo and behold, the good people at The Times put a whole mess of luscious and luridly lovely photos of the Villa Fontanelle on their website and and they show a house just as splendid and showy as Your Mama had hoped and imagined. Click here and then click on the gallery to view a few more snaps.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It has been long rumored to be quietly on the market, and in early March (2008), fashion bible Women's Wear Daily reported that in an effort to trim the financial fat, the powers that be at the House of Versace were finally selling deceased fashion icon Gianni Versace's beloved Villa Fontanelle in Maltrasio, an itty bitty village on the shores of northern Italy's ritzy and glitzy Lake Como. According to WWD, the flamboyant fashion house was preparing to sell the large lake front house to Sunland Group, an Australian entity who happens to be Versace's bizness partner in the Palazzo Versace hotel project.

However, thanks to our jet-setting tipster with a distinguished Greek surname, Your Mama has learned that a more recent March 16th report in The Times reveals that the Versace villa is actually in the process of being purchased by a 46 year old ruble rich Russian restaurateur named Arkady Novikov, a man who is often referred to as the "Blini Baron." Sources close to the transaction have whispered to the good people at The Times that the sale price is a hefty, but not inconceivable for Lake Como, £26,000,000. That's $52,371,020, 1,245,555,680 RUR, and €33,985,151 for all the international children.

According to The Times, the sale price is reported to be, "at least £3,000,000 more than the asking price set by the Versace company last summer." The extra bit of money is reportedly an effort by the Blini Baron to keep the house off the market while he gets his finances in order to make the purchase official. Of course, Your Mama imagines all these newly rich Russians simply whip out a few gigantic Versace valises filled with cash money when they want to purchase high-priced real estate, but apparently these things actually go down in much more ordinary and customary ways with bank transfers and check writing.

It has widely been reported that Villa Fontanelle was Gianni Versace's favorite residence, and children, the maverick Italian designer had several decadent domiciles to choose from including the lavish family apartments in Milan, a tremendous townhouse in New York City where the entire Versace clan bunked together, and of course the sumptuous Casa Casuarina in sexy South Beach where the famed designer was so rudely and crudely gunned down by that crazed and creepy serial killer Andrew Cunanan in July of 1997.

The Versace villa, built in the first half of the 19th century by an eccentric Englishman, was a shambles when Mister Versace purchased the property in 1977 and required a total rehabilitation. Unfortunately for the all the nosy and opinionated children, Your Mama was unable to locate any interior photos of Villa Fontanelle online, so we've put our research nut B.S. Beaverman on the job to see what miracles she can dig up. Although interior pictures are few, there are several descriptions of the villa that indicate Mister Versace spent much time and many millions personally doing up the interiors in a manner consistent with the house's neo-classic architectural style.

The four story villa is most often described with words like lavish, grandiose, and imperial and Villa Fontanelle is unquestionably a dignified and magnificent piece of architecture. Your Mama would undoubtedly keel over in faint from the beauty of it all if we were ever invited to step inside its carved wood doors. However, the vast villa is also reportedly and not surprisingly filled with a multitude of nood marble statues of Greek deities including, "two enormous stone men in the main bedroom." Therefore Your Mama would also like to add "gay, gay, GAY!" to the description of the interior spaces. Clearly Mister Versace possessed a ticker of much greater fortitude than Your Mama, because we surely would go out with a heart attack if we ever rolled over in the middle of the night and caught a shadowy glimpse of two enormous stone men standing across the room next to the Empire style blue satin armchairs.

In addition to the many marble busts and the untold number of nekkid mens statuary that people the interior spaces, the house is also said to feature a massive and spectacular Russian crystal chandelier that once hung in a palace in St. Petersburg, truckloads of Empire era furniture, lots of urns sitting around and plaster medallions depicting Roman emperors stuck to the walls, bathrooms bathed in red marble, original paintings from the late 1700s, insanely intricate plaster detailing, and hundreds of neoclassical objets d'art. Your Mama just knows in our gut that it's all just as flashy, brassy and fab-u-lous as the slinky, sexy and sometimes scandalous dresses Mister Versace designed.

Although some of the Villa Fontanelle's furnishings were auctioned in 2005, The Times reports there are whispers and rumors that the additional furniture and art are scheduled to be auctioned later this year by Sotheby's Milan.

With an extravagantly rich new owner, Villa Fontanelle will most assuredly see continued luxury, over the top glamour, and expensively dressed ladees strolling the opulent and ornate rooms and grounds. But gone are the villa's salad days when single name celebs like Madonna, Diana, Elton and JLo–who honeymooned at the villa with her first (or was it her third?) husband–relaxed on the shores of Lake Como wrapped in that special brand of glammed up splendor that Mister Gianni Versace and his sister, the dee-voon and dee-lishisly strange Donatella, will forever be known.

The Versace clan may be leaving their long time Lake Como crib, but the area will surely continue to attract rich, powerful and famous folk. Some of it's current crop of gitterati villa owners include Hollywood heart throbber George Clooney (who reportedly owns two, including the Villa Margharita), Virgin mega-mogul Richard Branson, rock royals Sting and Trudy Styler, and Ryanair head honcho Michael O'Leary. Your Mama also predicts the gorgeous, but polluted waters of Lake Como will also soon see more exuberantly rich Russians with almost immeasurable amounts of money to piss away on posh and palatial real estate buying up more and more of luxurious lake side villas at ever increasing prices.

Brad and Angelina: Did They or Didn't They en Français?

Hi kids...sorry to give you this run around, but go here for a look see at all the juicy and pretty pictures of the house.

RUMORED BUYERS: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
LOCATION: Eygalieres, Provence, France
PRICE: £9,650,000
SIZE: 7 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: This exquisite 15th century farmhouse has been added to over the years in keeping with the original 15th century design. The property was fully restored in 1990 with impeccable taste and charm and combines modern features with rustic Provencal charm to create a truly magnificent modern living space.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: For the last couple of days Your Mama has been getting dozens of fervent emails from all the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie luvin' children who want to know more about the French farmhouse that every gossip glossy and celebrity news slinging blogger has reported the Hollywood hot shots are rumored to be purchasing. Here's what we know:

The Jolie-Pitts, along with nine (nine!) assistants, toured the 2.5 hectare (6.18 acres) Mas de la Chapelle St. Sixte in the South of France last year but reportedly decided against purchasing not because the place carried a gigantic asking price, but because they were told by the local planners that Mister Pitt would not be allowed to build a motorbike track through the gardens. A motor bike track? Please. Brad. No.

The motor bike track desiring Jolie-Pitts and their ridiculously large retinue of assistants jumped on the jet and high-tailed it back to the U-nited States where they flew some propeller planes, walked some red carpets and got themselves knocked up. Again. Then, not long ago, so it is reported, the frequently adopting and baby making couple learned that the Provençal planners would indeed grant them the right to build a loop for their motor bikes. So, according to a everyone with fingers who types up the celebrity scuttlebutt, the Jolie-Pitts quickly jumped at the opportunity and made an offer on the property.

The rustic yet modern 15th century farmhouse was built by Monks on the site of a Roman temple just outside the fetching French village of Eygalieres. Your Mama's early morning research indicates the pretty Provençal property was (and appears to still be) on the market with an asking price of £9,65,000. That's $19,437,705 to the American couple who apparently have more moo-lah burning a hole in their designer duds than the damn Pope.

In addition to it's soo-blimely decorated public rooms with spectacular stone ceilings that reflect the house's history as a cloister, listing information reveals Mas de la Chapelle St. Sixte includes 7 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, which quite frankly is only barely enough bedrooms to sleep the ever expanding Jolie-Pitt clan unless they double-bunk the kiddies. The historical property also features a huge swimming pool with an adjacent pool house, and a fully equipped summer kitchen where Your Mama imagines one of the their 9 assistants will be required spend their summer days whipping up bowl after bowl of edamame and brown rice for all the Jolie-Pitt children and their new amis.

But children, let's not work ourselves into a sweat that the Jolie-Pitts are picking up and moving to France just yet. Keep in mind that the couple are often seen eyeballing properties and that it's only been reported they made an offer for the property which, of course, may or may not be accepted by the current owners, a couple of well to do ex-pat Americans named Butler who purchased the property in 1990 and spent boo-coo bucks restoring and over-hauling the stone structure.

The Pitt/Jolies are not the only rich and famous folks that have enjoyed the charms of Mas de la Chapelle St. Sixte. According to an article in the Telegraph, the property has previously been leased by vacationing Vanity Fair head honcho Graydon Carter for £1,000 per day and nearby neighbors are said to include British born writer Ian McEwan and the scruffy faced French actor Jean Reno.

For now, we'll just have to wait and see if and when the Jolie-Pitt family of 6 or 8 or 16–or however many they are nowadays–packs up the shipping container, books a large and plush private jet and ships all their cribs, tricycles and motor bikes to France.

In Your Mama's meaningless and un-asked for opinion, the Jolie-Pitts need this trés expensive and dee-luxe house like they need another half dozen children. The couple already own and maintain at great expense Pitt's long time compound in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles as well as a striking and glassy contemporary estate on the bluffs in the northern reaches of Malee-boo. A bit farther up the Calee-fornia coast, just north of Santa Barbara, the couple also own an ocean side camp ground like compound, and let's not forget that big house in the New Orleans French Quarter where the Jolie-Pitt publicists said they were gonna live and raise all them kids like regular people.

However, if they are going to spend the big bucks to decamp to French farmhouse for the family, they could certainly do worse than this enviable piece of Provençal pulchritude.

