Your Mama Hears...

...that financially beleaguered octogenarian Ed McMahon may have finally sold his damn house up in Beverly Hills. According to a well placed source we'll call Jim Dandy, after listing the property about a hundred years ago, several price chops and a whole mess of publicity, the 7,013 square foot McMahon manse finally has a buyer willing to cough up some cash and save Mister McMahon's real estate ass.

As has been reported far and wide, Mister McMahon is thisclose to facing a nasty foreclosure on his 6 bedroom and 5 bathroom house located in the guard gated Summit community due to his inability to make good a reported $4,800,000 mortgage on the property.

Although we can not confirm the rumor, it was also whispered in Your Mama's big ear that the buyer is one of the well paid writers for the television program The Entourage.

Not that anyone needs to hear it again, but the Summit is the very same community where on the mental mend Britney Spears lives as well as rapidly procreating rock goddess Gwen Stefani and her supah-sexy huzband Gavin Rossdale.

Your Mama Needs to...

...get something off our heaving chest.

We are loathe to talk smack about any of the other celebrity real estate gossips so we're going to be as nice and friendly as we can about this...

Yesterday, the good people at the gossip juggernaut that is TMZ posted an "Exclusive" report on Dr. Phil McGraw's Beverly Hills house hitting the market as a pocket listing.

Thing is, Your Mama discussed this way back on April 4 and then again on April 16. So, as fascinating as it may be, it's really not an "Exclusive" report. In fact it's old news to the children.

We're a little surprised and disappointed that TMZ would not credit our little online endeavor on their report, partick because we link over and reference their stories all the time. Of course, we'll continue to do so, but a little mutual respect and recognition would be lovely.

Now that we've vented a little we feel better and can go on with the remainder of our crazy day.

Jackie Warner Works It Out In the Hills

BUYER: Jackie Warner
LOCATION: Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $947,000 (sale price)
SIZE: 1,611 square feet 2 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Stylish Laurel Canyon home w/ excellent quality & design. 2bd+nursery/office+1.5ba remodeled kitchen w/ stainless appliances & custom cabinetry. Master w/ walk-in closet & bath w/ extra large soaking tub, Kohler fixtures, glass Mosaic shower & stone Travertine floor. Den/family rm w/ skylights opens to redwood deck. Flat yard perfect for outdoor entertaining. Garage converted to composer's studio w/ ISO recording booth & machine rm.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen my little chickadees, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter have a rather punishing day ahead of us so we're going to keep this one short and sweet.

It is well established that Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter have a serious, incurable and disturbing addiction to reality television. As a result of our television watching malady, one of the programs that keeps the TiVo warm and whirring is that wacky Work Out program on the Bravo that features exercise queen Jackie Warner, her glittering white teeth and a parade of traumatic and dramatic lezbeeun relationships that are, quite frankly, dee-lishusly embarrassing to watch.

During the first season of Work Out, Miss Warner shacked up with that ridiculous and violent Brazilian artist gurl in a fancy house with a Carrara marble covered kitchen and a swimming pool out back. In the second season, out went the Brazilian and the fancy house and the heavily highlighted and uber-toned trainer moved to a much more modest and far less glammy house in the Hollywood Hills. The forty year old ladee lover quickly moved her much younger gurlyfriend of a few weeks in with her. Gotta love the lesbians...always eager to make house even before they know each other's middle names.

Anyhoo, after several episodes of watching cars whiz by the Miss Warner's windows, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter became curious as to where Miss Warner's new digs are located. With the help of Lucy Spillerguts and Our Fairy Godmother in West Hollywood, we eventually learned that Miss Warner forked over $947,000 to purchase a 1,611 square foot house on curvy swervy and beastly bizzy Laurel Canyon Boulevard in September of 2006.

Yes children, we realize 2006 was a long time ago, particularly in the lexicon of celebrity real estate where the rich and famous can be fickle in regards to their living situations. However, we're short on time and it's way too early in the morning to listen to y'all complain so Your Mama asks that you keep any lip, sass and judgment to yo-self. Thank you.

For those children not familiar with the canyon roads in Los Angeles, let Your Mama tell you that Laurel Canyon Boulevard is a twisting and winding road where people drive their luxury automobiles like they got the devil at their backs. Miss Warner is obviously far more brave than we because Your Mama would be paralyzed with fear each and every time we had to back our big BMW out of the driveway and on to Laurel Canyon Boulevard where one's ass end could easily be wiped out by a fast moving SUV whisking a high profile person from the studios in Burbank back to their bungalow at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.

Listing information for the property at the time of the sale shows the house measures in at 1,611 square feet with 2 bedroom and 2 bathrooms including a nice sized master bedroom with a peaked ceiling and French doors to the garden. In addition to the smallish open plan living/dining/kitchen area, there is a tile floored family room/den that opens to the back deck, and a nursery/office room, which we imagine it just too small to call a proper bedroom. The flat back yard includes a courtyard deck and a small grassy area at the back where Miss Warner's pooches probably piddle and poop. At the time Miss Warner purchased the property, the detached garage had been converted into some sort of recording studio. Your Mama isn't sure whether Miss Warner has turned the garage back to its original purposing or if she's utilizing the space for an office or to temporarily house one of her many high maintenance ex-gurlfriends.

Now children, before you start tearing into the day-core, please understand that the sofas and chairs and other assorted furniture items you see in the photos do not, and we repeat, do not belong to Miss Warner but rather the previous owner, who is not a celebrity.

Perez Hilton Opens House

Much maligned, sometimes hated but always read Gossip Gangsta Perez Hilton does not normally give Your Mama the time of day. However, we're gonna give He of the Hair Don't a little shout out today because we're not bitter (much) and because the scuttlebutt queen recently opened the door to his Los Angeles apartment to the fine people at MTV Cribs. Let's be honest children, who is not at least curious as to how the hugely successful scuttlebutt spends his new found riches?

Our sources whispered in our big ear that Perezito makes his home in a large apartment complex on West 6th Street and the Cribs episode indicates his unit measures 1,300 square feet with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and from the looks of things includes a living room with vaulted ceilings, a lackluster little kitchen, and an additional loft space where all Perez's blog magic happens.

Your Mama will give Perez a pass on the beige carpet (it's a rental) and we'll freely give the props for going out on a limb with the shimmery wallpaper in his bedroom and for doing up his nicely organized closet in his signature pink. But I think we can all agree that most of Miss Hilton's abode could use the assistance of a nice gay decorator. Perhaps Perezito will ring Your Mama to help him come to terms with getting rid of that behemoth beige sectional sofa and jazzing up his space in a manner befitting a queen of his celebrity gossip stature.

Photo: Mister Smiley

Graeme Revell Doubles Down in Malibu

SELLER: Graeme Revell
LOCATION: Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA
PRICE: $27,500,000
SIZE: 3,477 square feet (as per assessor), 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Unique beach and bluff estate. 1-story Fred Lloyd Wright Foundation. Appx. 5 acres rolling lawns, tree lined driveway to motor court. Pool, spa, tennis court. Private direct beach access. Expand, remodel or build your custom estate. Expired plans available.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama has heard from a number of helpful tipsters over the last week or 10 days–including one from the always informative Missy Malee-boo–who have all pointed their real estate luvin' fingers at a long, low and blue tile roofed residence stretched out on the dee-voonly dramatic bluffs of Malee-boo that recently hit the market with a spine tingling asking price of $27,500,000.

A little look-see through public records reveals that the property belongs to super successful film and television composer Graeme Revell, the gentleman responsible for the soundtracks of such high-minded cinematic wonders as Man of the Year, Goal, Tank Girl and the upcoming Seth Rogan pot-fest Pineapple Express.

Records indicate that Mister Revell and his artist wifey Brenda purchased their 5 acre estate in May of 2004 for $12,000,000. Based on that purchase price, our trusted and bejeweled abacus tells us the cashing in couple are hoping to more than double their Malee-boo money in just four or five years time. Your Mama don't know nuthin' from nuthin' about real estate children, but we do know that asking for that kind of monstrous increase in value takes some serious real estate cajones even in a place like Malee-boo where real estate prices and "values" adhere to their own set of arcane and entirely subjective rules.

A little research on the interweb and Your Mama learned that the "L" shaped domicile was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright's son-in-law William Wesley Peters. For those who do not know or are too lazy to Blackle Mister Peters, Your Mama will inform the children that the architect was a protégé of master architect Frank Lloyd Wright and was, in fact, married to Mister Wright's adopted daughter Svetlana, a gal who should ab-so-lute-lee not be confused with Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's house gurl Svetlana. Mister Wright's daughter Svetlana perished in an automobile accident in 1946 and Mister Peters went on to marry the only daughter of Communist party head honcho Joseph Stalin, who coincidentally was also named Svetlana and, again, should not be confused with Your Mama's stern, bossy and beloved house gurl Svetlana.

Records filed with the county indicate the house measures in at a surprisingly small sounding 3,477 square feet and listing information shows the house includes 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. From the looks of things, Your Mama would have imagined the house was much larger. Anyhoo, the five acre parcel, which happens to sit just a few doors up the Pacific Coast Highway from gossip glossy favorites Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's ocean front spread, includes a long curving tree-lined driveway, acres of rolling lawns, a north south tennis court and a fantastically pill shaped swimming pool. By far the most interesting feature of the property is accessed down a long and winding path to the beach which terminates in a private ocean front plateau that has been planted with a circular lawn area perfect for meditating, sunbathing in the nood and landing helicopters.

Given the architectural provenance of this house, Your Mama would bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that being inside this house is much better than looking at the outside which, forgive our snarky soul, looks like an International House of damn Pancakes. Now children, while out on the open road in our big BMW, Your Mama does not mind the occasional Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity breakfast at an IHOP, but we are not inclined to want to come home to a twenty something million dollar house that looks like it might smell of chicken strips and cooking grease.

The interior spaces are certainly dramatic with soaring ceilings and intricately articulated floor to ceiling windows with an insane geometric angulation that makes Your Mama a little dizzy with dee-light. However, Your Mama does not have much nice to say about the interior day-core which unfortunately leans towards tiger striped throws, beige sofas and inexpensive looking and randomly placed shoji screens. Ack!

Records show that Mister Revell and his artist wifey Brenda also own a modest house in Woodland Hills for which they forked over $1,000,000 in August of 2006, a modest ranch house in Porter Ranch which they bought in June of 2004 for $863,000 and third modestly sized house in Venice they scooped up in June of 2004 for $850,000. The property rich pair also own a couple of apartment buildings in North Hollywood, both of which were purchased towards the end of 2007. Phew! So in addition to scoring films Your Mama has never heard of nor seen, Mister Revell and his ladee-wife also have a proper penchant for real estate investing.

Sam and Jessica Still Selling Stillwater Estate

SELLERS: Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard
LOCATION: 4th Street. N., Stillwater, MN
PRICE: $1,950,000
SIZE: 5,500 square feet (approx.), 5 bedrooms, 3 full, 1 half and 1 quarter bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Historic estate on lush 2.5 acres in heart of Stillwater. 1892 Victorian w/ breathtaking St. Croix River Valley view. Spectacular home & landscape featured in Architectural Digest. Artistically inspired gardens, remarkable renovation & preservation.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to Sheila Shedsomelight way up in the lake filled hinterlands of Minnesota, Your Mama has learned that two-time Academy Award winning actress Jessica Lange and her Pulitzer Prize winning playwright/actor huzband Sam Shepard have listed their home in Stillwater, MN for sale with an asking price of $1,950,000.

It is certainly no secret among the real estate gossips of the world that the much lauded and applauded pair made a home and raised a couple of childrens in Stillwater, a teeny tiny town north and east of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

However, it seems that sometime back in 2004 (or sometime around 2004) the couple decided to bee-line it out of Stillwater at least in part because Miz Lange grew disenchanted with the increasing boojification of the area. In an interview with the New York Daily News in February of 2008, the tough talking ladee was quoted as saying, "When we first moved to Stillwater, it still felt like a real place...Now it's all gift shps and these terrible condominiums. It was a little town with a great deal of character. Everything gets yuppified, I guess." We don't know nuthin' from nuthin children, but we imagine the Stillwaterians were none too pleased to hear their famous (and former) neighbors speaking shit like that to the press. None the less, Your Mama can understand Miz Lange's psychic plight against the homogenization of America. Recently that ubiquitous Starbucks popped up in our little weekend getaway town and we were not exactly thrilled about that bit of new bizness either, partick because there are already two other successful and locally owned coffee shops already on the main drag. Ack!

Sorry children, Your Mama digresses. The current asking price of the Lange/Shepard estate is $1,950,000, a far cry from what the not into the Hollywood hoopla couple wanted back in 2004 when recent reports reveal they first put the 2.5 acre estate on the market with an asking price of $3,300,000. A year later, the asking price was karate chopped to $2,600,000 and the main house and the guest house were being offered for sale as separate parcels as well.

Records and reports say that the couple picked up their 1892 Victorian on 4th Street N. in 1994 for just $415,000. Listing information for the 5 bedroom house indicates that is measures in at (approx.) 5,500 square feet and includes three fireplaces inside and landscaped grounds overlooking the St. Croix River Valley outside. Other rooms in the house include living and dining room, a library, an eat in kitchen with butcher block counter tops, a family room a fa-boo screened porch on the second floor.

The couple clearly spent big bucks restoring the original woodwork and updating the old gurl to include modern amenities such as air conditioning. In addition to the main house, the property includes a not so nice in the winter detached garage and a guest house that sits adjacent to the heated swimming pool. The tiered gardens also feature a small fruit orchard, ponds, woods and rolling lawns.

Some of Your Mama's nearest and dearest hunker down in Minneapolis and while we like visiting that neck of the woods to walk through The Walker and eat at The Modern Cafe, we could never actually live in a place that becomes an ice sheet several months of the year. However, despite the kinda creepy mosaic statue in the garden, we do think this is a lovely house that will make a nice home for some well to do Minnesotan with children who enjoy ice hockey, sledding down the backyard lawn and other winter activities.

Yes children, we too notice that the interior spaces could use a bit of a work over by a nice gay decorator capable of functioning in sub-zero temperatures, but there's really nothing wrong here besides it looking a mite generic. This bland, blah and lifeless pallor may in fact be due to the fact that the Lange/Shepard do not, according to reports, live here anymore.

In fact, most reports indicate that the couple decamped to New York City were records reveal the couple forked over $3,400,000 in April of 2005 to purchase a 9th floor two unit combination apartment on lower Fifth Avenue. The full service building sits conveniently near enough to Washington Square Park that the couple–should they be so inclined–could easily score a dime bag on their way to the corner deli.

Recent reports reveal that the couple has not cut all ties to Minnesota and property records do indeed indicate the Lange/Shepards still own a good sized spread up near Lake Superior in a town called Holyoke, not so far from the towns of Duluth and Cloquet, where Miz Lange was raised.

Kiefer Sutherland Lives Large in the Ghetto

SELLER: Kiefer Sutherland
LOCATION: Madison Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $4,895,000
SIZE: 14,400 square feet, 3 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Beautifully converted Warehouse. This celebrity owned New York styled loft has been done with quality and taste. It combines a 6,000 sq. ft. living space while the rest of the building houses a state of the art recording studio. It is unassuming from the street and beautifully dramatic upon entry. The residence has all rooms opening to each other, 25 ft ceilings, polished concrete floors warmed by a radiant heat, fabulous cooks kitchen and all a walk down the hall to the studio and offices.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: First of all, Your Mama would like to thank all the children for their kind words regarding our little turn on CNN this week. Secondly, we'd like to apologize for not providing some good celebrity real estate sugar for the babies yesterday but this delicate flower was all stroked out from heat exhaustion and simply could not force our fingers to get anywhere near the computer keyboard. Anyhoo, we're back to feeling on an even keel and wanted to drop this little nugget on you before the week began...

Could it be now that the very recently dee-vorced and liquor luvin' actor Kiefer Sutherland is dating a high fashion philly from New York City he does not need his giant warehouse of a home in Los Angeles? Well, Your Mama doesn't know shit about Mister Sutherland's motivations, but we do know that the well regarded actor recently listed his unconventional Los Angeles residence with an asking price of $4,895,000.

The extremely well compensated actor, who currently struts his hard boiled and supah-sexy stuff as Jack Bauer on 24, can afford to live just about anywhere he damn well chooses. However, since July of 2002, the hard driving Hollywood hot shot has famously chosen to hunker down in a bunker like building in a somewhat seedy and not so savory section of Los Angeles wedged in between Hollywood and Silver Lake.

Property records show that in July of 2002, Mister Sutherland forked over $700,000 to purchase a 14,400 square foot warehouse space on N. Madison Avenue. He clearly proceeded to spend boo-coo bucks converting the former ironworks foundry into what listing information indicates is an approximately 6,000 square foot living space and a separate work space that includes offices and a dee-luxe recording studio and offices for Mister Sutherland's record label called Ironworks Music. Yes children, Mister Sutherland has a record label that he co-owns with his BFF Jude Cole, a well known fact that Your Mama did not know before we had a little look-see through the internets this morning.

The front facade of the forbidding building is covered in a colorful and fanciful mural and according to Mister Sutherland is frequently used by the local Salvadoran and Ukrainian gangs who tag the security gates in order to claim to their territory. Well, that's, uh, charming, ain't it? Listing information for Mister Sutherland's large living circumstances indicates that in addition to the three bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, the gigantic open plan space where all the rooms open to each other includes 25 foot ceilings and polished concrete floors with radiant heat. The listing photos reveal that Mister Sutherland's digs also include curtained off areas that function as an art/painting studio and a home gym set up.

The master bedroom appears to be about as large as Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's entire damn house and as far as we can ascertain includes a sitting area, a punching bag, a big bathroom and a cedar lined sauna. The children will note that the one feature missing from Mister Sutherland's digs are windows. Quite frankly, Your Mama would not want windows if we lived in this place either. In this neck of the Los Angeles woods they are simply an invitation for burglars. However, it does appear that Mister Sutherland's architect smartly includes skylights throughout the structure to allow for at least some natural light.

Listen children, back when Your Mama was a pretty young thing living it up in San Francisco, we used to spend an inordinate amount of time hanging around a warehouse style living and performing space called 21 Bernice where junkies could nod out in peace and down and dirty drag queens could work their shady and brazilliant stuff like nobody's bizness. However, we were young, practically broke and decidedly not famous so it made a certain amount of sense.

However, we do find it a wee bit unusual, if not a little bih-zarre, that an a-list actor who reportedly makes upwards of $20,000,000 a year would shack up in a quasi-industrial part of town where it (may or) may not be safe for a hugely famous man to walk around after dark. But then again, this bad boy seems to like living his life on a razor thin edge, so maybe it's not so strange after all.

Property records show that Mister Sutherland also owns a modest home on La Maida Street in Sherman Oaks that he bought in December of 2003 for $610,000 as well as 2,467 square foot house on Placidia Avenue in the Toluca Lake area that he bought in July of 2006 for $1,025,000.

As Mister Big Time noted in his run down on Kiefer Sutherland, the hard living actor once owned an 813 acre ranch in Santa Maria, CA that he sold in the year 2000. Your Mama also notes that records show that in 1999 he sold a big house on S. Plymouth Boo-lay-vard in Los Angeles' Hancock Park and in 2003 he and his long-estranged and now ex-wifey Kelly Winn sold their house in Toronto to a writer who ex-poe-sayd the transaction in an inneresting article for The Times (UK).

Your Mama Hit the Big Time...

...on CNN!

Jennifer Grant Selling in Santa Monica

SELLER: Jennifer Grant
LOCATION: Fraser Avenue, Santa Monica, CA
PRICE: $2,195,000
SIZE: 1,564 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Craftsman beach home architecturally designed and remodeled on the best Ocean Park walk street – 1 block from the sand. Incredible attention to detail. Light and open with a N.Y. style 2nd story loft. 25' vaulted ceilings with exposed beams, skylights in almost every room, hardwood floors and sisal carpets. Gourmet cooks kitchen. Large master suite with all new bath and walk-in closet leading to a private deck. Great office and 2nd bedrm and bath.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Recently we were perusing the listings in Santa Monica and came across this itty bitty beach cottage in Santa Monica sitting pretty on the market for $2,195,000. Because Your Mama is nothing if not a Nosy Nelly, we peeked into the property records and much to our deelishus dee-lite discovered it's currently owned by Hollywood scion Jennifer Grant.

Your Mama realizes that many of the children will not immediately recognize the name Jennifer Grant as a "celebrity." It might be because Miss Grant is only a minor celeb at best and it might also be because she's not the sort of gal who is out flashing her naughty bits all over town for the paps to photograph nor is she cutting deals with the gossip glossies for "candid" photos like some of the other stoopidly famous folks are oft-rumored to do. Besides, Miss Grant does not need to try nearly as hard as a questionably talented celebutards like that disturbing Heidi Montag. Why? Because this gurl's got Hollywood royalty running in her veins. That's right children. Miss Grant happens to be the only daughter of screen legend Cary Grant and his Oscar nominated fourth wife, kooky and curly haired Lakers fanatic Dyan Cannon.

After stints in a law firm and as a chef, the Stanford graduate–Your Mama lurvs us an edju-muh-kated ack-tress–decided to get into the family bizness in 1993 when she landed a recurring role as Steve Sanders' gurlyfriend Celeste Lundy on the beloved boob-toob juggernaut that was Beverly Hills 90210, a program currently in the process of being reprised. Pleeze. Does anyone really care what Brenda Walsh is up to nowadays? Your Mama might care if the show placed some big advertising on our little online endeavor, but otherwise we don't give a shit. Sorry puppies, but we don't.

Anyhoo, back in May of 1997, several years after Miss Grant strutted her toothy stuff on 90210, prop records reveal that the not particularly successful ack-tress scooped up a cute little cottage on Santa Monica's Fraser Avenue for $625,000. Remember those salad days of real estate children when a diminutive domicile just a few steps from the sugary sands of the Pacific Ocean could be picked up for well under a million dollars? Oh yes, Your Mama does too...wistfully.

Listing information shows the long and slender bungalow includes two bedrooms and two bathrooms while property records indicate the house measures 1,564 square feet and contains five bedrooms. We're not sure why the discrepancy in the number of sleeping chambers but if Your Mama had to guess–and we're only guessing children–three of the original five bedrooms were prolly removed in the full tilt renovation which transformed much of the interior space into a soaring loft with a beautifully articulated 25' ceiling and a well considered ridge-line skylight that pulls lights down into the ecclesiastical second floor loft and main floor living spaces.

Ordinarily Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter do not care for loft style living–we prefer defined spaces with doors that close thank you very much. However, we're going to make an exception for Miss Grant's beach cottage. The skinny residences that line the narrow Santa Monica streets and lead down to the beach are slammed up next to each other making it nearly impossible to harness light and create privacy with windows on the sides of the house. The architect responsible for this renovation has successfully solved that particular problem with the aforementioned ridge-line skylight, an inspired notion that allowed the original roof line to be preserved but also injected a striking modernity into the modified Victorian style structure. We can understand that some preservationist minded folks will not appreciate the modern infusion, but try to imagine how dark this house would feel if it retained its original layout, which was most likely a warren of small rooms with side facing windows.

As for Miss Grant's day-core? Well children, we do feel it could use the deft hand of a nice gay decorator to pull it all together, we think the kitchen could use another re-do and we're somewhat concerned about the potential difficulty of climbing in and getting out of that shower tub combination in the master bedroom. However, we genuinely appreciate the hodge podge nature of the place that genuinely reflects the its current owner. And the books...did the children notice there are actual books in this house? Any house with books that look like they actually get opened and read gets bonus points in Your Mama's book.

Your Mama is certain that many of the children will say this would make perfect for a pied a terre at the beach but really isn't large enough for full time living. Wanna know what we say to that? Bullshit! All this drama that people go through about needing 3,000+ square feet in order to feel comfortable and cosseted is nothing but a bunch of whining and complaining. Seriously. People want to have mammoth mansions and sprawling estates, that's just fine. But Your Mama does not want to hear anybody moan about how they need a big house surrounded by an ocean of perfectly manicured lawn. Rubbish!

As far as Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are concerned, this is the perfect amount of interior space for comfortable living. Yes, we would absolutely prefer more outdoor space where our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly could sun their sausage shapes and we'd be perpetually annoyed about having to carry food for the barbecue through the master bedroom. However, we'd make due if it meant being able to stroll down to the sand in less than 2 minutes.

Your Mama hasn't a clue to where Miss Grant will be decamping with her Buddha things and books, but based Your Mama wishes her all the best.

Co-op Board Craziness

This morning Your Mama discussed a magnificent (but in need of a major re-do) doo-plex co-operative apartment located in New York City's super swank 740 Park Avenue that was recently hoisted onto the market with a spine tingling asking price of $38,000,000.

Since there has been much discussion in the past regarding the capricious and powerful boards who fiercely guard access to the better buildings in Manhattan, Your Mama thought the children might get a kick and a hoot out of this article from the July 13 issue of the NY Post that gives a fun rundown and a few interesting tidbits about the rich folks who control access to some of the most restrictive apartment buildings in the city, including 740 Park Avenue.

The 740 Park Avenue Sell Off

SELLER: Peter Huang
LOCATION: 740 Park Avenue, New York, NY
PRICE: $38,000,000 (maintenance and common charges: $10,574/month)
SIZE: 7,500 square feet (approx.), 5 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...A private elevator landing opens to an impressive entry gallery with a grand staircase. It boasts large scale rooms with 10 foot ceilings. There is a separate staircase that leads to the servants quarters. This elegant duplex has beautiful moldings throughout, hardwood floors and wood burning fireplaces...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Oh children, Your Mama is betwixt and breathless this morning contemplating the latest co-operative apartment to become available in the dee-luxe and obscenely-exclusive 740 Park Avenue in New York City. Seldom do apartments in the Rosario Candela designed building on the corner of 71st Street and Park Avenue hit the open market. However, a dy-no-mite doo-plex on the fourth and fifth floors has recently hit the market with a blistering $38,000,000 asking price.

According to property records and recent reports, the dee-lishus doo-plex is currently owned by Chinese born financier Peter Huang who purchased the lavish spread back in 1977. Mister Huang, who seems to keep a pretty low public profile, was once married to a ladee named Nancy who reportedly ruffled a some of the freakishly rich and security conscious feathers of 740 Park residents when she invited such colorful and flamboyant rock stars like Kid Creole, Fab Five Freddie and Chic's Nile Rodgers to parties. While Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would love nothing more than to have such folks as guests, this is just not done at 740 Park Avenue children.

Listing information indicates the 5 bedroom and 7.5 bathroom apartment measures in at (approx.) 7,500 square feet. That figure alone is unusual in that many of the more restrictive co-ops in New York don't care for details of the building leaking out. For example, real estate agents lucky enough to secure a listing in the ridiculously ritzy River House on East 52nd Street are reportedly forbidden to use the name of the building in advertising and marketing materials. We think that is simply stoopid and silly, but then again so are many of the arcane rules and regulations that govern New York's most expensive addresses.

Anyhoo, before we pick through the fa-boo floor plan which provides some serious real estate porn for anyone interested in how the mega-moneyed elite live in New York City, let's run the numbers: 2 floors, 16 rooms, 22 (or 23) closets, 44 windows, 10 foot ceilings, 4-5 bedrooms (depending on how the rooms are used), 5.5 family bathrooms plus 2 more for the 4 staff bedrooms, 3 fireplaces, and 2 stair cases. Phew!

Although there are at least three other swanky units that share the fourth and fifth floors, including one owned by billionaire biznessman David Koch, Mister Huang's apartment features a private elevator landing that opens into a large foyer with a Scarlett O'Hara worthy curving stair case. The 725+ square foot corner living room is large enough to hold a hoe-down and sports a wood burning fireplace, intricate moldings and several large windows overlooking pristine Park Avenue. The other generously proportioned public rooms include a 25 foot long dining room, a 400+ square foot library–also with a fireplace–and a curious little room located off the dining room that is perfect for sipping tea and going over the social calendar with one's private secretary. The well scaled eat in kitchen at the back of the unit includes a laundry room, two walk in pantries and access to the the service entrance and staff quarters.

Upstairs the master suite encompasses a sitting room, six closets, two bathroom and a corner bedroom with a fireplace. Three additional bedrooms each have a private pooper, an excellent feature because let's be honest, who wants to pay upwards of thirty-five million clams only to have overnight guests be subjected to the durty bizness of someone else.

Although it would probably cause Your Mama to have a nervous break down to live is such lavish circumstances, we imagine that any Richie Rich buyer of this property will appreciate that the two floor staff quarters are connected by a private staircase which will spare them the indignity of having to share stairs with the cleaning gurls unless they are vacuuming the main staircase.

Your Mama is going to move beyond the day-core which we think relies much too heavily on printed wallpaper, contrasting curtains and carpets with dizzying patterns for our personal taste and enjoyment. It goes without saying perhaps then that Your Mama thinks this place, even with it's mind bending asking price, is in obvious need of a hard core and full scale re-decorative re-do. We think it's super-safe to assume the new owner will hire a very expensive team of architects and nice gay decorators to work over, update and upgrade every inch of this palatial property because as far as we can tell, this place lack central heat and air. We can only hope with held breath that the new owners, whomever they may be, will be kind enough to invite Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter for a tour after the curtains are hung and every last upsettingly expensive settee is in place .

Celebrity House Hunters

Let's start the day with some real estate rumor and gossip.

Good House Hunting...

It seems that Oscar winning ack-tor Ben Affleck and his oft nominated for an Emmy ack-tress wifey Jennifer Garner have the celebrity real estate gossips brows furrowed and tongues wagging just about every other week. First there was a humongous house in the Holmby Hills that all of the world (including Your Mama) thought they bought. They didn't.