End of Week Mish Mash

Let's continue this morning with a little mish-mash to pick up some of the odds and ends that have been floating around in Your Mama's inbox and voicemail this week.

1. Jude Law Settles Down.
Oscar nominated British actor and noted cad about town Jude Law has reportedly purchased the London house he's been leasing since he moved out of the Belsize Park house he shared with ex-wifey acktress Sadie Frost and their trio of loud children back in 2003. The not always reliable British tabs reported this week that Mister Law forked over around £3,500,000 (that's $7,049,945 for those of us state side) for the four story Georgian style house in the affluent Maida Vale neighborhood.

The reports go on to say that a source whispers that Mister Law is planning on spending another £1,000,000 to renovate and customize the five bedroom house, which is a lot of damn money for a man who claimed to be skint after his dee-vorce from Miz Frost.

2. The Death of the Malee-boo Party House?
The self-proclaimed Queen of all Media Perez Hilton reported yesterday on his naughty little blog that this coming summer the city of Malibu will be cracking down on the (in)famous and neighbor rattling "party houses" that dot the sandy lanscape of Malee-boo. Leased by corporations who throw big parties almost every weekend, these "party houses" have become and popular among young and hard bodied celebrities, "celebrities," star fuckers, and of course, the platoons of paparazzi who descend on Malee-boo each summer hoping to nab a nip slip on film or snap a candid of a vomiting celebutard not wise enough to know the first and most important rule of marathon boozing events: Never mix, never worry.

Not only do these "party houses" irritate, irk and enrage many of the really rich neighbors who just want to sunbathe, barbecue, and quietly get stoned as the sun goes down, it's also not exactly legal to run a commercial enterprise out of a private home...at least not without a permit.

The City of Malibu has not outlawed big parties in private homes altogether, but they have mandated that a permit will need be requested and required to host a commercial event. Oh, and no more than four corporate sponsored parties or events will be allowed on a single property during a calendar year. Oh dear. That's really going to put a damper on on things, isn't it?

Watch out Hermosa, Manhattan and Huntington beaches, because It's unlikely major corporate sponsors like Polaroid and LG will give up these summertime swagfests without a bitch fight. More likely, they'll head south to one of the other, less glitzy beach communities that have yet to ban the party house. However, Your Mama would bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that we'll soon see more Southern California beach communities enact strict ordinances against these pesky party houses putting an end to them altogether. At least n the tight confines of West Coast beach communities.

Good grief children, what will Paris, Lindsay, Lauren, Brody, Brandon, Hillary, Haylie, Heidi and the rest of the tabloid train wrecks do all summer long if not gyrate drunkenly in their thongs and board shorts on the back deck of the Polaroid Beach House? Your Mama almost feels sorry for them. Almost, but not quite.

3. The Bisno Bizness
About a month ago, Your Mama discussed the uglee foreclosure mess that has surrounded the Beverly Park mansion of the controversial Los Angeles based real estate developer Robert Bisno. According to records on file with the Beverly Hills assessor, Mister and Missus Bisno defaulted on a $4,000,000 mortgage that was secured against the value of their 11,984 square foot house that happens to sit next door to the mansion Hollywood honcho Mike Medavoy has on the market for $23,500,000.

It is puzzling and perplexing to Your Mama that a rich man known to purchase high priced art to display his motor court would find himself facing foreclosure proceedings on his private home. But alas, notices were indeed printed in the Beverly Hills Courier, and the house was scheduled to be auctioned off on the steps of the Beverly Hills court house on the 29th day of February, 2008.

It seems, however, that the auction for that particular and palatial property never happened. Your Mama, being the nosy bee-hawtcha we are, set our research dee-va B.S. Beaverman on the case to sort out what exactly happened...or didn't happen. After much struggle, several dead ends, a phone call to the Bisno residence directly, and many calls to many Bev Hills bureaucrats, the impressively tenacious Miz Beaverman finally figured out that Mister Bisno and his team of people managed to stave off the auction by filing something called a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order).

Unfortunately for the children, Your Mama just isn't smart enough to understand or succinctly explain what a TRO is, how they work, or why Mister Bisno got one. Suffice to say that whatever it is and however it was gotten, Miser Bisno now has until April 29 to make good on the loan and save his house. Theoretically that should provide plenty of time for a clever bizness man like Mister Bisno to beg, borrow or refinance what he needs to save his Bev Park behemoth.

4. The Low Down on Aretha Franklin's Foreclosure Snafu
Yesterday the internets and the Detroit news outlets were burning up with the surprising and salacious news that the Queen of Soul's Hamilton Road mansion in Detroit had somehow tipped over backward into foreclosure over a measly $445 in 2005 back taxes. Four hundred and forty five damn dollars? You could of pushed Your Mama over with a swizzle stick when we read that.

Through her publicity princess Robyn Ryland-Sanders, Miz Franklin asserts that the entire debacle was, "a mere oversight on my attorney's part to notify me" and that, "It will be taken care of immediately."

It seems her attorney also forgot to notify the Queen of Soul that she owes back taxes for the '06 and '07 tax years too. Records show that Miz Franklin, a wondrously rotund senior citizen who can still throttle through a song like a Mack truck, owes an additional $18,746 in back taxes and fees for the 2006 and 2007 tax years that will need to be paid unless she wants to go through this back tax trauma all over again next year.

While we have no sources on the ground in Detroit who could confirm or deny, Your Mama sincerely doubts Miz Franklin actually occupies the Hamilton Road house because property records reveal that the ladee owns at least three other high-priced properties in Bloomfield Hills, an affluent, snazzy and safe suburb of Detroit where the rich people fled in droves when the urban areas of Detroit began their slow, dismal and dee-pressing sink into ghetto-dom.

Now puppies, Your Mama is not here to speechify on the punishing and growing economic Grand Canyon that exists between the rich and poor in this county, but we can't help but to express that we find it shameful that in a ridiculously rich country like the U-nited States of America we have the kind of human desperation and heart breaking poverty that can be seen on the streets of Detroit where magnificent mansions have been become crumbling crack dens and too many people do not have money to feed their children. Just shameful.

Anyhoo, on that sour note, we're headed to the booze cabinet to mix up our first big pitcher of Friday night gin and tonics. We suggest you do the same.

Check It Out Children...

Your Mama just luvs the good people at the International Herald Tribune for understanding our special brand of real estate good times.

Even better they called us the reigning queen of celebrity real estate journalism. How nice is that to wake up to on a Friday morning after a long night tossing and turning worried about the fate of Neverland Ranch?

UPDATE: Michael Jackson

Didn't Your Mama tell the children earlier today that Michael Jackson's pee-pole were prolly talking out their poo poo holes when they was all shouting from the mountain tops that Neverland Ranch had been saved from foreclosure? Yes, we did.

Well, leave it to celebrity gossip Roger Friedman, who pens the Fox 411 gossip column, to get the real dirt on the doings at Neverland Ranch and to provide some much needed clarity on Mister Jackson's seemingly ceaseless foreclosure fracas.

The always and enviably well informed Mister Friedman reported late today that while Jackson's pee-pole were indeed able to delay the foreclosure auction date from March 19 to May 14, they were not able to forge a new financial agreement with Fortress. Which means Neverland Ranch remains in foreclosure and The White Lady is still in deep financial doo-doo with the hedge hogs at Fortress Investment Group.

It also means that Your Mama will have to wait until at least mid-May before we can wean ourself from the nerve pills the Dr. Cooter prescribed due to the stress and strain that has resulted from this ne-ver end-ing Neverland Ranch saga.

UPDATE: Michael Jackson

Thanks to our tipster Billy Blabbermouth who thoughtfully linked us over to Yahoo News, Your Mama has learned that Michael Jackson's people are out working the phones and yakking to all the major press outlets, swearing up and down that Neverland Ranch has finally been pulled from the jaws of foreclosure. As the children know, the tattered and tarnished Santa Ynez Valley ranch was scheduled to be auctioned off on the Santa Barbara county courthouse steps next week, on March 19.

Apparently the financially strapped entertainer has reached some sort of "confidential agreement" with Fortress Investments Group, the hedge fund who holds the $24,00,000+ loan that Jackson secured with Neverland Ranch as collateral. The secret agreement reportedly allows the former King of Pop to retain ownership of the all but abandoned 2,600 ranch that was once his beloved home. As far as Your Mama knows, The White Lady hasn't been to Neverland Ranch since he fled to Bahrain in 2005 in the after math of his tawdry child molestation trial.

A unnamed source close to Jackson said it's unclear whether Jackson will keep the ranch or not. However, if indeed it is true that some kind of agreement has been made with Fortress–and Your Mama is not convinced that it is, since Jackson's people have been known to talk out of their poo poo holes in the past–Your Mama can not imagine that any agreement Fortress might make with The Gloved One would not require that he liquidate the ranch in a short and specified period of time for a dollar amount that will pay back the loan to Fortress in full...and with any additional penalties they may be imposing. Fortress has shown the the financial patience of Job with this never ending saga of Neverland Ranch, but surely they have a limit to their leniency and generosity, right?

Now Michael, you listen to Your Mama here. Enough already. Ee-nuff! Put down the damn Jeezis Juice, get your head screwed on straight for twenty minutes and tell that krazy talking Raymone Bain to get on the horn with a hoity toity real estate agent and put that scene of the alleged crime up for sale and be done with it. Your Mama is tired and tuckered out with this crap. Crap! Talk show queen and property princess Ellen Degeneres has sold a few ranches up in that neck of the woods recently, so we're sure she'd be more than happy to refer you to her real estate agent. Seriously! Call. Her.

As for all the reports in the British tabs about The White Lady packing up and moving his kids over to Devon in the UK? Uh, we don't think so. The man can't afford his own damn house in the U-nited States, where's he going to get the Poundage to buy something across the pond? Please.

Photos: Michael Jackson For Sale

Kurt Rappaport: Really Rich Real Estate Broker

BUYER: Kurt Rappaport
LOCATION: N. Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $13,2000,000
SIZE: 12,981 square feet (as per assessor), 6 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Located behind gates in the most prime estate section of Beverly Hills. Spectacular stone manor w/ hand chiseled slate roof. Built with incredible quality and craftsmanship. Grand scaled room, perfect for major entertaining, beautiful grounds and total privacy. 2 story entry, spectacular living room, large formal dining, gourmet kitchen, family room, luxurious master suite, theatre, elevator and more.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Fasten your safety belts children because Your Mama is feeling long -winded this morning and we got a lot of ground to cover on this one. So grab yourself a sweet snack and settle in for a long ride through real estate whirligig of one of Los Angeles' richest and most successful real estate brokers.

Anyone who follows the high dollar real estate deals in the better zip codes of Los Angeles knows full well that Kurt Rappaport sits at the tippy top of real estate broker heap. Not only does he earn a big income by being a co-owner of the swankiest and most exclusive boo-teek brokerages in the Los Angeles (Westside Estate Agency), the man makes millions personally listing and selling the luxurious homes of the rich and famous in Los Angeles. None the less, the churlish children are more likely to remember Mister Rappaport as the man who sold his big house on Calle Vista Drive in Bev Hills to Scientology kingpin Tom Crooz and his mousy but extremely well dressed wifey Kate Holmes in April of 2007 for a eye popping $30,500,000.

On a side note, the gossip glossy Life & Style reported this week that Mister and Missus Crooz are holed up in a Scientology owned apartment while they cough up another $15,000,000 renovating the mansion that Mister Rappaport had just completed renovating before selling to the kinda creepy Crooz couple. Besides adding a 1,500 square foot closet/dressing room for the Missus and carving out space for all the Crooz family members and Scientology minders that are rumored to shack up with them, Your Mama imagines that the pricey renovation might also include creating two separate bedrooms suites, one for the Mister and one for the Missus, because it's been widely and salaciously reported that Kate sleeps in her own bedroom because Tiny Tom snores so loud that she's unable to get her bee-yootee rest.

Anyhoo, let's get back to Mister Rappaport and his new house. After selling to the Crooz's, Your Mama spent many a sleepless night wondering where Mister Rappaport and his wifey moved. Property records show the couple owns two contiguous and vacant lots on Pacific Coast Highway in Malee-boo that happen to be a few doors down from Cher. However, despite the stellar location and staggering views of the Pacific from the bluff top lots, we just couldn't picture the very rich and pampered Rappaports camped out in an RV on their property in Malee-boo.

Naturally, Your Mama put the inquiry feelers out to our extensive and well connected spider web of contacts in the Platinum Triangle, and of course we scoured the property records. But alas, we continued to come up empty handed, which only led to more nights of tossing and turning. Then, like a submarine rising unexpectedly out of the placid water, Your Mama received a phone call from the always on top of all things real estate Lucy Spillerguts who whispered in our big ear that since turning over their colossal crib on Calle Vista to the Crooz couple, the Rappaports have been shacking up in the same Country English style house on Bellagio Road in Bel Air that Hollywood honcho Sheri Lansing and her Oscar winning huzband Billy Friedkin leased for many years before they finally forked over the big bucks to buy a major estate up on Levico Way in the hills above Bel Air in August of 2005.

But children, lucky for us, Lucy Spillerguts didn't stop there with the real estate skinny on the Rappaports. Oh no children, the impressively informed tattle tale went on to reveal that the really rich Rappaports just purchased a large and lavish house on N. Crescent Drive in what is arguably one of the very best part of the Bev Hills.

Well, it didn't take Your Mama long to figure out that Mister and Missus Rappaport purchased the gigantic house owned by auto accessories and tire tycoon Lawrence Kraines (Kraco) which had been on the market for nearly a year with an asking price of $18,950,000. Perhaps not surprisingly, the house was listed with Mister Rappaport, and thanks to information we received form Our Fairy Godmother in Bev Hills, Your Mama learned that Mister Rappaport negotiated a pretty good deal for himself by paying $13,200,000 for the ornate 12,981 square foot mansion with its lush landscaping and double gated circular drive . Interestingly, according to O.F.G. in B.H., the MLS indicates Mister Rappaport paid $15,990,000. Not sure why. Perhaps there was some sort of other asset swap that totalled that number? Hmm.

Listing information for the "spectacular stone manor" indicates that in addition to the designed to impress the guests double hight entrance hall with its curving Scarlett O-Hara style staircase, there are 6 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms, 5 fireplaces, a large living room, a double height dining room room with lurid red wallpaper, a den, and a gourmet kitchen that Your Mama thinks could use a sear-ee-us re-do. The listing goes on to include additional rooms and amenities such as a family room, a gym, a media room with projection equipment, a brick lined wine cellar, a guest house, a service entrance for the staff (thank heavens they don't have to come right through the front door), and an elevator, because who's capable of walking up even one flight of stairs after a long night of gin and tonics in the library with the multi-millionaire neighbors?

Now children, please don't think that every real estate agent in Los Angeles lives in a $16,000,000 house, because, trust Your Mama, they do not. Mister Rappaport, bless his big fat wallet, is a rarity among real estate agents.

Your Mama wishes Mister and Missus Rappaport a happy new home...at least until one of their mega-money clients makes them an offer they can't refuse to sell the place.

Would You Want to Be JLo's Next Door Neighbor?

Okay children, let's talk about new mommy of twins Jennifer Lopez and that disturbingly thin huzband of hers Marc Anthony. Just between us chickens, Your Mama admits that we are not a big fan of either Miz Lopez or Mister Lopez, even though we do confess to getting a strange and guilty pleasure from that one song of his that gets played on the radio a thousand times a day. We do, however and whole heartedly, credit the Bronx bred Booty Queen for pulling herself up by her In Living Color bootstraps and transforming herself into an international icon of style and celebrity even if we do think her greatest talent is that of self-promotion.

Anyhoo, we're not here to discuss the obvious merits of Miz Lopez's bodacious booty, to debate her talents as a singer or actor or to discuss her unquestionable ability to mint money, we're here to discuss the real estate, and it appears than her current next door neighbors on both coasts no longer want to be living up next door to La Lopez and the frightening phalanx of security goons that surround her and her homes.

Yesterday we learned from the celebrity real estate gossip gurls at Newsday that the 2.25 acre property next door neighbors to La Lopez and Mister Anthony's sprawling Long Island estate has been plopped on to the market with an asking price of $2,299,000.
Access to the 5 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom waspy white Colonial style house (above) is through the very same gates and down the very same blue stone drive that La Lopez and Mister Anthony recently and reportedly spent millions to fortify to better protect them now that they have babies...and Your Mama does not need to tell any of the children, that along with her trio of 24/7 security guards, La Lopez will protect those babies of hers with her claws all out and scratching. At least she will as soon as she cashes that six million dollar check she's reportedly getting from People for the exclusive rights to photos of the newborns.

Here's what Your Mama really wants to know though...Why didn't the owner offer to sell the property directly to La Lopez and Mister Anthony? Even though the Lopez/Anthony casa measures in at an impressive 10,084 square feet, surely the singing and dancing duo could use a few more thousand square feet to house the numerous nannies and body guards that are required to be on site and ready at a moments notice, right? And what could be better than to house all their "people" in another house just spitting distance away.

When in Calee-fornia, La Lopez and her family bunk up in a big Bel Air mansion on swanky St. Pierre Road which property records reveal the couple purchased in January of 2005 . Records indicate the heavily guarded Mediterranean style house measures 7,357 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms and includes several out buildings.
Property records also indicate that since August of 1996 the house next door (shown above) to JLo's Bel Air spread has been owned by executive producer Jordan Kerner (Charlottes' Web, and the Inspector Gadget and George of the Jungle franchises). Presumably Mister Kerner has elected to sell his long time home because he's taken a gig as the dean of the North Carolina School of the Arts School of Film making and not because he was exasperated by JLo's security giving all his guests the shakedown. We kid. Your Mama doesn't have any idea if Miz JLo's security gives the neighbors the evil and and third degree, but it's fun to think they do.

Mister Kerner's 9 bedroom and 9 bathroom house is currently on the market with an asking price of $6,995,000. However, as well located as this house may be in Bel Air, you couldn't pay Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter $6,95,000 to live next to the Fort Knox that is the West Coast home of La Lopez and Mister Anthony. We' be constantly paranoid that her security goons were peering in our gates and over our hedges trying to make sure we weren't trying to catch a glimpse of La Lopez sunning her brobdingnagian buns pool side.

UPDATE: Jon Bon Jovi

According to the good gossips at Page Six, ridiculously rich rock star Jon Bon Jovi has finally managed to sell his matronly looking Upper West Side condo/pied a terre for $5,484,000. The 4 bedroom unit is located on the 28th floor of the The Park Millennium building on West 67th Street and was long listed by the New Jersey based Bon Jovi at an optimistic $6,950,000 (or lease at $30,000/month).