Next, the house hunters were spotted touring a modest cottage in Venice and Your Mama heard from a well placed source in The Boo that the couple also peeked and poked around at a big and newly built house on Birdview Avenue that was listing in the twenty million smacker range.

Then it was back to the Holmby Hills where the possibly preggers pair have been spotted more than once looking over a freshly rehabbed John Bersci designed manse on S. Mapleton Drive that is currently listed at $27,500,000.

This week, the couple were out in their Audi A8 peeping and poking around a house in Brentwood that is currently under construction and about which Your Mama has no specific information.

So what gives children? Are these two really looking to buy a new crib to house a new crib or do they just like looking? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

P.S. We've long heard (but can not confirm) that the real estate luvin' couple is building a new nest for their (possibly) growing family in the Mandeville Canyon area of Brentwood, and Your Mama has also heard from a source we'll call Laughing Larry who says that the couple have twice looked at the Cecil B. DeMille estate in gated Laughlin Park (where we hear Ben's little bro Casey lives). Laughing Larry also whispered in Your Mama's big ear that one of the viewings occured in the evening and Ben's buddy Matt Damon and his wifey Luciana tagged along to see the historic 6 bedroom and 10 bathroom estate that is currently listed at $23,950,000 (reduced from $26,500,000). Hmm. Inneresting.

Heidi and Spencer Go Boo...

Also making (probably fake) celebrity real estate news is gossip glossy favorites Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag who have somehow managed to become wildly and upsettingly famous simply by calling the paps whenever they grocery shop, grab coffee or go shopping.

Oh look, there's Miss Montag now with her weave all did up teetering on a pair of sky high alligator sling-backs and toting a big white Birkin bag posing for all she's worth on the balcony of an ocean front house in Malee-boo. And oh looky there, now she's kissing on her man Spencer who among other offenses looks like he's got a damn pubic bush on his face. Seriously dude, shave that kitty-cat off.

Anyhoo, online reports say the gun toting Christians were spotted having a look-see at a $90,000 per month rental on the beach in Malee-boo before heading up into the hills to view a property listed for (around) $12,000,000. Ack! Your Mama would bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that the desperate for any and all attention couple arranged for the paps to follow them out the Pacific Coast Highway and bee-lined from the front door right out the back door so the snap happy paps could nab a thousand photos of the lovebirds getting smoochy on the deck. Uhm. Okay. Whatever.

Listen children, we know these two make boo-coo bucks working their breathtaking lack of skills and talents around Hollywood and Las Vegas, but does anyone really think these two have the ka-ching to purchase a $12,000,000 house in Malee-boo? Pleeze.

Listen to Your Mama Miss Montag and Mister Pratt, the two of you best stay put in your crappy condo in West Hollywood because when fame and fortune dries up for you two–and it most certainly will–we'd just hay-ate to see y'all face an uglee foreclosure proceeding due to a mammoth mortgage that you can no longer afford.

The Jonas Brothers Head to the Lonestar State

BUYERS: The Jonas Brothers
LOCATION: Wisteria Way, Westlake, TX
PRICE: $2,895,000 (asking)
SIZE: 7,360 square feet 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Must see to appreciate this absolutely gorgeous house located in Westlake, TX in a nice and safe neighborhood. Single family, six bedrooms, six baths. Spacious rooms with plenty of storage and closet space.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama has a musical confession to make and we hope none of you tweenage gurls and bubble gum pop music fans will hold it against us. As far as Your Mama knows, we have never even heard a song sung by the Jonas Brothers and without a little research on the internets, Your Mama would not have been able to pick the curly haired boys out from any crowd of high school age boys. Your Mama would have remained blissfully ignorant of the brothers Jonas but for the heaps of rumors, reports and dozens of emails cluttering up our inbox this morning that all claim the teenage singing sensations have gone and bought themselves a big house in a fancy gated community on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas.

If the rumors are true, the squeaky clean trio will soon be moving their gee-tars and purity rings from their current crib in Los Angeles to a 7,360 square foot manse located on Wisteria Way in the upscale Vaquero Club in Westlake, Texas. Online information for the Vaquero Club indicates that the gates are guarded 24 hours a day and the entire community is surrounded by a six to eight foot high stacked stone perimeter wall. Not that Your Mama would encourage any such nonsense or stoopidity, but we sincerely doubts that a little ol' six or eight foot wall will deter intrepid, clever and obsessed 12 year old gurls. Pleeze. The raging hormones of these crazed pre-teen gives them the supernatural power to leap over tall barriers if there is even a whisper of an opportunity to glimpse the baby faced visages of their (allegedly) virgin idols.

Anyhoo, here's what's being reported far and wide: The three boys (Kevin, Joe and Nick) granted their mother Denise Jonas power of attorney to sign purchase documents for a 6 bedroom stone built house that has either 6 or 6.5 bathrooms, depending on which online listing you look at. Property records don't yet indicate a sale price, but the asking price for the big house was $2,895,000.

The Jonas Brothers' new nest looks over the 6th and 7th fairways of the Tom Fazio designed Vaquero Golf Course and includes all manner of Old World day-core, acres of paneling and woodwork, a game room, a colossal kitchen that opens to a family room and, natch, a home thee-ayter where the oft hounded gossip glossy phenoms can watch movies without being disturbed by all the young gurls (and boys) who hurl, shriek and faint with excitement when they see the Jonas Brothers in public places.

Out back, a large loggia overlooks an even larger swimming pool and spa, and a trellis covered pavilion includes an outdoor fireplace where the boys can harmonize, pluck their gee-tars and write some more songs that will earn them even more millions of dollars. How much do the children want to bet that there will soon be a lot of 12 year old gurls going golfing at Vaquero with their daddies in the hopes of catching one or more of the brothers Jonas lying poolside in a bathing suit?

The Vaquero Club is reportedly already home to several famous residents including professional golfers Brian Watts and Todd Hamilton as well as former footballer Henry Ford and baseball's Dave Berg...all people, incidentally that Your Mama has never heard of. However, the fantastical fame of the Jonas Brothers eclipses all the other famous folks in Vaquero and Your Mama imagines that all the tweenage gurls who currently live in exclusive community will soon be some of the most popular gurls at school. All the other gurls will soon be begging through tears of desperation to be invited to a weekend sleep over during which they'll roam the streets of Vaquero like wild dogs in search of raw meat.

Listen children, Your Mama finds it a tad bit strange that the older Jonas brothers–two of whom are over 18 years old–would want to remain living in the family house. However, if that's their choice, so be it. However, Your Mama does have to wonder how the family will decide who gets the master suite...or will the boys line up twin beds and all bunk together in the big bedroom?

UPDATE: Jeff Lewis

Cross your fingers kids because it looks like professional house flipper Jeff Lewis and his bizness partner and ex-luvah Ryan Brown may have finally sold that damn house on Valley Oak Drive that is featured on the current season of Bravo's boob toob favorite Flipping Out.

Since so many of the children seem to take an impolite delight in real estate schadenfreude, let's go back and have a look-see at the asking price history for this property. The hillside house in the Los Feliz neighborhood was first plopped on the market in April of 2008 with an optimistic asking price of $3,195,000. Just about a month later the asking price was hacked to $2,995,000, then a month later it was given another $200,000 haircut to $2,795,000 where it sat for another four or five weeks when it was given another $200,000 ka-rah-tay chop to its current asking price of $2,595,000.

Anyhoo, the listing for the 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom residence is now marked, "Looking for Backup" indicating that the property has entered escrow and will soon be sold...if the deal sticks together. Your Mama is sure that Missus Lewis and Brown are happy as pigs in shit that the house has finally sold and so are we because the more houses they sell the more likely we'll get to watch Jeff's crazy obsessive ass on the tee-vee.

Your Mama will let the children and the Chicken Littles discuss and duke it out about whether the $600,000 price reduction is a result of the house being over priced to begin with or if it's a reflection of the state of the market.

UPDATE: Candy Spelling

Well children, now we know why ridiculously rich Hollywood widow Candy Spelling has been looking to unload some of her real estate holdings of late...she's downsizing. The lavish living ladee just forked over a record breaking $47,000,000 to buy the top two floors of a yet to be completed A.M. Stern designed building called The Century currently rising on Avenue of the Stars in Century City. For those not overly familiar with the lay of L.A. Land, Century City is a glittering and puny pocket of tall towers that sits south of Santa Monica Boulevard and between Bev Hills and Westwood Village.

Miz Spellings dee-luxe doo-plex will span about 16,000 square feet with 360 degree views from downtown Los Angeles to Catalina Island. Not surprisingly, the reported $2,848 per square foot price sets a record for a Los Angeles condominium.

The pampered and polished Mis Spelling has purchased her giant con-doe early enough in the construction process that she will be able to bring in her own architects and designers to finish her 41st and 42nd floor aerie. A few of the high-priced details of her new digs were reported in the Los Angeles Times and include a living room with two working fireplaces, a bizarrely large 4,000 square foot master bedroom, a massage room, exercise room, and conservatory that will feature a damn rose garden as well as an indoor swimming pool that will open to a terrace. Oh it's nice to be rich, ain't it children? Your Mama imagines that Miz Spelling's team of people will somehow manage to squeeze a gift wrapping room into the plan too because let's be honest, once you've become accustomed to having a gift wrapping room or two, you simply can not live without one.

We suppose this big buy means we'll start hearing whispers and rumors about the sixty something year old's 123-room mega mansion–dubbed The Manor–on S. Mapleton Drive going on the market. In fact Miz Spelling's attorney, a gentleman named Stephen Goldberg, is quoted saying that the woman with a penchant for all things glam often receives "feelers" and expressions of interest from potential buyers for her 11 bedroom and 16 bathroom behemoth including one filthy rich party who "promised nine figures and change plus a jet." Well good for her, because no matter how you slice it, decorate it, or keep it up, 56,000+ square feet is a lonely amount of space for just one person.

Meanwhile, Your Mama hears that daughter Tori and her growing family have recently purchased a much more modest new house in the Little Holmby neighborhood of Los Angeles. Records show that Tori's new 5 bedroom house cost her $2,275,000, which our bejeweled abacus tells us amounts to a breathtaking one-twentieth of the amount of cash Candykins just dumped on her new nest.

photo: The Century

Nic Cage Selling Another One

SELLER: Nic Cage
LOCATION: Spanish Heights Drive, Las Vegas, NV
PRICE: $9,490,000 (reduced from $9,500,000)
SIZE: 14,306 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 5 full and 3 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Each guest suite and bath is done in such an individual unique manner one must take a second look to absorb the meticulous detail. Game rooms, guest quarters, professional theatre, state of the art security system are just a few of the gracious amenities. Three levels of living and entertaining with a commercial grade element to take you from your 16 car garage to a master suite that is a world apart–complete with steam, sauna and a jetted tub with a water fountain–private balcony views the mountains for a romantic sunset escape.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama is running behind on a number of older items we've had lined up in our queue of celebrity properties, so we recognize and realize that many of you children already know that hair challenged and Academy Award winning actor Nic Cage is selling his giant house in Las Vegas from reading other websites and blogs that obsessively discuss celebrity real estate the way Your Mama does.

However, given that Mister Cage is one of the most prolific celebrity buyers and sellers of real estate, we figured we'd give this one a whirl anyway. Keep your mouth shut and move ahead if you've already read all you want to read about the humongous hacienda located on Spanish Heights Drive that Mister Cage has listed with an asking price of $9,500,000.

Located in the high priced gated community called The Spanish Hills, property records show that Mister Cage purchased his rather large desert hideout in September of 2006 for $8,500,000. Interestingly the public records Your Mama accessed indicate that creepy illusionist David Copperfield once owned the land on which Mister Cage's 14,306 square foot house sits.

Given that Mister Cage owns more properties around the world than Your Mama has fingers to count, it's unclear how much time Mister and Missus Cage actually spent roaming around the three floor mansion that includes 7 bedrooms (including a master with jetted tub, steam and sauna contraptions and private sitting room), 9 terlits, 3 fireplaces, garaging for a shocking 16 cars (who has 16 cars?), a professional theatre, a hotel lobby sized living room, gor-may kitchen, work out room, a swimming pool and spa and a commercial grade elevator that services all three floors of the 14,306 square foot house that is squeezed like a baby in the damn birth canal onto a .36 acre parcel.

Listing information indicates that the Cage casa is being offered fully furnished with each of the bedrooms done up in an "individual and unique manner," which quite frankly sounds a little frightening. Listen children, if anyone were to ask Your Mama–and of course no one did–there is little worse than themed bedrooms in private homes. No one, including Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter, wants to drive 14 hours to visit Aunt Mary only be put up in a bedroom decorated like some fake-ass fantasy vision of Africa–because, you know, unlike Your Mama, Aunt Mary has never actually been to Africa–or an icky homage to her honeymoon in Hawaii. Seriously people, no one. Your Mama's decorating rule #28: No themed bedrooms in private homes. Ever. Themed bedrooms are only acceptable in kooky and kitchy motels like the magnificently camp Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, CA. (Your Mama's favorites has always been the Austrian Suite worked over all in blue and the pinkalicious Madonna Suite. Check 'em out for a good giggle).

Anyhoo, Your Mama hasn't a clue why Mister Cage would buy, exuberantly decorate and sell this huge house in just two years of ownership. But then again we also don't know what drives a man to (reportedly and according to property records) own a big house in Bel Air, two houses in New Orleans including the infamous LaLaurie House, a castle and a townhouse in Bath, England, a mansion (or two) in San Francisco, a big house in Middletown, Rhode Island, a couple of places in the Bahamas including a 40+ acre private island as well as additional residences in New York and Newport Beach, where he recently sold a humongous harbor front house for a blistering $35,000,000.

According to the Internet Movie Data Base the in demand actor has at least 7 or 8 projects in development and post production, so we don't imagine he has any trouble coughing up the necessary coin, but Your Mama's head still goes light and we have to power sniff the smelling salts just to consider the massive amount of moo-lah that Mister Cage and his much younger wifey Alice are required to spend every year on the taxes, maintenance and staffing for all of their too many houses.

Property records show that tennis titan Andre Agassi also owns two houses (and a third lot with a tennis court) in the posh Spanish Hills gated community, and as was reported by Mister Big Time previously, Mister Cage also owned a second home in the gated community, on Spanish Hills Drive that he purchased in September of 2005 for $2,250,000 and sold in April 2007 for $2,300,000, a sale price that surely amounted in a net loss for the property rich Mister Cage.

Trump's Place in Palm Beach Goes for $95M

Your Mama is a little late to the rodeo on this one, but we're finally getting around to informing the children that brash and brassy real estate tycoon Donald Trump closed on the recent record breaking sale of his tacky and tasteless flip property called Maison La Amitie in Palm Beach for a breathtaking $95,000,000.