Although Mister Bon Jovi accepted $1,500,000 less than he was asking for the condo, there will be no tears shed by Your Mama since property records reveal he paid just $1,850,000 for the place back in 1998. Besides, Jon Boy's already moved on to a much more glammy and seriously swank six bedroom and 6.5 bathroom Soho penthouse for which he forked over a blistering $24,000,000 back in June of 2007.

When not camped out in their nifty new urban digs, the Bon Jovi family shack up on the 15+ acre waterfront estate on ritzy Navesink River Road in Red Bank New Jersey they've owned since late 1997.

*Note: Be sure to click through to the photos and floor plans children because Mister Bon Jovi's massive Mercer Street penthouse with its huge terraces is truly jaw dropping.

UPDATE: Michael Jackson

Thanks to the the always helpful B.S. Beaverman, Your Mama recently received a link over to a salacious and high-larious story about the never ending saga of Neverland Ranch in the The Sun, one of the UKs most lurid and lascivious tabloid rags owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The article suspiciously reports that two twenty something "tycoons" are making a last ditch effort to buy broken down music icon Michael Jackson's broken down Neverland Ranch.

The young and supposedly rich whipper snappers claim to be huge fans of The White Lady and are reportedly willing to fork over up to £15,000,000 to purchase Neverland Ranch and then...are the children ready for this nonsense...lease the place back to Mister Jackson. Whaaat? Do the people at The Sun really think anyone is going to believe that? What legitimate tycoon would make the damn fool maneuver to buy Neverland Ranch and lease it back to the very same financially strapped and fading pop star who does not have the money to pay his bills as it is? Please.

As laughable as The Sun article may be, it does include some stunning and seriously sad photos of Jackson's once beloved and now abandoned Neverland Ranch in a startling state of disrepair with a tattered tent, a crumpled tee-pee village and a tennis house that looks like it might fall over in a stiff wind. One note to the children...the article identifies the Disneyland like brick structure as The White Lady's residence, but trust Your Mama when we tell you it is not...it's the train station. How do we know this? Because Your Mama's cuzzin used to drive the damn train at Neverland Ranch.

Unless The White Lady can convince some financial fool to refinance the approximately $24,000,000 mortgage that is in default on the 2,600 acre ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, Neverland Ranch is scheduled to be auctioned off on the steps of the Santa Barbara county court house on March 19. Your Mama recommends those people in Santa Barbara get the security barriers in place, because you know that is going to be some kinda mess with developers shouting over the screams and cries of the twelve or fifteen people who still consider themselves die-hard fans of Michael Jackson.

Poor Michael Jackson. Why the man does not just sell Neverland Ranch like a sensible person and be done with the whole fracas is beyond our comprehension. He must be a real glutton for punishment. We've been saying it for months kids, but this whole Neverland Ranch bizness can only end in tears.

Photos: Splash (via The Sun)

Your Mama Hears...

...That the itty bitty and banal 2 bedroom apartment that all the gossips (including Your Mama) reported that itty bitty Nicole Richie and her improbably baby daddy Joel Madden recently purchased will soon be back on the market. Our source didn't know why the newly babied couple decided against shacking up in their $999,999 condo next door to a flop house on the Bowery, but maybe they realized they might need a bit more than 1000 square feet to house the nanny and Auntie Paris when she comes to visit. Or maybe Nicole came to her senses and realized pushing a Bugaboo baby buggy up and down the Bowery wouldn't be nearly as glamorous as it first sounded.

Now kids, we don't want to hear it...we know this neighborhood is well located and definitely on the upswing with the New Museum recently pioneering the area and several mid-priced condo developments opening up. However, all the cash rich carpet baggers moving into the hood will indeed still be stepping their Jimmy Choos over the homeless people who live in the SROs that line the Bowery. At least for the time being.

Kid Rock's Krib in Malee-boo

OWNER: Kid Rock
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $11,600,000
SIZE: 8,305 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: He cultivates an unwashed, uncouth, and white trash rock star image. He married and almost immediately dee-vorced the mammoth mammary party princess Pammy Anderson. Then he engaged in a stoopid shoving match with Pammy's impressively endowed first huzband Tommy Lee at the 2007 VMAs.

Although many reports say that Kid Rock spends a great deal of time in his native Michigan, property records show that the cowboy hatted hottie, whose real name is Robert Richie, forked over $11,6000,000 in October of 2006 for a recently re-habbed 5 bedroom and 5 bathroom house tucked back in a quiet cul de sac in the Point Dume area of Malee-boo.

According to a source we'll call Mister Plum, Kid Rock is actually a neat-freak nice guy who comes from a good family in suburban Michigan where is father owned a successful Lincoln/Mercury car dealership. Mister Plum also tells Your Mama that the long haired sex machine hired a to notch decorator to do up his house in Malee-boo with a soo-blime and "not very rock star" interior design program that incorporates a Basquiet painting, a Rothko, John Lennon's old organ, and Elton John's grand piano. Oh, and let's not forget the stripper pole used by all the plastic chested Hollywood hussies he invites over for a little slap and tickle. No home in LA owned by a filthy rich single dude is complete without one of those anymore. Besides, pole-ridin' Paris Hilton needs something to do when she comes over for parties.

Ty Pennington's High-Line Pied a Terre

BUYER: Ty Pennington
LOCATION: West 23rd Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $2,495,000 (asking)
SIZE: 1,696 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Kitchens are bold, architectural statements in greys and creams with Varenna cabinetry and European appliances from Miele and Gaggenau. Clean, sparse lines inform the luxurious baths, fitted with glass tile, rich teak and macassar ebony, and fixtures from Duravit, Zuma, and Prato Milano. In addition to the second bedroom, an elegant master suite offers a large private balcony with views to the north. Also includes wide-planked wenge hardwood flooring throughout, 11' hand-plastered ceilings, central climate control, video security, and expansive storage.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Recently, neighborhood tattle-tales have been buzzing with the rumor that television heart throb Ty Pennington, who hosts that upsetting program Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, purchased a pied a terre in the very same celeb-friendly far West Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan where Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter maintain a New York City apartment. Over the weekend, the gossip gurls at PageSix.com confirmed that the comely carpenter did indeed scoop up a condo in a newly constructed and much bally-hooed building on bizzy West 23rd Street.

Property and deed records have yet to be filed, but if Your Mama has put the pieces together properly– and we're quite certain we have–it appears that Mister Pennington picked up a condo at the sliver of a building known as the High Line 519. Listing information for L.A. based Mister Pennington's East Coast crib, indicates that the full floor unit measures 1,696 square feet and includes 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, all sorts of sleek and sexy interior fittings and finishes, and a small north facing balcony overlooking the eagerly awaited and spectacular Diller Scofido + Renfro designed High Line Park.

While Your Mama does not have much love for the amoebic grills that have been affixed to the front facade of the building to provide visually interesting safety railings for balconies as well as a certain amount of privacy for the well-heeled residents who will face the challenge of coping with floor to ceiling glazing facing the heavily trafficked West 23rd Street, we find the floor plan of Mister Pennington's narrow unit to be reasonably well resolved with a nice separation of space between the public and private areas.

It will come as no surprise to any of the children that Your Mama is fond of the dark wenge floors, the eye ball burning white walls (which will no doubt be changed up by some of the residents), and the 11' Venetian plaster ceilings. We even like that big white kitchen. However, we would have preferred to see a half bath slipped into the plan and we're completely freaked out by the stacked laundry facilities being placed in the master bathroom. Yes, some of you children will probably make the argument that the the dirty clothes of the sophisticated residents of this building will either be dry cleaned or be washed by Melinda the maid. But even still, who wants their clothes cleaned in the very same room they poop and primp? Not Your Mama and not for $2,500,000.

Interestingly, the PageSix.com gurls also reported that the Mister Pennington was recently spotted shopping for very expensive Italian designed furniture in SoHo. Does this mean he will not be filling the place up with all that crap from his inexpensive and eponymous line of furniture and other home products sold at Sears? Is anyone surprised by that?

Property records reveal that when in Los Angeles, the spikey haired and often shirtless Mister Pennington shacks up in a 2,102 square foot cottage on Crestmoore Place in the beach and (formerly) bohemian enclave of Venice. Records show he purchased the 4 bedroom and 3 bathroom house in January of 2004 for $1,100,000.

With Mister Pennington moving to our NYC 'hood, Your Mama expects we'll soon see yet another big black SUV idling at the curb on 23rd Street waiting to pick up just one more of the neighborhoods big name residents. We just ask one thing from these celebrity drivers...could you at least turn the damn car off instead of idling at the curb for 2 hours wasting gas and giving Your Mama a migraine from the car exhaust? Thank you babies.

We Regret To Inform...

...That it is unlikely Your Mama will provide a new discussion for the children today. We've got a lot on our plate and people visiting. So hang tight puppies.

UPDATE: Kanye West

Thanks to the swift and impressing maneuvering of Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills, Your Mama has learned that Kanye West closed today on the Bev Hills flat fixer upper he purchased in March of 2007 for $7,150,000 and flipped back on the market in early November with an impressive asking price increase of $8,699,000.

Although Your Mama does yet not know who purchased the Bev Hills flats fixer upper, we do know they forked over $7,900,000 for the .79 acre property with its once pretty and now ramshackle 6 bedroom and 4 bathroom house.

Obviously Mister Kanye never lived in the krappy krib on N. Crescent Drive, but it appears he may have planned to live on the property at some point because he did have elaborate plans drawn up for a gigantic modern mansion by a "world renowned architect." Your Mama does not know why the Grammy winning musician aborted his grandiose real estate plans, but for now, we presume Mister Kanye will continue to occupy his art filled aerie on Fareholm Drive.