Mister Trump has been boasting and bragging for months that the deal was for $100,000,000. However, according to the Palm Beach Post (and property records), the deal actually closed for $95,000,000. A Palm Beach Post source is quoted as saying the actual price was adjusted downward from the $100,000,000 in last minute negotiations with Mister Trump picking up all the closing costs, which the children can bet were staggering.

As Your Mama and many others noted previously, the buyer is a billionaire fertilizer mogul from Russia named Dmitry Rybolovlev who Forbes lists as the 59th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $12,300,000,000.

All us crazy real estate watchers will be holding our collective and proverbial breath to see if Mister Rybolovlev tears the house down as is rumored up and down swanky N. County Road in Palm Beach.

Elle Macpherson's Mansion

SELLER: Elle Macpherson
LOCATION: Ladbroke Gardens, London, UK
PRICE: £7,500,000 (reduced from £9,500,000)
SIZE: 5,469 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Family house that has been designed to the highest specification set in idyllic communal gardens setting.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama recently heard from our world traveling tipster with a distinguished Greek surname who swears on his souvlaki that the house pictured above belongs to the six foot tall super model and lingerie entrepreneur Elle Macpherson.

So, since we've been inundated with uglee-ass houses lately, Your Mama has been desperate to look at some pretty pictures of a refined residence that does not make us want to poke out our eyes with last night's dirty chop sticks, and this house fits the bill.

Regarding Miz Macpherson, this is what Your Mama has gleaned from our early morning research on the internets: Shortly after Miz Macpherson split from her filthy rich Swiss born biznessman beau and baby daddy Arpad Busson in 2005, she and the former couple's two kiddies moved to a seven story house in Ladbroke Gardens that she did up and did over with all sorts of custom cabinetry and bespoke furniture.

(Mister Busson has moved on to engage himself to another high profile and tall blond babe, this time American actress and recent dee-vorcee Uma Thurman while 40-something year old Miz Macpherson has been rumored and reported to be dating all sorts of gentleman friends such as rock star Bryan Adams and 21 year old Vito Schnabel, young son of the artist Julian Schnabel.)

Anyhoo, there have been many and multiple reports about Miz Macpherson growing tired of living in London and wanting to decamp to her native Australia. However, there have also been reports of the swimsuit model turned bra and panty mogul shopping for new homes in the English countryside. So who knows?

The house in question, located in the Ladbroke Gardens section of hoity toity Notting Hill, has been listed at £9,500,000 which Your Mama's bejeweled abacus reveals converts to $18,933,540 at today's rates. Listing information for the 5,469 square foot property shows there are seven floors of living space with six bedrooms and five full and two half bathrooms. Although Your Mama worries about the practicality and extreme difficulty of living in a seven floor house without an elevator, we don't imagine this would be much of a problem for a woman like Miz Macpherson, who at 40 some years old still has rock hard glutes and legs of steel that make stair climbing easy.

Generally speaking Your Mama is loving this Notting Hill house and floor plan. In fact, besides the lack of a lift, we only find one glaring issue that causes us consternation and puzzlement: There is no easily accessible terlit for guests who are forced to descend two flights from the first floor drawing room to the "Lower Ground Floor" or hike up two floors to the third floor hall bath. Not good. There isn't an obvious place to squeeze a powder room on the ground or first floor, but Your Mama imagines a really good architect could work the floor plan to add a more convenient wee-wee room for guests.

We're appreciating the eclectic design of the main drawing room on the first floor which looks like a room where one could entertain swells and fashioneestas on Friday night and then kick up the bare feet and read the gossip glossies on Sunday morning. In addition to the drawing room there are several other smaller sitting and receptions rooms for more intimate moments.

Londoner's know how to do a kitchen with all the latest and greatest gadgets and gizmos and this kitchen does not disappoint. Yes, it is a little cold feeling, but try to imagine how it looks when Momma Macpherson is padding around in fuzzy slippers and whipping up rice pudding for the kiddies. A few signs of life and cooking in here would go along way to taking it from looking like a sterile surgical suite and into a sleek but cozy kitchen where friends and family hang out to watch the chef slice and dice.

Although on the floor plan the dining room on the lower ground floor looks terribly cramped, we note in the photos that Miz Macpherson's nice gay decorator has managed to fit a table for ten comfortably into the space by utilizing a clever built-in banquette. Bravo! The children will also note that the brazilliant designer also managed to save space in the too narrow room by removing the fireplace mantel and surrounding the enlarged firebox with what appears to be some sort of mirrored tile all of which makes the room appear larger than it really is.

The master bedroom, which generously occupies an entire floor, has been fitted and kitted with all manner of custom cabinetry that should satisfy any international clotheshorse. In addition to the all the drawers and cabinets, a dressing room has been installed, a feature that makes Your Mama swoon with envy, and the master bath includes a double vanities and a bidet as well as a terlit.

It's lovely to see that even the room dedicated to the children has been thoughtfully designed with custom drawers for storing all the toys and games that typically clutter up the family rooms of folks with children. This room is a testament to the notion that just because one lives with children the Barbies and X-Boxes do not have to be the dominant decorating feature in a family room.

The small garden isn't as user friendly as we might prefer, but according to the listing, the property includes access to communal gardens where we imagine there is much more room for the kiddies to stretch their legs.

Enjoy the photos and floor plan. We think it's dee-voon and dee-lightful. Now then, Your Mama is off to the Time Warner Center for an interview and then we're catching up with our wonderfully ascerbic pal Soozie for a look-see at the quartet of monumental Olafur Eliasson waterfalls that have been erected along the East River in New York City.

(P.S. All hail the Grammar Po-leese!)

Nick Carter's Crib in Parkland, Florida

SELLER: Nick Carter
LOCATION: Long Leaf Drive, Parkland, FL
PRICE: $1,500,000
SIZE: 4,699 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Were it not for the lovely and charming Candy Catsoutofthebag, Your Mama would never have known that Backstreet Boy Nick Carter has put his house in Parkland, Florida on the market with an asking price of $1,500,000. For better or worse, this uber suburban section of the Sunshine State–west of Boca Raton and northwest of Fort Lauderdale–is simply off our real estate radar just as Nick Carter is, for the most part, off our celebrity sonar. Above and beyond the Backstreet Boys thing, about the only information about 30 year old Mister Carter that Your Mama can pull out of the depths of our gin soaked and heat addled mind is that he once dated Paris Hilton (Who hasn't?) and back in 2006 he appeared with his siblings on a rather embarrassing and tawdry reality program called House of Carters that ran, thankfully, for only one 8 episode season.

The 4,699 square foot house on Long Leaf Drive was newly built when property records show that Mister Carter bought the house in June of 2006 for $1,323,435 from the developer. The 5 bedroom and 5 bathroom tile roofed tract house sits cheek to jowl with all the other nearly identical houses in a gated golf community called the Parkland Golf and Country Club where residents can stash the brats at the Kids's Center while they swing clubs on the Greg Norman designed 18 hole golf course and chow down at the The Caribbean Grill. The community also offers, tennis courts, a resort style swimming pool, a spa for massages and mani-pedis, a fitness center, botanical gardens, a banquet hall, golf club and an event lawn.

Listen children, Your Mama never imagined this former teen sensation would possess a World of Interiors worthy interior day-core. But we never imagined it would be a hot mess either. Unfortunately we simply don't have the inner-reserves and fortitude to discuss every decorating crime at Mister Carter's crib so we're going to stick to the top five.

1. The curiously located exterior stairs at the front of the house. Is this an apartment building or a single family home? Not only does Your Mama worry that boozy pals will have trouble finding the front door, it also looks like a big neon invitation to intruders, "Can't get in down there? Try up here!"

2. The video game in the corner of the living room. Oh lawhd have mercy on our snarky soul. That thing has Your Mama dee-pressed and reaching for a tall gin and tonic to wash down the deep psychic pain that hunk of plastic causes our delicate sensibilities. Your Mama begs the children and Mister Carter too to stop for just one moment and think about what sort of message is transmitted by a 30 year old man who has a giant video machine in the damn living room.

Not pretty, is it?

3. The fake greenery atop the kitchen cabinets. Baby, no. Never. Really. Your Mama's decorating rule # 827: No phony foliage allowed. Anywhere and ever.

4. Do not even get Your Mama started on that half-assed Medieval mess masquerading as a damn dining room. Pleeze. That is without a doubt one of the worst looking rooms Your Mama has ever seen. Not only is the chandelier hung way to high it looks like someone has defecated on the walls, which is, of course, never a good look for a dining room. Fortunately paint can easily be changed by the next owner.

5. The bamboo theme in the bedroom. Nick-doll, we don't know who is giving you advice on all the crazy paint treatments, but gurl you gotta get rid of that person because people of style and taste do not punish their walls like that anymore.

Because we always like to say something nice about every property we discuss, we'll pretend that we like the amoeba shaped swimming pool that looks as if it can be seen from several of the neighboring yards and houses which is an excellent bonus feature for exhibitionist buyers.

Property records reveal that Mister Carter own quite a bit of property in Florida. However, it's just too damn hot right now for Your Mama to bother cataloging his real estate portfolio and we need to head out for a nood dip in a cool pool.

Kelsey Grammer Flips Out in the Holmby Hills

SELLER: Kelsey and Camille Grammer
LOCATION: Baroda Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $19,900,000
SIZE: 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Stunning Country English estate located in the heart of Holmby Hills. Situated on almost one flat acre this newly remodeled home features 7 beds and 9 baths. Features a dramatic living room, media room, dining room, a gourmet kitchen that opens to the family room, a gym and much more. Outdoors you find a sparkling pool, large motor court, and a sprawling grassy yard with secluded walls. This is a spacious family home that is ultimately the picture of perfection and sheer elegance.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Like Your Mama has said 40,000 times or more...one of the many ways the rich get even richer is by flipping dee-luxe domiciles at outrageous and unimaginable profits and that's what Emmy winning boob-toob veteran Kelsey Grammer (Cheers, Frazier) and his slim hipped and big boobed wifey Camille are doing with a freshly rehabbed house they recently flipped back onto the market with an asking price of $19,900,000.

It was only in September of 2007, after renovating and selling a big house on Bel Air Road to Salma Hayek and that filthy rich French guy she's having babies with, that prop records and reports reveal that Kelse and Cammy spent $13,700,000 to buy this 10,567 square foot house on Baroda Drive that sits on nearly an acre of desirable dirt in the hotsy-totsy Holmby Hills from baking soda heir Michael Hammer.

A few clicks and clacks on our trusty but well worn bejeweled abacus and we see that Kelse and Cammy are preparing to pocket a whopping $6,200,000 on their high-priced flip after owning the place less than one year. Yes children, Your Mama is quite certain the ex-convict and the ex-nood model forked over plenty of pretty pennies to do up the day-core with all manner of wacky wallpaper, expensive tile treatments and champagne colored everything, but six million and some smackers? In less than a year? Pleeze.

Listen hunnies, don't misunderstand Your Mama here because even though we are bothered, betwixt and outraged by the audacity of the mammoth mark-up, we'd still bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that some dumb ass dude with buckets of money and a plastic enhanced wife who yearns to procreate with her dumb ass rich dude will come along in a giant Mercedes and think nothing of filling Kelse and Cammy's pockets with wads of cash and screams of real estate delight and satisfaction. Such is the state of the stratospheric end of the property market because, apparently, if you can spend in excess of fifteen million dollars on a new and improved nest you simply don't care that the sellers are making millions flipping the property over in less than one year.

Anyhoo, listing information indicates that in addition to the seven bedrooms and nine terlit rooms, the sprawling "English Country" style residence includes an impressive 7 fireplaces, one of which is in the carpeted gym. Now children, Your Mama likes to warm our tootsies by a blazing fire as much as the next person, but does anyone really need or want to set a romantic mood while sweating to the oldies with Richard Simmons in their home gym? Not anyone Your Mama knows.

Other features in Kelse and Cammy's dee-luxe flip include intricate parquet floors, heavy beamed ceilings, more Palladian style French doors than Your Mama cares to count, gigantic dual bathrooms and dressing rooms in the master, a gor-may kitchen that looks hideously expensive but strangely unfinished (shouldn't there be something on either side of the range hood?), and a media room with a built-in bookshelves and a built in bar which will surely please all the wealthy booze hounds who come over for movie night. Behind the high hedges and the two imposing drive gates (in and out, natch), the grounds include a tight circular drive, a large motor court with covered parking for at least 4 cars, a vine wrapped covered terrace overlooking the serene swimming pool and a large lawn area where the pooches can do their dirty bizness without mucking up the stone patios.

It makes Your Mama's head spin like that poor devil possessed gurl in The Exorcist just to think of organizing a definitive catalog of all the high priced properties Mister Grammer has bought and sold over the years, so we'll just tell you what we recall off the top of our gin soaked head:

1. As far as we know, the Grammer clan's West Coast home base is in Malee-boo where they own a 6,645 square foot house on a 4.77 acre spread in the Serra Retreat which records show he purchased in 1998 for $4,500,000

2. In June of 2007, Kelse and Cammy flipped a big and beautiful house on Bel Air Road to Salma Hayek and that French guy.

3. In 2004, Mister and Missus Grammer spent $17,500,000 to buy a Beverly Park behemoth that he sold in early 2006 for $22,000,000, a substantial profit considering the house was newly built when they bought it.

4. The property rich pair have been trying to off load their house in hoity toity Bridgehampton, NY for quite some time. The Morgan Hill Way manse was listed at $16,100,000, but as far as we know it has yet to find a buyer.

5. The couple has long owned property in Hawaii and although we've read that Mister Grammer recently re-cooperated from a mild heart attack at their Hawaiian hideaway, we're not really sure where it is...and frankly, we don't really care.

5. There are several if not many other properties owned by Mister Grammer including an 8,230 square foot house on Tall Timber Road in Avon, CO and a 118+ acre parcel somewhere in Delaware. Yes children, Delaware.

Phew!

William Monahan's Modest Mulholland Drive House

SELLER: William Monahan
LOCATION: Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,350,000
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Located up a long gated driveway, this Mid-Century Contemporary remodeled home has an open feeling with spectacular city light views and mountain vistas from all the main room. An over sized glass door pivots open to welcome you into big open spaces including an exquisite gourmet kitchen, family room, romantic master suite with spa like bath, with 2 additional bedrooms, and bonus rooms. There are 4 fireplaces, pool, spa and outdoor entertaining areas. Mature landscaping & 5 car parking.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Yesterday Your Mama briefly discussed some real estate rumors (see item #4) swirling around the flip house of uber agent Kevin Hoo-vain which occupies a prime piece of dirt right up behind the thirty million dollar Tom and Katie Crooz mansion on Calle Vista Drive in the Bev Hills. Today we're going to continue in that living near Mister Crooz vein and discuss another house that sits a little too close to a Crooz crib for Your Mama's comfort. This time it's Oscar winning writer William Monhan's Mulholland Drive domicile which sits up a long, gorgeous, gated and curving celebrity style driveway just a couple hundred yards (as the crow flies) from that mysterious, heavily fortified and recently rehabbed compound at the end of Torreyson Drive that is rumored and whispered to be some sort of Tom Crooz financed Scientology retreat.

Mister Monahan, formerly a journalist and an editor for the now defunct sassy and satirical Spy magazine, made a meteoric rise to the top of the Hollywood heap when only his second script–for Martin Scorcese's lauded and applauded The Departed–earned him one of those coveted sex toy shaped gold statues known as an Oscar. Ever since then Mister Monahan's much in demand fingers have be a-flyin' across his keyboard writing up screenplays for a couple of upcoming Ridley Scott extravaganzas as well as the latest installment of the Jurassic Park franchise.

Anyhoo, in December of 2006, around about the time that Mister Monahan was cashing some of his prodigious paychecks for penning The Departed, property records show that he and his wifey Wendy forked over $2,200,000 to purchase their 3 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom house on Mulholland Drive that overlooks the San Fernando Valley. Now that the couple is rolling in post-Oscar Benjamins, they've recently listed the property for sale with an asking price of $2,350,000, a number that Your Mama's bejeweled abacus reveals will have them barely breaking financially even after the real estate people are paid their fat fees.

Assessor records show that the Monahan's not-a-mansion measures in at a modest 2,510 square feet. However, the records also show the house contains only 1 bedroom and 2 bathrooms, so Your Mama is a wee bit skeptical about that square footage number being accurate.

Your Mama confesses that although it would scare the bejeezis out of us to live too close to Mister Crooz and his small army of Scientology aficionados, generally speaking we do like this house even if the road noise from Mulholland Drive is probably annoying. We don't find the exterior to be any great shakes architecturally, but we are sincerely appreciative of the high beamed ceilings, floor to ceiling glazing and the easy-going manner in which the house lends itself to classic Calee-fornia indoor/outdoor living.

Although the aesthetic jury is out still on all that slate flooring that has been laid down throughout the house (it's simply too early to bother the decorating divas), we do like the somewhat organic flavor of the interior spaces and we're swooning with envy over all the open shelving throughout the house. True confession: Your Mama has a Jeff Lewis-like anal retentive streak which has turned meticulously lining up knick knacks, keepsakes and soup cans into a bit of a bizarre hobby. Even our bejeweled abacus can't calculate how many hours we've spent arranging and rearranging the shelves in our rather large walk in pantry so that all the like minded foods are grouped together, lined up with every price tag removed and facing forward like dutiful North Korean soldiers.

We hate the black counter tops but otherwise the kitchen is nicely renovated and we love how the stove and the microwave have been inserted directly into the wall. The kitchen is open to the strangely shaped dining room which we enjoy because it forcefully directs the eyeballs out towards the long view over the San Fenando Valley and away from that awful fireplace wall. Any sensible person would be perturbed and disturbed by the treatment of the fireplace surround (slate running running up from the floor!) and that sorry little television set mounted above it is a decorating crime of the highest magnitude. Quite frankly, given that there are three other fireplaces in the house, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would quickly call the contractor to close this one and if we had the really big bucks we'd then run out to Matthew Marks and snatch up a hideously expensive and brightly colored Terry Winters painting like this to work against all the muted organic color in the kitchen and on the floor.

To be honest, we're a little perplexed by the day-core we see in the photos. Has this place been staged? Has someone simply pared down the Monahan's belongings to the barest essentials? Are the Monahans obsessed with white furniture? Whose idea was all that white furniture anyway?As the children know, Your Mama loves us a white slip covered sofa if it's used in a not very Shabby Chic sort of way, but too much of a good thing is just too much of a good thing and there's just too much white slip covered furniture in here to be a good thing.

And that Saarinen table in the master bedroom? Uh. No. Don't get Your Mama wrong. We love a Saarinen table as much as the next person. In fact, we're sitting at one as we type. But putting that itty bitty one in front of the big beautiful windows only makes the plump proportions of the master bedroom look like a mid-priced hotel room in Palm Springs. Your Mama's decorating rule #273: A diminutive breakfast table–even if it is an everlasting icon of furniture design–has no place in a master bedroom. Ever. Breakfast tables are for breakfast rooms.

We're totally appreciative that a small swimming pool has been tucked into the hillside. However we're tremendously troubled by the haphazard stacked stone wall that forms the back edge which looks rather jagged and dangerous for anyone who might choose to take a quick dip in the cool waters while boozed up during a back yard barbecue, which for better or worse (and we hope the former) happens fairly frequently amongst the alcoholic beverage luvin' tipplers in Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's thirsty crew.

Certainly Your Mama hasn't any notion where Mister and Missus Monahan will be moving, but it's not such a stretch to imagine that they're headed to a new nest commensurate with his elevated stature among the elite folks who ply their trade in Hollywood's Bizness of Show.

Rich Russians Buy A Big House in London

Thanks to Fawning Flora across the pond in the United Kingdom, Your Mama was directed to an article in the Daily Mail which reports that London's largest private house besides Buckingham Palace was recently scooped up for a blistering £50,000,000 by Russia's richest woman Elena Baturina. Miz Baturina, who claims a building conglomerate fortune of over two billion bucks happens to be married to Yuri Luzkhov, the current mayor of Moscow.

Your Mama's bejeweled abacus reveals that the (alleged) purchase price converts to $100,093,500 at today's rates, a particularly mind numbing number given that the behemoth is reportedly in "a dilapidated state" and will require a tremendously expensive restoration and renovation. It's just a good thing then the new owner has more money than the damn Pope because it's going to cost her a Vatican sized fortune to renovate the (approx.) 40,000 square foot palatial pile.

Someone pass Your Mama the nerve pills because even more shocking is that the seller, a property developer named Marcus Cooper, only bought the humongous house in July of 2007 for £32,000,000 ($64,059,840) and reportedly did not even touch a floor board or tile before flipping the beast of a house to Miz Baturina at an astonishing £18,000,000 ($36,033,660) profit. In just one year. Can the children hear Your Mama gasping for breath?

Anyhoo, the ornately and exquisitely detailed Queen Anne style mega mansion called Witanhurst sits on 7(ish) acres in an area of London called Highgate and features a staggering 90 rooms including 25 bedrooms, 12 terlits, more than half a dozen reception rooms, several kitchens, a Grand Ball room that stretches seventy damn feet long and of course staff quarters up the proverbial wazoo.

Last year the really rich Russians reportedly purchased another house in hoity toity Holland Park. Now children, what does the mayor of Moscow need with two lavish and outrageously priced houses in London?

Mid-Week Mish Mash

1.
Not only did Olivia Newton John recently make a rather curious and somewhat stiff appearance on Kathy Griffin's Life on the D List and quietly tie the marriage knot with wellness oriented bizness man John Easterling, the tragedy touched singer/actress has finally gotten fizz-i-cuhl with the asking price of her Malee-boo mansion which has been on the market since January of 2008.

Tucked up into the rear section of in the rich and famous friendly guard gated enclave called the Serra Retreat, Miz Newton John first listed her not very appealingly decorated 6,482 square foot house in December of 2007 with an asking price of $14,000,000. She later lowered the price for the 5 bedroom and 6 bathroom manse to $12,950,000 (see third item), and just recently the Aussie icon slashed another million clams off the price bringing the asking price to its current $11,950,000.

Perhaps the new and improved price will Grease the wheels of a few deep pocketed buyers who like the idea of neighboring up to the other residents of Retreat Court who include Oscar winning director James Cameron (Titanic, Terminator franchise), who owns the titanic two house compound across the street, and writer/director/producer Stephen Sommers (Van Helsing, The Mummy franchise) who bought the house next door from Britney Spears and her ex-huzband Kevin Federline in August of 2007 for $10,000,000.

2.
Speaking of that Spears gurl, the Tarzana house where white rapper turned ack-tor Kevin Federline decamped after being booted from the couple's above mentioned mansion in Malee-boo has hit the market with an asking price of $1,890,000. Yes children, it was in front of this very house that the unfortunately shorn and mentally unstable Miss Spears had her infamous and major meltdown when she attacked a pap's motor vehicle with an umbrella.

Mister Federline, who Your Mama thinks has a bad habit of making babies with ladees he does not want to be with, has moved on to another leased property in Tarzana where he has primary custody of the two Spears spawn while the much on the mend Miss Spears is rumored and reported to be high tailing out of her guard gated Bev Hills community for another guard gated community in the suburban wilds of Calabasas. Blah, blah, blah. We shall see.

3.
In other Tarzana celebrity real estate news...

Although the $2,230,000 listing for Oscar winning actor Jamie Foxx's super sexxed up 3 bedroom and 3.25 bathroom bachelor pad on Tarzana's Van Alden Drive is still marked "active" in the MLS, a local denizen of that hotter than Hades town recently whispered in Your Mama's big ear that a sign has popped up outside the tall wall at the front of the property that indicates the house is in contract. Your Mama is not about to get in our big BMW and waste the gasoline to drive out to Tarzana to verify that bit of gossip, so at this point we don't recommend repeating that like it's gospel.

Notorious ladees man and boobie grabber Mister Foxx is selling his long time party pad at least in part due to his recent purchase of a lavish and sprawling 40 acre spread out in Thousand Oaks, CA where he can happily host all the nekkid basketball games his little heart and private parts desire without offending his damn neighbors.

4.
It's been a long time since Your Mama has heard hide or hair from our always well informed informant Kenny Kissintell. However, we recently received a wee missive from the catty chatter with some scuttlebutt about the 7,100 square foot Bev Hills fixer upper that uber-agent Kevin Huvane has been trying to flip for a profit since at least the summer of 2007. Remember this house children? Mister Hoo-vain bought it back in December of 2003 but as far as we know never spent a single night in the rehab needing residence. The 6 bedroom and 7 bathroom manor house occupies a perfectly situated 1.44 acre parcel in a choice corner of Bev Hills just up behind the new Tom Crooz compound on Calle Vista Drive. However, while it's undeniably perfectly located for all the bigwig industry types who pilot their mammoth Mercedes' to high powered meetings up and down Wilshire Boulevard, the house is also in need of a full scale multi-million dollar renovation...at least that's what Your Mama hears from a well placed real estate agent who works the better streets of Bev Hills and would be in the position to know.

Anyhoo, although we can not verify the information, Mister Kissintell first whispered to Your Mama that he heard through the high end real estate gossip grapevine that thirty something year old entrepreneur Sam Nazarian "was far down along the road" towards buying the Calle Vista casa but backed out. The children will recall that it was young and successful Mister Nazarian who bought the big contemporary crib in The Summit from super rich and shameless self-promoter Jennifer Lopez Noa Judd Anthony and less than two years later sold the 9,001 square foot sprawler to rock star and fashion icon Gwen Stefani and her handsome huzband Gavin Rossdale for a blistering $13,250,000.

Our Mister Kissintell did not stop dishing the real estate dirt there. Oh no. He also told Your Mama that he heard from several unidentified sources that Mister Hoo-vain's house–currently listed at $14,950,000 (reduced from $15,950,000)–was THISCLOSE to being snapped up by recent Hollywood dee-vorcee Jamie Tisch who Your Mama imagines walked away from her marriage to mega rich super producer Steve Tisch (Risky Business, Forrest Gump, Snatch, The Pursuit of Happyness and etc.) with plenty of cash to do over and do up this dilapidated domicile in high style. A few weeks ago Your Mama did notice the listing was marked "Looking for Backup," but as of today, it's back to being marked "active." Perhaps the ex-Mrs. Tisch's perfectly manicured feet got cold just like Mister Nazarian's allegedly did before her?

5.
The heavenly house in the Hollywood Hills being sold by screenwriter Naomi Foner and boob toob director Steven Gyllenhaal–who are Jake and Maggie's parents, natch–is officially (and strangely) languishing on the market. First listed at the beginning of 2008 with an asking price of $4,200,000, listing information now shows that the price has been given a $700,000+ haircut to its current asking price of $3,495,000. Unfortunately Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's price range does not stretch into the three millions because we'd be moving our sour pussy Sugar and long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly into this wood and glass extravaganza faster than the Gyllenhaals could shout, "Martha's Vineyard!"

6.
Speaking of houses Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter have cottoned to, it appears that good lookin' actor Enrique Murciano (Without a Trace) may have unloaded his 3 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom house on Hillside Avenue in Los Angeles which was listed at $1,795,000. Although the modestly sized and located property needs a few obvious tweaks including pulling up the puzzlingly pavered driveway and working over the not so great kitchen and bathrooms, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter found this house to be most agreeable because of its many inviting outdoor spaces and high hedges ensuring absolute privacy when parading around the backyard in the nood, which of course, we like to do.

Elizabeth Peyton: Pretty as a Picture in Orient

SELLER: Elizabeth Peyton and Tony Just
LOCATION: Village Lane, Orient, NY
PRICE: $900,000
SIZE: 1,500 square feet (approx.), 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom
DESCRIPTION: ...Warm and inviting living room with fireplace; formal dining room for entertaining; custom designed and built kitchen with teak counter tops and mahogany cabinets. Screened enclosed front port plus open side porch. Detached garage/studio; in ground heated lap pool. Mature gardens and lush plantings.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A New York based art world birdie buddy recently whispered in Your Mama's big ear that mid-career art star Elizabeth Peyton and her long time arty-farty boy beau Tony Just are selling their weekend getaway at the far eastern end of the North Fork of Long Island. Located in the quirky and quaint village of Orient, the couple have listed their 2 bedroom and 1 bathroom hideaway on Village Lane with an asking price of $900,000.

Your Mama can forgive the children for not knowing a thing about the North Fork since its glitzier and more celebrity obsessed sister fork, the Hamptons, gets most of the press and attention...a situation that most North Forkers seem to like just fine. A quick scan of an online map shows that Long Island splits at a town called Riverhead. To the south is the bizzy and hoity toity Hamptons and to the north stretches the more bucolic and somewhat less discovered North Fork, a region becoming known for its vineyards and varietals.

Just because her face isn't splashed across the pages of all the gossip glossies and just because some (and perhaps even most) of the children will not recognize her name does not mean that Miss Peyton isn't famous. She's art world famous, which in New York is not so different than being a television star in Hollywood. Miss Peyton rose to the tippy top of the art heap in the mid 1990s painting small jewel like portraits which mirrored snap shots of friends and famous people's pictures she ripped out of magazines. Nowadays, of course, she has no need to rip the pictures from the pages of magazines since she fraternizes with all manner of rich, well known and arty types.

Anyoo, property records show the art world couple purchased their Craftsman cottage in September of 2001 for $325,000. Listing information indicates the modest house measures in at (approx.) 1,500 square feet. Clearly the painterly pair put a fair amount of work into the place including adding a dee-lishus looking lap pool and a custom designed kitchen with teak counter tops and mahogany cabinets...a pretty picture of which Your Mama is sorry the real estate agent didn't include with the listing because we imagine it to be speck-tack-u-lar. Other rooms we'd like to see photos of include the living room with fireplace, the dining room, the detached garage/studio and the screened porch...because who does not L.O.V.E. a screened porch, partick in the era of West Nile Virus in mosquito infested Long Island?