Nicole and Joel Do The Simple Life In Manhattan

BUYERS: Nicole Richie and Joel Madden
LOCATION: The Bowery, New York, NY
PRICE: $999,999
SIZE: 1,053 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Located in the heart of Nolita, where the Bowery meets Spring. Two bedroo, two bath apartment with lovely, sunny West views. The kitchen features stainless steel appliances, granite counters and Shaker style maple cabinetry. The baths are finished with marble floors, walls and vanity. Full service building with 24 hour attended lobby, live in superintendent, laundry facility and individual storage.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: New York City gossip juggernaut Page Six reported yesterday that still pin thin singer/actress/mommy/whatever Nicole Richie and her tattooed baby daddy Joel Madden have purchased a million dollar apartment on The Bowery in New York City, and as the children well know, a million clams does not stretch very far in the atrociously expensive Manhattan real estate market.

Unfortunately, Your Mama is too bizzy today to delve into and dissect the dee-lishus oxymoron of an Los Angeles celebicon like Nicole Richie shacking up on the still kinda seedy Bowery in New York City. While the Bowery does offer residents and visitors that special brand of New York chic where homeless hookers work the sidewalk with high heeled fashionistas, Miss Richie and her nanny will need to push the Bugaboo past all the disenfranchised and booze imbibing Vietnam vets who still live in the flophouses that line the Bowery in order to get to the new and huge Whole Foods Market around the corner on Houston Street. Fun.

There is not nearly enough time today for Your Mama to properly discuss the myriad of potential reasons why these two new parents, who should have big money in their designer pockets, would choose an itty bitty and perfectly ordinary two bedroom apartment on the 11th floor of a full service but entirely undistinguished building on a the bizzy Bowery. Couldn't they have asked Daddy Richie for a few more pennies so they could get something a little more celeb-ish?

It is unlikely the L.A based Richie/Maddens will occupy this apartment full time, but if the rumors are true, and all our hissing theater queen friends pray they are not, the somewhat vocally challenged celebutante is Broadway bound. The rumor is she's been offered the role of Roxie in Chicago. Which is a real problem in Your Mama's book when you consider tickets to Broadway productions cost well upwards of $100. Think about that for a minute. All due respect to her, but would you pay more than $100 to see Miss Richie, who is not a trained actor or singer, warble on Broadway?

Please note the photos and floor plan may not be exact representations of the unit purchased by the Richie/Maddens.

Your Mama Hears...

...That music icon, Oscar winning actress and force of nature Cher has very quietly floated her opulent Malee-boo mansion on to the market as a "pocket listing." Which basically means it's not really for sale, but she might entertain the right offer from the right person.

Here's what happened. Your Mama received word from a source we'll call Mrs. Claus who whispered to us that Cher's people recently approached another may-jor pop icon's people to inquire if she might be interested in buying Cher's behemoth beach shack for $25,000,000. The offer was declined.

A second source, whom we'll call The Malee-boo Madam, divulged that IF (and that's an seriously big if) Cher were to consider selling her cherished 13,126 square foot house, the ladee wants more than $40,000,000 for the trouble of packing up her all her brazilliant Bob Mackie outfits and high tailing it from her very personal and dee-lishusly dramatic "version of Venetian" digs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Make of that what you will. Just gossip and rumor kids, just gossip and rumor.

Paris Latsis Has Some Serious Real Estate Cajones

SELLER: Paris Latsis
LOCATION: Beverly Crest Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $15,000,000
SIZE: 7,034 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Absolutely stunning architectural w/head-on city/ocean views, gated & private from street. Spacious entry w/walls of glass leads to floating glass & stainless steel staircase. Drop-dead gorgeous MBR suite w/fireplace, huge bath, walk-in closet and massive wall of glass for incredible 180 views. The sleekest and most dramatic LR, DR, kitchen & media room you'll find anywhere. 4 more fabulous BRs en suite, plus great pool w/head-on views. Available for purchase furnished.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: He may have only become a household name and shot to tabloid fame because he dated, proposed to and bought a big Bev Hills house for hotel heiress and paparazzi magnet Paris Hilton at the perplexing apex of her celebutante fame in 2004, but this week, 20-something Greek shipping heir Paris Latsis is making some real estate news of his own by listing his glass and steel cliff hanger high up in the Bev Hills for a brazen $15,000,000.

Property records show that in December of 2004 Boy Paris bought Gurl Paris an 11,206 square foot mansion in the guard gated Beverly Ridge Estates. The fickle lovebirds soon went splitsville and Boy Paris sold off the giant house in November 2005 for $12,250,000. Not a bad return considering the young man made no improvements to the property and owned the place less than one year.

In April of 2006 Boy Paris purchased this three-story house on snazzy Beverly Crest Drive for $9,200,000. Yes children, $9,200,000. Let's break out our bejeweled abacus and work those numbers for a minute. Apparently, young Mister Paris and his financial advisers think the value of his 7,034 square foot house with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms has shot up a shocking 61% in value over the last two years even though the seemingly jobless heir has done nothing to improve the property but fill it with a truckload of uglee ass contemporary furniture. With all due respect to Boy Paris, his people, and both of his very classy and hugely successful real estate agents, but are y'all outta your ever luvvin' minds? Seriously? Sixty one percent? Please.

Listing information also reveals that Boy Paris is interested in leasing the property for $38,000/month long term and $50,000/month short term. If anyone were to ask Your Mama, and of course no one did, Boy Paris might have an easier time leasing the place if he removed every stick of dee-pressing and hodge-podge furniture as well as most of his Marilyn Monroe posters. Feel free to leave the hot-cha-cha Chihuly chandelier above the stair. Just a thought.

Even more surprisingly, listing information indicates that Boy Paris's pad is also available for purchase furnished. With that furniture? Oh dear jeezis, please say it ain't so. Who in their right mind is going to pay $15,000,000 for that house and then pay more money for a decorating crime scene? Come on!

Now children, please don't twist our words and completely misinterpret Your Mama. This property is not without a great deal of appeal if you desire a sleek and libidinous glass house that floats and shimmers above the city. The spine tingling views are undeniably spectacular, the Crest Street location is attractive, and with billionaire Paul Allen's colossal crib next door, you know the area is very secure. And let's be honest, there are scads of single and 30-something multi-millionaires in L.A. who drive $150,000 sports cars and touch their naughty parts while fantasizing about sitting around a silly sexy swimming pool with a bevy of big boobed Hollywood hussies.

Your Mama firmly believes that with a really good landscaper to clean up the front and the right nice gay decorator who knows enough to replace and unify the floor coverings and how to soften the severe and almost sterile architecture with organic shapes and materials, this house could could be a jaw dropper. The price, however, is irrational. Just our meaningless two cents, of course. None the less, if Boy Paris and his top notch real estate agents can find someone willing to cough up the big bucks for this house...well, bully for them. It certainly wouldn't be the first time, nor the last, that a house sold for more than we thought it would and the owner pocketed an impressive if exorbitant profit.

Your Mama Hears...

...from three separate and unconnected sources that a deal might be in the works for the lavish and leviathan mansion of mega-money dee-vorcée Suzanne Saperstein. The children will recall the 5+ acre property, called Fleur de Lys and located in the heart of hoity toity Holmby Hills, was humped on to the market in the Summer of 2007 with heaps of publicity and a eye popping and hair raising $125,000,000 price tag.

Although the list of potential buyers for the undeniably immoderate mansion is a closely guarded secret among the lucky few real estate agents with clients in that stratosphere, Your Mama has heard through the gossip grapevine that the 35,000 square foot palace has been viewed by foreign dignitaries, Middle Eastern potentates, a couple super rich Americans, and at least one new money Russian oligarch sitting on an Everest sized mountain of Rubles.

Let's not bust out the Moët and Chandon just yet though, because if we learned anything from the $68,000,000 broken down deal on Nancy Daly Riordan's Malee-boo manse, it's that these big money deals ain't easy to put together and they can go sour on a moments notice.

The Sapersteins also put their Hummingbird Nest Ranch on the market last year for a rather optimistic $75,000,000, and the Simi Valley horsey haven remains unsold and available for any filthy rich equine fanatic looking to board their polo ponies in the lap of luxury.

Bye Bye Ruth Ryon?

Over the last several months, media and politics website LA Observed has closely followed the turmoil at the Los Angeles Times during which several long time staffers and editors have quit and others have been encouraged to apply for buy outs to leave their jobs.

Early this morning Your Mama received an email message from a gay rabbi in Vermont that LA Observed posted an unnofficial list of staffers who have applied for buyouts. Included on the list is Ruth Ryon, the patron saint of celebrity real estate gossips who created the very popular Hot Properties column in 1984 and has been providing the dee-lishush dish on celebrity real estate transactions ever since.

Miz Ryon paved the way for real estate reporters and gossips like Your Mama who salivate, savor and snicker about big real estate deals and record breaking prices and should her application for buyout be accepted by the higher ups, her presence on the scene will be greatly missed.

And yes, children, Your Mama really did first learn of this buy out bizness from a gay rabbi in Vermont.

Your Mama Hears...

...From someone who would know that septuagenarian sexpot Joan Collins is already ruffling feathers and causing considerable consternation at the dee-luxe Sierra Towers building in West Hollywood where she's recently forked over $2,700,000 to purchase a 25th floor condominium.