We can imagine this Miss Peyton's property is the very picture of upscale simplicity that many people of means crave in a weekend getaway. However, it makes Your Mama constipated just to think of having to regularly marinate in the stink of weekend guests suffering from gastro-intestinal issues brought on by too much farm stand bought fresh fruit and local oysters served raw on the half shell. Adding a second bathroom might be costly, but worth every single cent and we encourage the new owners to call a contractor the moment they sign the closing papers.

Property records reveal that other big name types who own hideaway homes in Orient include prolific and monumental sculptor Richard Serra and art world architect Richard Gluckman, the man responsible for buildings such as the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and the Museo Picasso Malaga in Spain.

Your Mama has no personal knowledge about why Miss Peyton and Mister Just would chose to sell their dee-voon little cottage, but we hear from several art world pals that it might have a little something to do with the female friend Miss Peyton has been spotted with around town lately. Uh oh! If there's any truth to the rumors and gossip sweeping the streets of the art gallery nabe of Chelsea, one has to wonder if the couple will also be selling the West Village townhouse that property records show they purchased in July of 2006 for the not very starving artist price of $3,800,000.

Your Mama Hears...

...From prolific and wickedly well connected tipster Lucy Spillerguts that puffy lipped OCD dynamo Jeff Lewis flipped his house on Los Feliz's Commonwealth Avenue to Lost hobbit Dominic Monaghan (Lost, Lord of the Rings series).

According to property records, the 1,938 square foot house featured on the current season of the terrifically entertaining television train wreck that is Flipping Out was sold to a bizness entity that Miz Spillerguts swears on her mama's dee-voon collection of vintage Balmain suits belongs to young Mister Monaghan. We can't verify that, but children, our Miz Spillerguts is neh-vah wrong.

Back in November of 2007 when Your Mama first discussed the exuberantly worked over house that steps up the steep hillside and includes 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, the property was listed at $1,795,000. Records we accessed show it sold in May of 2008 for $1,595,000...not such a steep discount given the somewhat lackluster state of real estate in Los Angeles and a number that should keep all you house flipper hatin' Chicken Littles quiet for a day or two.

Now that Mister Monaghan has moved in, Your Mama wonders and worries where that precious Zoila is lying her sassy head at night. Perhaps Mister Lewis and his rag tag team of misfits have all packed their bags and headed up to that house on Valley Oak Drive that was recently reduced from $2,995,000 to $2,795,000?

Ellen and Portia Do It Again

BUYER: Ellen Degeneres and Portia di Rossi
LOCATION: Lago Vista Place, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $5,500,000 is what we're hearing
SIZE: Who cares since she's prolly gonna rip it down.
DESCRIPTION: Over an acre with spectacular city views. Surrounded by multi-million dollar estate. Major remodel or tear down and develop entire street to street lot.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Oh Lawhd children, will it ever end?

Thanks to Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills (and confirmed with property records), Your Mama has learned that land luvin' lesbian Ellen Degeneres and her soon to be wifey-poo Portia Di Rossi have snatched up another damn property in Beverly Hills. Yes children, another. It seems there is no end to the amount of money the television talker can afford or is willing to spend on creating the residential compound of her dreams.

After spending somewhere around $40,000,000 to cobble together their current compound of three properties Your Mama figured the co-habiting couple would give their well worked checkbook a rest. However, the soon to be gay-married gabber and her ack-tress fiancée just finished forking over another $5,500,000 to purchase a hillside property on teeny tiny Lago Vista Place.

Property records show the seller of the Lago Vista Place property is Bev Hills jeweler to the stars Nadine Krakov, who could surely spot a cash cow coming her way the moment she caught wind of the Miz D. piloting her Porsche over to Bev Hills and up curvy Cabrillo Drive where she snapped up three properties in rapid and enormously expensive succession.

Your Mama imagines this latest acquisition was considered a prime piece of dirt for the duo due to the fact that it features sight lines right into the famously private and security conscious couple's back yard where Your Mama imagines they probably prefer to sun their hooters and hoo-has without the neighbors watching.

Listing information indicates the newly purchased property on Lago Vista Place includes over an acre of land and a 5 bedroom and 4 bathroom residence that property records show measures 2,872 square feet. Your Mama has no real information about what the couple has planned for their newest purchase, but given that the house was being offered as a "major remodel or tear down," Your Mama imagines it was a piece of residential crap that the compound queens will have torn down by the end of the week.

All the celebrity real estate obsessed children know by now that in early 2007 Miz D. and Miss DiR. spent a spine tingling 29 and some million smackers to scoop up Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick's newly built behemoth and Cabrillo Drive and very shortly thereafter gave celebrity real estate agent Jade Mills another $8,500,000 for the house next door, which the property mavens tore down lickety split in a blaze of television cameras. Most recently, the Sapphic sisters spent an undisclosed sum of paper and coin for the third and last property on Cabrillo Drive. This was a somewhat expected purchase by real estate watchers like Your Mama's who hears through the gossip grapevine that owning these three properties will allow the gurls to request permission from the city of Beverly Hills to gate a good portion of the street. That doesn't mean they will ask for or be granted permission, but that's the rumor and gossip Your Mama's been hearing up and down Sunset Boulevard.

So children, is this the last piece of Miz Degeneres' compound puzzle or might there be one or two additional properties she might like to add to her real estate buffer from the paps and looky loos? Whatever the case Your Mama sincerely hopes Miz D. and Miss DiR. have found their final home because it would be a real shame for them to spend all that money up there on Cabrillo Drive only to turn around and try to sell it off to some Russian oil oligarch, Persian prince or American tech titan looking to break into the movie bizness.

More Nicole Kidman Real Estate News

BUYER: Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban
LOCATION: Sutton Forest, Southern Highlands, Australia
PRICE: reportedly around $6,500,000
SIZE: 110 acre, 5 bedrooms, 6+ bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: With the purchase of their new four and some million dollar nest in the Beverly Hills Post Office, Australian a-listers and new parents Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban not only have the stateside scuttlebutts yakking, turns out they're also keeping the real estate gossips Down Under bizzy too.

Over the last two days we've received many missives from a number of luvlee kangaroos in Australia who sent whispered words of the couple's reported purchased of a 110 acre property called Bunya Hill that occupies a private hilltop in Sutton Forest, a sleepy and swank enclave in the Southern Highlands. Your Mama has not had the pleasure of scooting around the outskirts of Sydney but we understand from a gal named Haras that Sutton Forest is only about 1.5 hours from Sydney.

Listing information and recent reports reveal that the gigantic Georgian colonial estate was built in 1878 and includes wide shaded verandas, a carved cedar stair case, pressed-metal ceilings, intricate wrought iron balustrades, period light fixtures and 10 fireplaces, enough to require a full time ash man in the winter months.

There are five bedroom suites each with their own dressing room and bath including a master with Australian cedar lined closets and and Italian marble bathroom with a claw footed tub overlooking the garden and private lake. Other rooms include formal sitting and dining room, a billiards room and den, a 2,000 bottle wine cellar, a mud porch with full bathroom and a large kitchen with Brazilian granite counter tops and an Aga range (natch) opening to an informal dining area, conservatory and family room, all according to listing information we received from a awesome Aussie.

The sprawling property includes 100 year old Bunya Bunya pines, established gardens where Mrs. Urban can work out her newly discovered green thumb, cattle yards, a large hay/machinery shed, 4 car garage and workshop, and a separate cottage which listing information indicates is in need of renovation.

From the looks of things, the interior day-core of the sellers a wee bit frilly for Your Mama's delicate decorating sensibilities, however this is very clearly a spectacularly rehabbed property that should provide an excellent getaway for the couple who nowadays both seem quite keen to life in the country.

Marge Schott's Ambleside

SELLER: Estate of Marge Schott
LOCATION: Blome Road, Indian Hill, OH
PRICE: $5,400,000
SIZE: 7 bedrooms, 5 full and 3 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: A rare & unique opportunity to own historic Ambleside! Truly exceptional design & construction in glorious setting. More rooms & detail than can be listed. Gorgeous woodwork & windows! Includes greenhouse & kennels, 15+ lush acres!

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We spend a great deal of time around here yakking about properties on the coasts, but today we're going to jump on the Reading Railroad and head into the heartland of America to discuss a posh property in the flyover state of Ohio, a place that Your Mama confesses that we've never actually been.

Anyhoo, baseball's bitchiest ol' bat Marge Schott may have gone to meet the Great Umpire in the Sky in March of 2004, but it's only now that the charitable foundation to which she left her suburban Cincinnati estate called Ambleside is getting around to selling the place. Thanks to the Cincinnati Snitch, Your Mama has learned that sprawling estate on Blome Road in rural and wealthy Indian Hill which the famously cantankerous coot owned since the dawn of time has been listed at $5,400,000.

As the children might imagine, Your Mama knows about as much about baseball as we know about sumo wrestling. However, we do know that Miz Schott was the first woman to buy a major league baseball team as opposed to inheriting it from her huzband. We also recall from our reading that although the foul mouthed right winger was banned for her scandalous and despicably racist comments, no one loved her team the Cincinnati Reds as much as Marge Schott.

According to Cincinnati Snitch, Marge Schott's Ambleside originally spread over 62 acres, but the foundation has split the great estate up and is selling the place off in chunks. The main house sits on good sized parcel of just over 15 acres and according to Mister Snich, there another ten five acre lots. Mister Snitch swears one of the lots, the one with the pool and pool house, has already been sold but Your Mama can not verify that sale.

Property records show the house–which looks to Your Mama like the sort of house Hansel and Gretel would buy if they were tire tycoons–measures in at 12,087 square feet. Listing information indicates there are seven bedrooms and 8 bathrooms (5 full and 3 halfs) in the main house. Included in the sale are the greenhouse and kennel where Miz Schott kept her beloved and big bodied St. Bernards including Schotzie whom she reportedly allowed to defecate on the well manicured turf at Riverfront Stadium, much to the chagrin of the grounds keepers, natch.

Only a precious few interior photographs have been included with the listing but from what we see, Miz Schott's house is a grand old ladee indeed. We're not loving the churchy feel of the main living room, but the room with the mouth watering woodwork is exquisite if in need of some spit, polish and restoration. Your Mama somewhat sheepishly confesses that we're digging the room with the robin's egg blue paint–which we think is the dining room. We're also thinking that if we could replace the chandelier with something positively poofter like this, remove the rug to expose the dark wood floors, paint the firebox black, toss in a few white sofas (because everyone knows Your Mama loves us some white sofas) and pull that gorgeous blue color up and and over the ceiling we might be in heaven.

The Cincinnati Snitch also whispered in Your Mama's big ear that the somewhat shabby looking manse has not been updated since the 1950s and that there's still coal in the basement for the furnace, the heat is radiator and there is no central air conditioning. We've read that Miz Schott was a bit of a penny pincher, but damn woman, certainly you could have afforded to run some air conditioning ducts so that your terlit gurl didn't have a damn heat stroke scrubbing all eight of your poopers in the hot and humid dog days of August.

Given that his house has a whimsical exterior, elegant bones on the interior and a fair amount of privacy making acreage surrounding it, we imagine that some steel magnate or rubber executive with a big bonus will scoop this place up and let his wifey who likes to decorate with floral fabrics have her wicked ways with it. Not only does Your Mama recommend that the new owner hire a nice gay decorator (and they surely exist in Cincinnati), we also strongly encourage anyone who buys the place burn a few pounds of sage to get all Miz Schott's joo-joo out of the house.

Wouldn't it just be purr-fect if a homosex black Jewish person bought this house? Your Mama would love that!

Another May-jer Palm Beach Estate on the Block

SELLER: Terry Taylor
LOCATION: S. Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, FL
PRICE: $72,500,000
SIZE: 30,547 (approx. total), 9 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Magnificently restored historic Addison Mizner Estate with 268' of Ocean frontage on approximately 3 acres that include a spectacular beach cabana. Walled and hedged for privacy and security and draped in unsurpassed quality and elegance.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As middle class folks across the U-nited States of America struggle to put gasoline in their automobiles and food on their tables it seems the the parade of palatial Palm Beach mansions being sold for eye popping amounts of money will continue uninterrupted.

Just this year in Palm Beach alone clothing baron and film producer Sidney Kimmel sold his magnificent and modern Thierry Despont designed digs for $77,5000,000 (plus another $4,000,000 for furniture and fittings), and brash and brassy haired real estate tycoon Donald Trump is reported and rumored to have unloaded his uglee ass flip property Maison de l'Amitie to a Russian investor for a bone chilling $100,000,000. Today in the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties column Your Mama read that a Polynesian style house in Palm Beach also quietly transferred this year in a private deal for $68,500,000 and that another humongous house fronting the Atlantic Ocean has just been dumped onto the market with a staggering–but no longer surprising–$72,500,000 asking price.

Located on a three acre lot that stretches 268 gorgeous feet along the sugar sands of the Atlantic Ocean, prop records (and the WSJ) reveal that the newly listed Addison Mizner designed estate is owned by a Florida bizness man and entrepreneur named Terry Taylor who made his millions selling cars. Good lawhd children, Your Mama is in the wrong damn bizness. Here we tap our finger to the nubbins for chicken scratch and this guy is out selling so many Chryslers and Fords he can afford to live in a hotel sized house. All you mommys out there take note: Perhaps it ain't so bad if your child winds a used car sales(wo)man after all.

Anyhoo, property records show the mega-manse measures in a not very modest 26,805 square feet. Additional structures on the lavish spread include a large pool house, a beach cabana and two apartments atop the two three car garages that bring the total to somewhere around 30,547 square feet according to listing information.

The recently rehabbed residence was built in 1924 and includes such dee-luxe (and expected) features as a wine cellar, an exercise room, a private generator (for when the big hurricanes come sweeping through) and a movie thee-ayter that includes a concession stand and a ticket window. Now children, Your Mama can understand that Richie Rich types might crave private movie theaters in their private homes in order to be spared the indignity of having to sit in a public theater with other less fortunate people, but what does anyone need with a damn ticket window and a concession stand? Does he charge his guests 10 damn dollars for the movie and another $49 for popcorn and a soda? Pleeze. If anyone were to ask Your Mama, and no one did, any person with buckets of bank notes who bothers with the time and expense of putting in a ticket booth and/or a concession stand in their private cinema is being fleeced (FLEECED!) by their decorators and contractors who surely giggled themselves all the way to the bank on the backs of your foolish cinematic desires.

Movie theater extravagance aside, perhaps most shocking about this listing is that according to property records, Mister Taylor purchased this princely pile in September of 2003 for $22,200,000. A quick run of the beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus tells us the man is hoping to more than triple his money in just 5 years. That's right children. More. Than. Tripple. Try and swallow that bitter pill as you decide between a Kia and a Hyundai. If Your Mama has said it once, we've said it too many times, one of the many ways the rich get richer is buying and selling high priced properties to one another at heart stopping profits.