Not only do we hear she's getting a ugly reputation for clogging up the valet line with her big fat Rolls Royce while she fixes her wig and waxes on her lippy in the rear view, it turns out that this Joanie does not love Chachi or anyone else in the building for that matter. According to our source, Miz Collins has made it very clear that she prefers those gutsy enough to ride in the elevator with her not press the button for their floor until her Divalisciousness has removed herself from the lift...even if they live on a lower floor. And as you might imagine, this does not fly at the building known to many as, "The Gays and Greys."

Now children, just imagine the hissing and hollering that erupts when Miz Collins demands that persnickety Miss Elton John, who maintains a residence on the 20th floor, ride all the way to 27 before he can return to 20?

Just gossip and rumor kids, just gossip and rumor.

UPDATE: Guccione's Double Wide Porn Palace

New York Observer real estate gossip and reporter Max Abelson reported yesterday that the double wide townhouse on East 67th Street that once belonged to porn king Bob Guccione has fi-na-lee sold for for a heavy duty purchase price of $49,000,000. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the buyer of the tremendous townhouse is a hedge fund honcho whose name is Philip Falcone.

Now that word of the pricey purchase has hit the gossip grapevine, Your Mama imagines that the princess phone of Missus Falcone–whom we hope will spend the next few weeks supervising a serious cleaning–is ringing off the hook with courtesy and congratulatory calls from the wispy assistants of every big name decorator north of 59th Street and East of Fifth Avenue who hopes to secure a place in the heart, mind and Birkin bag of the filty rich ladee who is now in serious need of a flotilla of furniture and antique rugs to fill all 27 rooms of her new and ridiculously ornate mansion.

In an effort to divert attention away from its lurid and pornographic past, the townhouse was renamed from Guccione Mansion to Milbank Mansion. Even still, the palatial pile languished on the market with at least two of Manhattan's hoity toity-est real estate agents and a variety of asking prices rumored to be as absurdly high as $99,000,000.

Sometime in early 2007 the porn palace was given a $59,000,000 price tag and there it sat until along came Mister Falcone with his $49,000,000 deal (which appears, not surprisingly, to be all cash). Laurus Funds, the entity who took control of the property in an ugly foreclosure situation in 2006, wisely decided it simply wasn't going to get better than that. And who could blame the after wrestling with this marble floored white elephant for almost two years?

UPDATE: Garrison Keillor

A couple of days ago, Your Mama discussed a dignified red brick house in Saint Paul, MN that the litigious, curmudgeonly and wildly famous radio host Garrison Kiellor recently put on the market with a $1,650,000 asking price.

Today, thanks to a slew of wonderful residents of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area who emailed us with a link over to an article in yesterday's Star Tribune (via the Grand Forks Herald), Your Mama has learned that Mister Keillor hopes to move his small family just a few blocks over to an historic mansion on Summit Avenue, one of Saint Paul's prettiest and priciest streets.

Although it's not a done deal, Saint Paul scuttlebutt says that Mister Keillor has offered to purchase what is often referred to as the George F. Lindsay house which sits on the same swanky section of Summit Avenue as the Minnesota Governor's Mansion. Property records show the Georgian Revival style house was built in 1919 for a lumber tycoon and measures in at a whopping 9,134 square feet.

Your Mama could not find a current listing for the property that would give any indication just how much radio money Mister Keillor might have to cough up to buy this house. However, in February of 2007, the Minneapolis Luxury Real Estate Blog discussed the pretty property that overlooks the city and reported the house contains 5 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms and was listed for a short time in 2006 for $2,579,000. Given that Your Mama knows precious little about the Minneapolis/St. Paul real estate market, we have no idea if a number that high would still apply in this era of sinking home prices and mortgage acquisition difficulties for the average home buyer. We'll just have to wait and see.

Whatever the case, we're certain Mister Keillor and his violinist wifey Jenny Lind will fill the big house with books, music and lefty liberal politics. All good things, of course, and Your Mama sincerely hopes none of their new neighbors on Summit Avenue are planning to add on to their houses any time soon.

Chris O'Donnell: Super Hero and Family Man

SELLER: Chris O'Donnell
LOCATION: Ocampo Drive, Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE: $5,395,000
SIZE: 5,191 square foot (as per assessor), 5 bedrooms, 6 bedrooms
DESCRIPTION: Huntington Palisades traditional in prime location, built in 2000. Center hall floor plan opens to great kitchen/family room facing grassy backyard with pool. Paneled library off living room, Five bedrooms, four baths and family room up. Maids with bath and separate entry on lower level.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Some might say that Chris O'Donnell has the handsome puss of a Hollywood heart throb and the blistering hot bah-dee of a homosex porn star, but make no mistake children, the squeaky clean actor is a family man who goes home each night to his wife Caroline and their five children in pretty Pacific Palisades. That's right, five! Which pretty much makes his school teacher wifey of ten years a virtual baby factory. Missus O'Donnell must love being preggers, and we're sure the O'Donnells are exemplary parents, but for the sake of an ever growing world population and always decreasing resources, please, Your Mama begs of you people, tie up them tubes of yours.

Anyhoo, in the early 1990s, after making movies like Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, and Cookie's Fortune, the blue-eyed Boy Wonder started taking recurring television roles on programs such as The Practice, Head Cases and recently, Mister O'Donnell was seen as Dr. Dandridge on the very popular Grey's Anatomy, a hospital drama that Your Mama refuses to watch because, well, we don't care for hospital dramas even if the cast is exceptionally good looking.

Property records show that Mister O'Donnell purchased his Pacific Palisades property in August of 2000 for $2,950,000, and listing information reveals that the house was built in 2000. That would indicate to Your Mama that Mister and Missus O'Donnell purchased the 5 bedroom and 6 bathroom mini-mansion to would accommodate their already growing brood.

Real estate size queens who need 10,000 square feet to live comfortably won't agree, but the O'Donnell's 5,191 square foot residence is large by all reasonable standards. However, it may not feel large if you're a clan of seven full time residents, not to mention the necessary nannies and diaper washers that have to be brought in to assist in raising up, bathing and feeding five Tinseltown tots. Lawhd, with this many children, the O'Donnells prolly need a full time minimum wage gurl who does nothing but pick up, catalog, and put away all the damn toys. Which may be why Your Mama received an electronic missive from the always on top of it Riley Realtor that the O'Donnells have decided to pack their cribs, car seats and disciplinary shillelaghs and quietly put their house on the market with a $5,395,000 asking price.

Listing information for the traditional style house with its vaguely center hall colonial façade indicates that in addition to the five family bedrooms, there are formal living and dining rooms, a paneled study/library, two family rooms (one up and one down), a kitchen equipped to turn out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at an alarming rate, and a separate maids room with bath and a separate entrance which Your Mama is certain the live in gurl appreciates when she wants to sneak her horny boyfriend into the house late in the night.

Out back there is a smallish swimming pool and a smallish grassy yard, which would be fine if the O'Donnells had just one or two children. But they don't. So we imagine they are out looking for a new nest that will allow their kids to really stretch their legs and exercise their lungs without causing the neighbors to have a nervous break down from all the shouting and screaming in which five children surely engage.

Currently, listing information does not include interior photographs. We assume that is because the industrial cleaners have not yet been to the property to wipe the floor clean of all the baby vomit and wash down the crayon covered walls. We suspect it will also take the toy gurl at least a few days to pack up and send all the toys to a super-sized storage unit.

We don't know how far the O'Donnell's housing budget will stretch, but, there is a gracious and very private Paul Williams style colonial over on Maroney Lane in the Pac Pal priced at $10,500,000 that just might be perfect for their large family: 7,122 square feet, eight bedrooms, six bathrooms, huge pool and grassy areas, a shaded koi pond, and some sort of an orchard all on 1.5 private acres where the children could scream their little heads off without even disturbing the dead. Seriously, check it out.

So, What Did Joan Collins Buy?

BUYER: Joan Collins
LOCATION: 9255 Doheny Road, West Hollywood, CA
PRICE: $2,700,000
SIZE: 2,117 square feet, 1 bedroom, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: You'll find this unit high above the Sunset Strip in the renowned Sierra Towers with breathtaking views of the hills, ocean and points west. This full amenity building is located at one of the areas most prestigious addresses. Ready to move into so bring your clients.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Ages ago, Your Mama received a tip from a friendly boa constrictor who hissed in our big ear that the wonderfully well preserved television diva Joan Collins purchased a condominium high up in the celebrity friendly Sierra Towers on Doheny Road in West Hollywood. At the time, we were not able to confirm the purchase and, unfortunately, our mind being mush most of the time, we just plum forgot to keep looking.

Then last weekend, the venerable Miz Ruth Ryon at the LA Times reported that the still trying to be slinky and sexy 7o-something Miz Collins and her much younger fifth husband Percy Gibson purchased a 2,700 square foot unit on the 27th floor with northwestern views for $2,700,000. Well all those 27s looked and sounded awfully sweet strung together like triplets wearing matching outfits, but there was something fishy about some of the details reported.

See children, the only unit on the 27th floor of Sierra Towers that would qualify as having northwestern views is the very same unit that rehabbed starlet Lindsay Lohan sold in March of 2007 for around $2,500,000. Remember that? It just seemed strange and not quite right to Your Mama that the non-celebrity buyer of Miss Lohan's unit (which she never even occupied) would fork over $2,500,000 for a place that was in dire need of a significant renovation only to turn around and sell it just a year later for $2,700,000 which would leave no profit after taxes and real estate fees.

So Your Mama went digging and we got on the horn to our spider web of sources and contacts. Before Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air got back to us with the scoop (and the property listing), Mister Big Time had written up his own report/Ruth Ryon smack down. As Mister Big Time reported, the condo that Miz Collins and her boy toy purchased is indeed a 2,117 square foot unit on the 25th floor. According to property records, the insanely May/December couple purchased the place for $2,700,000.

Miz Ryon reported the condo had two bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and Mister Big Time reported that property records indicate three bedrooms. However, according to the listing, the condo has been reconfigured and now sports just 1 bedroom and 3 bathrooms. Which means that the high-lariously bawdy Miz Collins, her huzband, and their dinner guests will never have to do the dirty bizness on the same terlit.

The unit, which was formerly owned by the dee-lishusly tawdry Tawny Kitaen, was listed at $2,950,000 and includes parking for two vehicles. Now kids, what sort of car do you suppose Miz Collins drives? Or does the ladee get driven at all times?

Normally Your Mama does not get into the financing and mortgages of the properties we discuss, but we found it interesting that the lender for Grandma Collins and her walker/huzband was an entity called Marmara Shipping, Ltd. Hmm. Is that some Greek shipping magnate pal who fronted her the money so she wouldn't have to pay bank fees? Or is this just the normal financial ways of an international and jet-setting social fixture like Miz Joan Collins?

The quasi-high rise residential building boasts 24-hour security and staff including valets to porters, deeded and secure parking, a city view and heated swimming pool on the sixth floor with his and hers locker rooms and spas, and a ballroom and caterers kitchen is available (presumably for rent).

In addition to the Queen of the Cougars, other screamingly famous residents of Sierra Towers include divalicious pop icon Cher, Sir Elton John and his huzband David Furnish, nutty diet guru Nikki Haskell, the dee-voon Diahann Carroll, and of course, Russ Filice, the real estate agent to anyone who is anyone in Sierra Towers.

Your Mama Hears...

...that the mega money buyers for the $68,000,000 deal on Nancy Daly Riordan's massive Malee-boo mansion got cold feet and walked away from the deal at the last minute.

We also heard the buyers may not have been Canadian after all, but Russian. Which makes a lot more sense if you think about it.

Remember kids, you read it here first.

Will Garrison Keillor Move To Lake Wobegon?

SELLER: Garrison Keillor
LOCATION: Portland Avenue, St. Paul, MN
PRICE: $1,650,000
SIZE: 5,168 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 3 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Architectural masterpiece by Emmanuel Masqueray (designed St. Paul Cathedral). A perfect example of French elegance & sophistication, grand foyer w/ exquisite staircase, lofty 14 ft. ceilings, exceptional windows, cooks kitchen, 3 floors of wonderful living space.

UPDATE (LATER SAME DAY): Interior photos finally appeared with the listing, so we've included them for all the children to cheer on or chew up. We stand by our original assessment of the interiors which is that overall we like this house quite a bit, even if we could never live in Minneapolis because of the weather (Your Mama hates the cold). We are, however, having some trouble with that colorful family room on the second floor which is looking a hot mess. And we like colorful rooms usually.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to the The St. Paul Snowman, Your Mama is pleased to bring the children our first ever discussion about a property located in the frozen state of Minnesota. We happen to have visited the Twin Cities on several occasions because there's a cute and quirky family of five living near lovely Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis that are very near and dear Your Mama's cold and snarky heart. We love the outdoorsy lifestyle, we love the soo-blime Walker Art Center, natch, and we l.o.v.e. the Minnesota State Fair where every year all the finalists in the Princess Kay of the Milky Way pageant get likenesses of their heads carved from butter. Yes, children, butter.

But lawhd have mercy children, it is too damn dreadfully cold up there in the winter, and it's been even colder across the Mississippi River on Portland Avenue in St. Paul where radio talk show icon Garrison Keillor has put his big house on the market just weeks after settling an unneighborly, public, and stoopid lawsuit with his next door neighbor over a proposed garage addition.

Now children, we know some of you probably think of Mister Keillor as a soothing grandfatherly voice on Sunday afternoons as he prattles on about Lake Wobegon on his Prairie Home Companion program, but Your Mama finds him to be an outdated auditory annoyance who pines for a fictionalized and idealized time and place in American history that hasn't existed in 50 years if it ever existed at all. Maybe we just don't get the irony, which is a very distinct possibility, but we happen to like the modern world, thank you very much.

Anyhoo, property records show that in September of 1998, shortly after Mister Keillor, his third wifey, the violinist Jenny Lind Nilsson, and their young daughter relocated to Minnesota from New York City, the couple forked over $710,000 for their rather grand red brick house on Portland Avenue in the fancy-pants and historic Ramsey Hill neighborhood of St. Paul

Tax information for the property indicates the house measures 5,168 square feet with 7 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, while listing information for the dignified and solid looking mansion shows (approx.) 5,960 square feet with 7 bedrooms, 2 full, 1 three-quarter and 2 half bathrooms. In case y'all don't know, a three-quarter bath usually refers to a bath with a sink, terlit and shower (no tub).

Although no interior photos of the Keillor/Nilsson house have been included with the online listing for the property, Your Mama happened across a few images that were included in a 2006 article in the New York Times which shows a grumpy looking Mister Keillor standing in the 29-foot long "grand foyer" with its "exquisite staircase." Before finding the NY Times article, Your Mama imagined the staircase to be an elaborately carved confection with a giant pineapple perched atop the newel post that would make even the most die-hard modernist misty eyed. The actual staircase, although not exactly what we expected, will definitely do in the jaw dropper department and would make an amazing setting for our pal Falsetta Knockers to make one of her nearly nekkid and notoriously naughty grand entrances.

The main floor, with its soaring 14 foot ceilings, features an inviting, book filled and wonderfully intellectual looking living room with tall and blessedly curtain free windows, a wood burning fireplace, a custom rug, and dee-lishus dentil molding. The pretty but slightly too grandma-ish dining room measures in at a banquet sized 20' x 22' which works well for entertaining all the good Luthrans from Lake Wobegon, and in the "cooks kitchen" we are completely unable to move beyond that industrial sized and potentially lethal pot rack looming over the room like a tiger ready to pounce on an unsuspecting dish washer. How do these Keillor/Nilsson people feel safe with all that copper and cast iron hanging up above their damn brains? Your Mama would need to strap on a football helmet just to dart into that room to snatch up a lime for a pitcher of gin and tonics.

Up the elegant and curving stairs to the second floor, five bedrooms, including a master bedroom that stretches an impressive 30' feet long, share a couple of bathrooms. A commodious 16' x 30' family room completes the private family floor and two large rooms on the third floor tuck nicely under the eaves of the slate roof.

The big house sits on a relatively small .2 acre lot with a detached 2 car garage at the rear of the property and an itty bitty back yard that only old people could love because it's really far too small for a swing set and a sandbox.

Your Mama hasn't a clue whether Mister Keillor will be moving his little family to another posh residence in St. Paul or if perhaps they'll all be headed back to New York City where Mister Keillor and Miz Nilsson own and maintain a 2-bedroom residence on the 12th floor of the legendary El Dorado on Central Park West. Interestingly Mister Keillor bought this apartment in 1987 for $800,000, sold it in 1993 for around $1,500,000 and property records show the that in June of 2006 the quirky radio yakker bought the very same 12th floor co-operative apartment for $3,600,000. Apparently he always regretted selling the park view place and the opportunity to wipe away that regret cost the much wealthier that we imagined radio host two million clams.

Sidney Kimmel Kashes In

SELLER: Sidney Kimmel
LOCATION: S. Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, FL
PRICE: $81,500,000
SIZE: 32,316 square feet (total), 6 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Jeezis, Mary and Joseph, some of you children really twist us up like a damn pretzel. So before one of you moe-rons work Your Mama's last frazzled nerve and force us to lay out a serious beat down (and you just might be surprised who we'd go after with our wooden spoon first), let's just move on to another pricey Palm Beach property that has hit the market with a scorching hot price tag...an $81,500,000 price tag to be exact.

Hold on to your design expectation boots though because the ocean front mansion, owned by Jones Apparel Company founder turned filthy rich film producer Sidney Kimmel (Nine and a Half Weeks, Blame it on Rio, Charlie Bartlett, Lars and the Real Girl, The Kite Runner), is most assuredly not one of those palatial Palm Beach piles designed in the 1920s by high society architects Addison Mizner or Maurice Fatio, but rather a leviathan limestone edifice designed in the mid-1990s by New York based and high fallutin' French born architect Thierry Despont.

For those few children who don't know who Thierry Despont is, let Your Mama provide a five second education: In addition to being the gentleman responsible for the centennial restoration of the Statue of Liberty and the designer for the interior galleries of the much bally-hooed J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the egotastic architect has built a big bizness designing and decorating lavish mansions only exceeded in size by the big egos of his big bank account bizness baron clients like super-billionaire Bill Gates, J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler, shamed Canadian newspaper mogul Conrad Black, and The Limited's Leslie Wexner, who was dragging around a good looking and well built male assistant and some seriously blue hair the last time Your Mama was in the same room with him.

Anyhoo, way back in July of 1993, property records reveal that Mister Kimmel paid just $5,500,000 for the 4.27 acre property with 316 feet of ocean front on a particularly swanky stretch of S. Ocean Boulevard often referred to as Billionaires Row. Mister Kimmel had much larger real estate ambitions than the residence that stood on the property and he unceremoniously bull dozed the existing structures in order to make way for his tremendous Thierry Despont designed digs, a turn of events that surely left all the old-school Lily Pulitzer clad mummies in Palm Beach scandalized and clutching their frail hearts. Rumors, reports, and real estate press releases say Mister Kimmel spent the next 5 or six years and an eye popping and almost unbelievable 30 to 40 million clams erecting his ocean front dream house.