None the less, given the apparent demand for extraordinarily expensive properties in Palm Beach, Your Mama would be stoopid to predict anything other than that this house will be sold by the end of the year. Now give us a few minutes to go get our nerve pills before we pass out from flabbergast.

UPDATE: Nicole Kidman

After much speculation and some false reporting, turns out that thin hipped and puffy lipped Aussie ack-tress Nicole Kidman and her country croonin' huzband Keith Urban did buy themselves a new house in Beverly Hills...the Beverly Hills Post office to be precise.

Mister Big Time is reporting that Miss Alabaster Skin and Mister Flat Ironed Hair bought the recently rehabbed contemporary crib on guard gated and celebrity laden Lime Orchard Road that was being sold by music executive Ron Fair. Your Mama discussed the 3,977 square foot house back in early May when Mister Fair foisted it on the market for $4,795,000. Records don't yet reveal the sale price but Your Mama hears from someone positioned to know that Mister and Missus Urban forked over $4,700,000 for the 5 bedroom and 4.25 bathroom house.

The Kidman/Urbans will be in fine celebrity company with career challenged Jessica Simpson, music manager Guy Oseary and bling queen Kimora Lee Simmons shacking up down the street as well as Hollywood honcho Tom Freston around the corner.

The high wattage couple, who just popped out a baby named Sunday, have been on a bit of a real estate whirlwind having recently sold Urban's big bland house in suburban Nashville for $2,360,000 and scooped up a 36 acre farm in Franklin, TN for $2,450,000. Even more recently, the Down Under duo also plunked down $3,470,000 for another rather large mansion in Nashville where it's rumored they'll camp out while they build their dream digs on the new farm in Franklin. The Oscar winning former Mrs. Crooz is also rumored and reported to be selling her Darling Point digs in the Sydney suburbs.

Phew!

Hold On To Your Britches Children...

...because the latest real estate rumor sweeping the better boulevards of Paris and the glitzy seaside towns strung like rubies along the French Riviera is that London-based Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is about to plunk down a mind numbing and record breaking £250,000,000 to buy La Leopolda, the legendarily high-maintenance estate hovering over Villefranche-sur-Mer.

Your Mama's bejeweled abacus had streams of steam coming out of it when we plugged in such huge numbers and flipped the conversion beads, but the ol' gurl managed to reveal that at today's rates the sale price converts to $493,310,000...an unimaginable amount of money for 99% of the world, but pocket change to an oil rich oligarch worth a reported $23,500,000,000.

The property was once owned by the Belgian king Leopold, but the palatial pile and exuberant grounds came to its astonishing decadence and full flowering when it was built by noted American born decorator (and sometime architect) Ogden Codman. Later owners are said to include Izaak and Dorothy Killam, Gianni Agnelli (Mister Fiat, of course), billionaire banker Edmond Safra and his chic and severe looking wifey Lily and Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates. The current ownership of La Leopolda seems to be in some dispute. Some reports say Miz Safra sold the property to Bill Gates in 2006 for around $76,000,000, and some reports indicate Mister Abramovich is forking over the big bucks to Miz Safra. Who knows? Well, The Social Butterfly and another of Your Mama's sources say they think it's Miz Safra, but we can't say definitively.

Anyhoo, the hill topping ten acre estate rolls down the hillside and includes a monstrous mansion reported to have been done up and did over by Italian master of interior day-core fakery Renzo Mongiardino, the same decorating dude who worked over the Fifth Avenue apartment Veronica Hearst just sold to well bred hedge hog Chase Coleman III and his very social heiress wifey Stephanie. Maintaining the meticulously manicured gardens at La Leopolda is rumored and reported to require up to 50 full time gardeners. Yes children, fifty. Your Mama don't even know 50 people.

Your Mama can't keep track of all the trophy properties owned and maintained by Mister Abramovich. We do know there are several lavish London houses, a dee-luxe crash pad in Moscow, a large estate in Sussex, England was once owned by King Hussein of Jordan, and just a few months ago Mister Abramovich forked over a reported $36,375,000 for Wildcat Ridge, the 200 acre Aspen, CO estate of surgical supply tycoon Leon Hirsch. Mister Abramovich also owns the Chateau de la Croe, located just down the road from La Leopolda and where the Duke of Windsor holed up with Wallis Simpson back in 1938.

Keep in mind my little chickadees, althat real estate is above and beyond the many custom-fitted planes and ridiculously expensive mega-yachts on which 41 year old Mister Abramovich and his 25 year old gurl friend Daria Zhukova travel and cavort.

Your Mama's mind reels and collapses upon itself just imagining how many domestic staff people are required to maintain all of Mister Abramovich's properties, planes and boat. With that many people in his employ can he and Mizz Zhukova even remember all of their names?

Now listen children because Your Mama is going to rock the boat a bit here...we think all this may be nothing but scuttlebutt and real estate rumor. We'll believe Mister Abramovich is the new owner of La Leopolda when his PR people make some sort of statement or some other sort of proof presents itself. Until then, Your Mama recommends we all take this in with grain of salt because these sorts of things often turn out to be, uhm, not true.

photo: PMO on Flickr

Peter Morton Flipping Out in Beverly Hills

SELLER: Peter Morton
LOCATION: Angelo Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $22,500,000
SIZE: 8,110 (as per assessor), 7 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: The single best view lot in prime location. Sold as land value, no inspection on home. View is from downtown to ocean and trees of Beverly Hills & Holmby Hills. This is an extraordinary view property on 4 acres. Will be shown only on a clear day.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: According to listing information, only on a clear day, and only on a clear day children, will well heeled house hunters will be allowed to have a peak at and a prowl around the big Bev Hills mansion that billionaire biznessman Peter Morton just flipped onto the market with an asking price of $22,500,000. Not only will interested parties be free to see the place on a cloudy day, listing information makes it crystal clear they will also not be allowed to have inspections on the property which is being offered at land value only. Land value?

For all the children not familiar with its ownership history, let Your Mama provide a wee bit of background information on this prime piece Beverly Hills dirt. Back in the early 1980s (or maybe the late 1970s, Your Mama ain't quite sure), man luvin' mega mogul David Geffen scooped up the Angelo Drive estate from That Girl super star Marlo Thomas. However, Mister Geffen, a man with a passion and a properly plump pocketbook for high profile properties, didn't stay long before he packed up his porn and moved to the legendary and even more impressive Jack Warner estate which is also located on Angelo Drive and across the street the (in)famous Saperstein pile. Records show Mister Geffen sold the stately estate to radio tycoon Norm Pattiz and his wifey Mary. The Pattiz pair owned the house until September of 2006 when prop records reveal they sold it to Mister Peter Morton for $18,500,000.

Property records also show that just a few months later, in December of 2006 to be exact, Mister and Missus Pattiz pocketed another $3,500,000 for an adjacent parcel which included a tennis court and 2,080 square foot guest house/tennis house/screening room/recreation pavilion. This part of the great estate was accessed from the main house by funicular...yes children, that's right, fuh-nik-u-ler, a fun little folly only affordable by the very rich.

Current listing information for the 7 bedroom and 8 bathroom house is on the slim side, but thanks to Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills Your Mama was able to view older listing information which indicates that the main house includes at least five bedrooms including a master suite with fireplace, sitting room and dual bathrooms with an additional bedroom is located in a pool house. Your Mama also understands that at the time Mister Morton purchased the property other rooms and amenities included living and dining rooms, a gor-may kitchen, media room, office, library/study, a family room, gym, sauna and, natch, a heavy doody security system.

Your Mama hears from a well connected source whom we'll call Posh Pete that Mister Morton had grand plans for the property. However, according to Posh Pete, Mister Morton has simply changed his fickle real estate mind. You can do that even in a sagging market when you have a billion dollars, right? If Your Mama has said it once, we have said it until we're black and blue in the face, who are we to make sense of the property peregrinations of the rich and famous?

Records show that in addition to owning several spectacular properties sprinkled along Malee-boo's Carbon Beach, Mister Morton also owns a 13,423 square foot manse on N. Carolwood Drive in a prime part of the Holmby Hills as well as a much more modest 5,533 square foot house on Woodruff Avenue in the nearby Little Holmby neighborhood.

Justin Long Buys Manhattan Bachelor Pad

BUYER: Justin Long
LOCATION: Norfolk Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $2,425,000
SIZE: 1,975 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Tower 15 boasts stunning views south, east, west and north thru floor to ceiling windows. This condominium residence was created by one of the world's most innovative architects, Bernard Tschumi. A limited edition home with designer finishes, beautiful kitchen and baths, amazing light, and wonderful city, river, and bridge views. The attended lobby and sun-filled roof terrace complete the package.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was only a couple of months ago that Hollywood power player and notorious serial dater Drew Barrymore and her boy beau Justin Long were constantly cooing and publicly pawing at each other anytime someone turned eyes or a camera their direction. But no more children. One of little Miss Barrymore's people has recently confirmed the tabloid regulars have gone splitsville and according to recent reports it appears that the geeky looking actor and Apple Computer spokesman will be retreating to a newly purchased condominium on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to lick his romantic wounds.

Located in the newly built and much bally-hooed building on Norfolk Street called Blue, Mister Long's starchitect designed digs has 4-direction views and spreads across an entire floor with 1,975 square feet. Prop records do not yet show how much Mac money Mister Long spent on his new nest, but according to the listing, the "L" shaped two bedroom and two bathroom unit was last listed at $2,425,000.

Generally speaking, Your Mama appreciates the layout of Mister Long's new apartment. We love the private elevator landing but we don't love that the entrance hall drops guests right into the cramped dining area that is really little more than a glorified hallway. However, once we hang a right into the living room with its three walls of floor to ceiling glass that jut out into downtown sky, all the diminutive dining room drama is forgiven.

Although it would be nice to preserve the eastern sight lines from the living room, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would quickly call a contractor to continue the short wall of the guest bathroom another few feet to the south thereby partially enclosing the area that is identified on the floor plan as the "study." The long sweep of the hardwood floors and all that open space is lovely, but a little creative closing off would allow for a large built in desk on the north wall where we could work our fingers to the nubbins on our laptop and also provide a discreet and hidden area to stack the bills so we would not have to bear the indignity and stress of having to confront them every time we walked from the living room to the kitchen.

Closet space is adequate–partick in the master where in addition to a small closet near the bathroom is a giant dressing room/closet surrounded by windows which would give neighbors a good shot of Mister Long's nekkid booty if there were any other tall buildings around...which there are not. We feel the kitchen does not offer the best work flow, but it's certainly tolerable and we're very digging that a counter has been included on the dining room side from which Sunday morning buffet brunches can be served and where guests can sit and get slowly pie-eyed while chatting up the meal preparing host. We certainly would have preferred to see a powder room squeezed into the plan so that over night guests would be provided with a private pooper in which to do their durty bizness, but we can live with just the two especially since the door to the second bathroom, thankfully, does not open directly into a public space.

Your Mama's most may-jer concern about this unit is that besides the wide white walls in the bedrooms where does one hang the art? It could be a bit of a deal breaker for anyone with more than a few high priced paintings and photographs.

Designed by maverick modern architect Bernard Tschumi, there has been much hype and hoo-ha about the Blue building which was completed last year. Having been a long time resident of the Lower East Side back when it was still THE Lower East Side and not the haven for hipsters with high paying jobs that it's become, it's still a wee bit odd and discombobulating for Your Mama to see all these dee-luxe, hyper-designed and very expensive condo-buildings sprouting up amid the trashy tenements that line the narrow streets of Loisada. As such we're deeply concerned that the building has no visual references or real relationship to the neighborhood. This is not a building that rises from the character of the neighborhood but rather in spite of it which, of course, makes the big blue clean lined tower stick out like a sore thumb in a neighborhood of crumbling 4-6 story tenements.

That said, we do applaud the architectural efforts of Mister Tschumi who had the verve, vision and aesthetic fortitude to cantilever the southern elevation and clad the geometrically angled residential tower in multiple shades of blue glass which effectively (if a little obviously) mirrors the modern digital world in which we live. Besides, with all the aggressively ordinary Kostas Kondylis apartment towers thrown up left and right along the Manhattan avenues over the last 10 years, Mister Tschumi's Blue is a stunning and much needed breath of fresh air even if it is a bit brash and a lot out of place.

Now that Mister Long's lips are no longer occupied with Miss Barrymore, Your Mama hopes he gets them flapping on the phone to hire a nice gay decorator to help his sort out the day-core of his new bachelor pad. Your Mama just has one suggestion...okay two: No black leather sofas and we beg that he does not put a pool table where the dining room table belongs. Do you hear Your Mama, Mister Long? Do. Not. Do. It.

Dr. House Buys A House

SELLER: Pat Magnarella
BUYER: Hugh Laurie
LOCATION: Los Tilos Road, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,840,000
SIZE: 3,242 square feet (as per assessor), 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Magical garden paradise on over 1.2 acres in Outpost Estates. Walled, gated, English Country house with magnificent city views, pool, guest house w/ spectacular gardens in the Hollywood Hills. Mature planting, thrilling trails, lookouts, water features & Arcadian delights. A private paradise, lge motor court to accommodate many cars. Lovely public rooms, recently remodeled kitchen, formal dining. Master bedroom w/ balcony, views. Det. gym. Charming gst hse w/ bathroom by pool.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A few days ago Your Mama was covertly contacted by a tipster we'll call Sassy Soozie who whispered in our big ear that a perfectly private property on Los Angeles' Los Tilos Road had been recently purchased by award winning and piano playing British actor Hugh Laurie. Although Your Mama avoids hospital dramas like the damn plague, many if not most of the children will recognize Mister Laurie as the man who works his actor stuff as the gimpy, misanthropic and cantankerous genius Dr. Gregory House on Emmy winning boob toob phenom House M.D. Of course, Mister Laurie was famous (and probably rich) long before he took up a cane and stopped shaving for his role on House. The intense eyed actor with a serious comedic streak starred in films like the comedy-drama Peter's Friends as well as the high-larious but somewhat short lived A Bit of Fry & Laurie sketch comedy program which aired on the BBC from 1987-1995.

A little touching base with a few folks in our spider web of contacts and Your Mama found a second source willing to quietly confirm Sassy Soozie's tip that the house on Los Tilos was bought by Mister Laurie and his wifey Jo and in the course of our peering and poking into the property records Your Mama also discovered to our wonderment and surprise that the house was sold by veteran music manager Pat Magnarella who has made millions successfully steering rock/pop-punk groups like Green Day, The Goo Goo Dolls and The Wallflowers.

Property records show that Mister Magnarella purchased the 3,242 square foot English Country style residence located in the Outpost Estates section of the Hollywood Hills in September of 2001 for $2,000,000. It's unclear to Your Mama just how much renovation work Mister and Missus Magnarella did to the place, but listing information does say the galley kitchen was recently remodeled. This isn't exactly the picture of a perfect remodel in Your Mama's mind, but it's certainly better than the tur-quawze Formica and lackluster linoleum that we imagine was here before the Magnarella overhaul.