Now then, let's get out our bejeweled calculators and work some of our fuzzy math children. If those numbers are to be believed, our real estate savvy Mister Kimmel is in to his winter palace for 35 to 45 million smackers for the buy and build. Let's just say that, conservatively, it costs him another couple million each year in taxes, insurance and maintenance (his tax bill alone was $517,775 in 2007 according the the Palm Beach Appraiser), then Your Mama figures he's got about $55-65,000,000 total into this place. Using those mostly made up numbers, Mister Kimmel stands to pocket $15-25,000,000 if the property sells for anywhere near the asking price, a hefty return considering he's also had seven years usage and enjoyment of the resort like estate.

Property records indicate the chunky and formidable residence with its walls of glass measures 18,437 square feet. Press materials and multiple reports indicate the house sprawls across more than 26,000 square feet, and additional records show the property with 32,316 square feet of total square footage. All those different numbers leave Your Mama perplexed and befuddled about what the actual square footage is, so let's just say that it's ginormous and probably 8 or 10 times the size of your house.

Although Monsieur Despont conceives and constructs undeniably meticulous, sybaritic, and extraordinarily well considered structures for extraordinarily rich individuals, we personally think the exterior of Mister Kimmel's krib feels more than a little civic and the interiors too Four Seasons Hotel for our particular taste. Don't mistake Your Mama children, there ain't nuthin' wrong with a gorgeously designed county courthouse or being pampered at a Four Seasons hotel, and we are well aware that this property is just about as dee-luxe and well appointed as they come. In fact it's practically begging for a bevy of Architectural Digest editors to fly in, photograph and coo over the unflinching extravagance in a glossy and glowing article. It's just not working our happy spots, you know?

Without a doubt the 26 foot high atrium defines the central hub of the house where 34 gigantic rib cage-like Honduran mahogany beams form an undulating and momentous canopy over head. At the touch of a button, what is essentially an exceptionally luxurious covered porch is created when a row of six 20' tall glass doors slowly lower into the ground. Did you read that properly children? Those doors lower 20 feet into the damn ground. No matter what you may think of Monsuier Despont or this house, that is some bad ass engineering shit.

Current listing information for the property reveals there are six bedrooms and a whopping 12 bathrooms, which means there are two full time gurls who spend their entire days scrubbing terlits. Reports and press materials also indicate that in addition to the massive main house, there is a 2 bedroom guest house, garaging for five cars, and two pool cabanas, because one pool cabana is simply not enough when you have this kind of money.

Neighbors of Mister Kimmel include prune faced and gravel voiced rock star Rod Stewart, Netscape co-founder Jim Clark, billionaire bizness man Malcolm Glazer, and Terry Allen Kramer, the fantastically rich ladee whom the children will recall booted big haired shock jock Howard Stern from the ocean front house on Southampton's Gin Lane she leased to him so she could sell the place for a whopping $32,750,500. And of course, a few doors down from Mister Kimmel is the spectacular Casa Apava which Revlon Ron (Perelman) sold to house building baron Dwight Schar in 2005 for a staggering and record breaking $70,000,000, plus an additional $22,000,000 for a large lot across the Boulevard that fronts Lake Worth.

One might think that the octogenarian philanthropist, who has impressively and generously donated more that $500,000,000 to charitable causes, was simply scaling back his real estate portfolio, but that does not seem to be the case. Mister Kimmel is reported to own apartments in Los Angeles and New York and he recently forked over a reported $38-40,000,000 for late night television icon Johnny Carson's estate on Wildlife Road on the cliffs of Point Dume in Malee-boo.

UPDATE: Nancy Riordan

Well, we knew it was coming, didn't we? Finally, the LA Times' celebrity real estate high priestess Ruth Ryon is reporting that Nancy Riordan, the estranged wife of former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan, did indeed sell her colossal Carbon Beach house just as Your Mama whispered to all the children back on the 11th of February.

However, Miz Ryon reveals that the selling price was not the $50-55,000,000 that Your Mama heard, but rather a spine tingling and staggering $68,000,000.

The 12,785 square foot house sprawls across three lots with more than 200 feet of prime ocean frontage and includes 8 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms according to Miz Ryon.

Hawt damn children, those buyers, who were described to Miz Ryon by local real estate agents as "rich Canadians," must have wanted that house something fierce.

UPDATE: It did not happen. Did y'all hear that? It. Did. Not. Happen.

Weekend Update

1.
All the children who hang around Your Mama's little online endeavor know we've spent way too much time discussing the real estate doings of Rockstar Energy Drink founder Russ Weiner, who currently has three high-priced homes on the market. But we can't help ourselves and we're going to discuss him yet again. A few days ago we saw him shave millions off the asking prices of his two most expensive properties, and this week we saw the third property get a serious asking price haircut too.
Located up on Franklin Avenue in the Hollywood Hills, the four floor flesh colored house now carries an asking price of $2,995,000 and the listing SCREAMS that the current asking price reflects an over all $2,000,000 price reduction since the hillside house first hit the market a very looong time ago.

Your Mama is sure all you Chicken Little's out there are peeing in your pants with happy because you think this proves your point about the real estate sky falling. And maybe it is. However, in our ever so humble opinion, this house was over-priced from the get go, so the gigantic price reduction just brings the price down to where it should have started to begin with. Your Mama thinks we just might see this Weiner dude finally sell one of the big white elephants in his real estate stable.

The 4,400 (approx.) square foot house sports 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and a pool on the roof,. But its saving grace just may be the elevator, because Your Mama would need to be strapped into an oxygen mask in order to be hoofing and hiking up and down all those damn stairs.

2.
Yesterday, gossip juggernaut TMZ reported that on the mental mend Britney Spears was served with legal papers demanding she immediately fork over more than two weeks of unpaid rent (and a $2,100 late fee) on the Malee-boo mansion she leased back in October of 2007. Either that or she needed to "surrender and deliver up possession of said Premises," which is legal-speak for scram, skee-daddle and give the keys back to the landlord.
Mercedes luvvin' Miss Thing leases the Ramirez Canyon Road estate for a reported and rumored $35,000 per month. Unfurnished. Back in early October, when the pop star turned tabloid train wreck was acting like she had a few screws loose, the Malibu Minx whispered in our big ear that Miss Spears signed a 9 month lease with the option to buy. That would indicate she's got at least a few more months to be writing big checks, and Your Mama highly doubts her conservator daddy Jamie will allow her to purchase the 8,500 (approx.) square foot house no matter how much she kicks, screams and whines.

Your Mama has no idea if the single mommy of two was behind in her rent or not, but we have heard through the gossip grapevine that the house is almost entirely without furniture or other such items and that she rarely goes there anymore and stays there overnight even less, which if true makes it a giant waste of money.

TMZ's sources told them that Miss Spears is now current on the rent. Phew! We can all breathe a little easier knowing she'll not be evicted from a house she does not live in.

Photo: Pacific Coast News

3.
All these rumors and reports coming out about Ukrainian bizness woman and noted philanthropist Olena Franchuk spending a blistering and record busting £80,000,000 on a detached house in the super swanky Kensington section of South-West London has become an angry bee in Your Mama's bonnet. Many of the children who have emailed and commented seem to think the reported sale and exorbitant price is nothing more than a fabrication designed to garner publicity for either Miz Franchuk or for Spink Property, the well known and high end developer who has recently executed a major renovation of the five story house on Upper Phillimore Gardens.

Thanks to the entirely legal machinations of an informant we'll call Little Dutch Boy, Your Mama received before and after floor plans (below) for the posh property that were filed with the planning commission of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. As many of those that follow high priced London real estate seem to know, much of the heavy duty engineering for the humongous underground extension with it's indoor swimming pool and interior link from the main house to the mews cottage, car park and garage was indeed undertaken by a previous owner.

However, plans reveal that Spink Property planned to completely gut and reconfigure the underground extension including filling in the old swimming pool, installing another entirely new one, and completely relocating the exterior courtyard, which smartly acts as a light well to the lower level
So kids, if we know that if these Spink people, who do undeniably refined and contemporary work, went through the considerable trouble of such a massive re-configuration of the lower level, then we have to assume they've gone to the same exhaustive and expensive lengths to transform the rest of the house and property with an equally rigorous, sophisticated and pricey architectural program. Your Mama really does not know if Spink's total overhaul justifies an £80,000,000 sale price, but it does show that the house has been totally updated with all the latest gizmos, gadgets and security systems which will appeal to international people with a never ending supply of money to buy up properties at record breaking prices.

Given that Miz Franchuk's huzband Viktor Pinchuk is a billionaire and a major (MAJOR!) contemporary art collector, it does, however, make a certain amount of sense that the modern minded 40-something year old couple might purchase a giant house done over by Spink Property who are well known for fitting old school London properties with all new, extremely expensive and very modern interiors.

None the less, at this point and time, Your Mama has no ability to confirm whether this Franchuk chick really did buy this house for £80,000,000 or any other sum of money. We are, unfortunately, at the information mercy of all the London-based property gossips. That is unless Miss Elton John wants to pick up her Swarovski crystal encrusted princess phone and ring Your Mama with the inside beef about his friend's alleged purchase. We're waiting...

4.
And lets not forget this little tidbit about The White Lady.