It is Your Mama's understanding that Mister and Missus Laurie forked over $3,840,000 for their new crib which hovers high over the street and up a sweeping celebrity style driveway that makes Your Mama swoon with envy. The 1.2+ acre property spreads over two hillside parcels and includes a large parking area where Mister Laurie's celebrity band mates including James Denton and Terri Hatcher from Desperate Housewives and The Bachelor's Bob Guiney can park their shiny automobiles during rehearsals for their charity cover band Band From TV (thanks Claudia for the correx). Strategically and smartly positioned to take advantage of the glittery view of the twinkling lights of Los Angeles, the house sits amid a scrubby and sylvan oasis with trails that wind around the hillside lots which are dotted with quiet and contemplative spots perfect for reading, meditating and being attacked by canyon dwelling critters.

Listing information Your Mama received from a trusted friend shows the house includes 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms including a large master bedroom with a private sitting area and balcony. Also in the modestly sized abode according to listing information are living and dining rooms, a den, several covered and enclosed patios, two fireplaces and somewhere on the property is a detached gym where Mister Laurie can work on his slim Hollywood fih-zeek, natch, and at one end of the house a terrace with an uglee green canopy looks out over a flat lawn area as well as down towards the free form shaped swimming pool at the bottom of the hillside. Fortunately there is a guest house with a bathroom adjacent to the brick surrounded and serene looking swimming pool because Your Mama imagines there might be some unfortunate bladder incidents if we had to haul our bathing suit clad fat ass and gin and tonic swelled belly up all them steps to get to a terlit lickety split.

Your Mama has got no beef with Mister Magnarella or his wifey, but it is our humble and utterly meaningless opinion that they decorated this house too much like it belongs to a sixty five year old English spinster. So we sincerely hope that Mister and Missus Laurie will have the good sense to use some of that House money to hire a good architect to work out some of the architectural kinks (like the not so great location of the front door), a landscape designer to work some plant magic on that sad looking hillside above the swimming pool and a nice gay decorator who will clear out, clean up and re-do the interiors for the Mister and Missus Laurie and their three children.

Your Mama Hears...

Sometime last week (or perhaps the week before), prolific celebrity real estate gossip Mister Big Time asked his readers for a wee bit of assistance identifying the new owner of a pricey property that was recently purchased high in the Hills of Beverly and not too far from the tippy top of Tower Grove Drive.

We can't tell you where we heard this lest we be maimed and murdered by a valued and hooked up informant, but Your Mama hears that the 5,152 square foot house was snatched up by Emmy winning boob toob creator and writer Seth Macfarlane (The Family Guy, American Dad).

The seriously smart and high-lariously funny Peter Brady look alike made all sorts of headlines in early May of 2008 when after 2 and some years of negotiations he inked a sa-weet $100,000,000 deal with with the fat cats at Fox which makes him the highest paid television writer. Ever. And children, in case y'all don't know, he's 34 damn years old.

Your Mama hopes that Mister Macfarlane uses some of his major moolah to hire a nice gay decorator to do up his new digs in the manner and style befitting his vaunted station in the glitzy world of Hollywood.

Brad Wilk Rages Right Out to the Suburbs (Plus Some Britney Spears Nonsense)

BUYER: Brad Wilk
LOCATION: Prado de los Suenos, Calabasas, CA
PRICE: $5,890,000
SIZE: 7,949 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Just under 8,000 sq. ft. designer quality hm. Grmt kitch w/ brkfst bar, 60" Wolf range, Sub-Zero more. Extensive use of limestone & sctm tiles/stone from Walker Zanger & Ann Sack. Mstr bth w/ heated flrs, steam shower, infinity tub, cstm closets & lrg yrd w/ salt water Pebble Tech pool w/ water feature/spa/blt-in custom bbq and outdoor fireplace. Wired for Tech Smart system.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Bear with Your Mama this morning because we're still thick with morning dew and as a result we're taking a somewhat circuitous route to today's discussion...

For weeks now all the gossip glossies and scuttlebutting blogs have been hootin' and hollerin' that newly sane and quite possibly past her prime pop star Britney Spears is packing up the pink wig and pantry full of Cheetos and heading to a humongous house in the swank gated community in Calabasas called The Oaks.

Well children, here's what Your Mama knows–and does not know–about the sitch-ee-ay-shun.

1. We know from the reams of reports that Miss Spears was recently granted permission to sell the Beverly Hills house of horrors that she scooped up on a late evening lark during the crazy days following her dee-vorce from baby daddy Kevin Federline. This is, of course, the very same house in the guard gated and high priced Summit community from which she was was hauled off to Cedars-Sinai in a blinding and embarrassing blaze of sirens and flash bulbs in early January 2008.

2. We know that in addition to the aforementioned 9,130 square foot Bev Hills house, Miss Spears leased an estate on Ramirez Canyon Road in the hills above Malee-boo. Your Mama understands but can not confirm that the lease for the approx. 8,500 square foot house has expired and not been renewed.

3. We know that the house hopping high priestess of hair weaving has been spotted touring high priced properties across the San Fernando Valley.

4. We know that there are lots of reports that she purchased (or maybe leased) a newly completed 10,300 square foot (approx.) mansion called Chateau Suenos that was last listed at $10,800,000 and located on Prado de los Suenos in The Estates section of The Oaks.

5. Your Mama does not know if Miss Spears actually bought the house on Prado de los Suenos or not. The listing has been removed from the MLS, but as of this morning, we don't see any transfer records and none of our sources have been able to confirm a purchase.

However, in the course of our poking around, our wickedly well informed celebrity real estate know it all Lucy Spillerguts told Your Mama that Rage Against the Machine drummer Brad Wilk and wifey Selene recently purchased the 7,949 square foot home that sits just a few doors down from the Calabasas crib that Miss Spears is rumored (but not confirmed) to have purchased (or leased).

Property records show that in February of 2008 Mister and Missus Wilk scooped up the newly built tile roofed 5 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom suburban sprawler wor $5,890,000. Who would have thought that a young and tattooed rock star rich and famous for drumming in a heavy metal/funk/punk band known for its button pushing and politically charged lyrics would end up in a gated enclave of spec-built multi-million dollar mansions in suburban Los Angeles...just about the least rebellious place a person can live. Then again, The Estates at The Oaks is the very same the same private enclave where +44 drummer Travis Barker moved last year after he sold his big house in Bel Air to Avril "The Spitter" Lavigne. So maybe rebellious rock stars like conventional living after all.

While Your Mama finds Calabasas to be a little far from the action in Los Angeles and far too homogeneous architecturally for our particular and sensitive tastes, the location of Mister Wilk's new house certainly makes sense for rich and famous folks who don't appreciate common people or paps roaming freely on the streets and sidewalks. Not only is The Oaks a guard gated master planned community, the Wilk residence sits up in The Estates section, an even more exclusive enclave within The Oaks which features a second set of electronic gates so the less fortunate folks who occupy merely large tract homes in The Oaks aren't able to drive up and gawk at the truly large tract homes in The Estates. These developers just never tire of adding an extra layer of perceived exclusivity, do they?

Anyhoo, located on Prado de los Suenos–which translates into the rather corny Street of Dreams, Mister Wilks single story house actually has a second story which features a large recreation room with a small balcony looking out over the back yard and panoramic views over the suburban stretch of tile roofs below. Listing information reveals that other amenities include living and dining rooms, three fireplaces, a four car garage, family room, gym, a library/study, media room, office a covered patio, a master bathroom with heated floors, infinity edged bath tub and a steam shower. Out back listing information indicates there is a non-slip Pebble Tec swimming pool, private spa, built-in barbecue, outdoor fireplace, blah, blah, blah.

Frankly children, Your Mama doesn't find anything exceptional, notable or particularly desirable about this house or 'hood. Yes, it's a large house in a secure location, the local schools are said to be good and the neighbors probably (too) keenly concerned about lawn care and keeping out middle class riff raff. And the materials are of probably of good quality, the kitchen has high grade appliances and all that kind of crap. But it also looks upsettingly similar to all the other big and newly built cookie cutter cribs in Calabasas, a situation that crushes Your Mama's free spirited soul just a little.

All of you people who love living behind the gates in a freshly constructed faux Tuscan/Mediterranean mish-mash mansions with the exact same floor plan and finishes as Ted and Wanda Tracthouse down the street, all the more power to you. There are certainly no shortage of these sorts of high priced developments to choose from. But Your Mama feels squeamish about all the Herculean efforts required to keep up with all the Jims and Jennifers driving fancy cars and raising over achieving children up in all the high toned gated communities that sprinkle the outlying areas of Los Angeles.

Now then, iffin any you children who know a thing or two about The Estates want to fill Your Mama in on whether that Miss Spears is moving to the valley, be sure and give us a ringy dingy.

Diana Ross Is Doing it in Manhattan

SELLER: Diana Ross
LOCATION: 781 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
PRICE: $9,000,000 (and going up to $11,000,000)
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (plus staff room with bath)
DESCRIPTION: This apartment is one of only a few tower units, each with comprises a full floor. Tower suites offer grand scaled room – the living room is almost 29 feet long – stellar views in all four directions overlooking Grand Army Plaza and Central Park, 3 bedrooms, a formal dining room, large entrance foyer, kitchen and maid's room, plus 3 full bathrooms.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Divalicious music icon Diana Ross has long had Quarry Farm–her 9-acre Greenwich, CT estate–on the market with an eye popping asking price of $39,500,000. Turns out the Supremes queen is also looking to unload her Manhattan pied a terre located high in the tower of the super swish Sherry Netherland Hotel. For all those children not lucky enough to be familiar with the extravagance and elegance that is The Sherry, the dee-luxe and dignified building towers over the corner of 59th Street and Fifth Avenue and includes a mix of high priced hotel suites as well as a limited number of co-operative apartments which 0ffer residents the full services of the 5-star hotel...for a ferocious monthly fee, natch.

Currently listed at $9,000,000, Braden Keil at the NY Post reported this week that the sixty something, humongous haired, drunk driving and breast fondling Motown legend is planning to renovate her 7-room full floor residence and jack the asking price to $11,000,000.

Listen chickens, eleven million smackers is a lot of money by any residential real estate standards, particularly for an apartment without a single square foot of outdoor space. But to be quite honest, even with the $16,999 monthly maintenance it seems like a reasonable (by Fifth Avenue standard) price for a full floor apartment at the tippy top of the insanely posh Sherry Netherland Hotel that includes acrophobia inducing 360 degree views including over the lush green carpet of Central Park. Listing information and a quick perusal of the dee-lishus floor plan reveals that the apartment includes a private elevator landing, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a 29 foot long living room, formal dining room, and an itty bitty staff room with private bathroom tucked back behind the postage stamp sized kitchen.

But the size of the kitchen is really of no matter to the lucky and rich residents of The Sherry: No one uses them for much more than making late night tea and stashing a few tins of Beluga and a couple of extra battles of Perrier-Jouet. That's not only because the super rich rarely cook their own meals but also because all the co-op apartments at The Sherry include full hotel service that includes room service by Cipriani as well as twice daily maid service, once a month general cleaning, a barbershop, beauty salon, and a full gym where all the resident industrialists and high society babes on the social circuit can sweat out the champagne.

Listing information for Miss Ross's residence does not include any photographs of the interior but Your Mama likes to imagine that every room has been done up and did over in a dramatic but very tasteful style with a giant pop art portrait of Herself hanging in the living room. The thoughtful floor plan has the public rooms occupying one side of the unit and the private bedroom spaces the other. Your Mama could not be more pleased to see that each of the bedrooms includes a perfectly private pooper because even though the owner of this apartment is the Diana Ross and she deserves every accolade ever pitched at her, the ladee's shit surely stinks just like everybody else's.

In addition to her estate in Greenwich and her urban hideaway in Manhattan, Your Mama understands tht Miss Ross also has a house in one of the better zip codes in Los Angeles. But to be honest children, Your Mama can't figure out where it is. Perhaps Mister Big Time can give us a helping hand with that?

Other current and past residents of The Sherry are rumored and reported to include candle king Harry Slatkin, tech titan turned art collector and philanthropist Max Palevsky, investment banker Roberto de Guardiola and his interior designer wifey Joanne who reportedly own five units, big bad Babs (Streisand), George Burns, Jack Warner and Francis Ford Coppola as well as any number of other big bizness tycoons, industrialists and financiers who are so ridiculously rich and discreet that most of the children have never even heard of them.

Beck Is Flipping Out in Hancock Park

SELLER: Beck (Campbell) and Marissa Ribisi
LOCATION: S. Hudson Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $9,000,000
SIZE: 5,718 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: On a beautifully manicured corner lot setting w/ huge mature trees, this handsome estate offers large scale public rooms. Large living room, library, formal din rm plus huge kit/fam rm measures 53' x 26' which serves as lifestyle center of the home. Grand master suite has his & hers baths & walk-in closets. Five family bedrooms w/ en suite baths. Professional recording studio and rehearsal room in guest house, grassy back yard, swim lane pool, privacy & security make this a rare find.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama just lurvs it like crazy when we get celebrity real estate tips from the children and yesterday we were lucky enough to hear from Tina Tonguewagger who pointed our bleary eyes towards a house in Hancock Park that was recently put on the market with an impressive $9,000,000 asking price. There ain't many nine million dollar listings in Hancock Park so this one will surely garner some attention from all the real estate gossips, not to mention that it is being flipped by maverick musician Beck (Campbell) and his ack-turus turned fashion designer wifey Marissa Ribisi who is, of course, Giovanni's twin sister.

Prop records reveal that Mister and Missus Beck only purchased the recently rehabbed 5,718 square foot corner residence in June of 2007. That's right children, June of 2007. A few quick flicks of the beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus indicates that the proud Scientologists are asking an astounding $2,250,000 more than the $6,750,000 records show they paid for the place just one year ago. Now that, my puppies, takes some serious real estate cajones, partick in a sagging real estate market in an area where not a lot of houses sell for anywhere near nine million clams.

Then again, the house does occupy one of the better corners in the hoity toity neighborhood with Bruce Rabin's 14,071 square foot Tudor across the street, the Japanese consulate catty corner and across the street to the north sits a proper estate with swimming pool and tennis court that recently and quietly transferred for $8,950,000. Just a few doors up S. Hudson Avenue is the 9,676 square foot place that was scooped up by Emmy winning boob toob producer John Wells in August of 2007 for $10,400,000, and let's not forget Mister David Schwimmer who rattles around in his beautifully maintained 11,336 square foot, 10 bedroom and 9 bathroom behemoth across the street from Mister Wells. So maybe, just maybe, nine million big ones isn't so much to ask after all. Hmm.

Listing information indicates that in addition to formal living and dining rooms, the house features a library, dual baths and walk in closets in the master suite, and a colossal kitchen/family room that measures in at nearly 1,400 square feet. Out back is a swim lane pool, large grassy areas on which the kiddies can play and the pooches can piddle, and the guest house has been converted into a recording studio and rehearsal room, a feature that Your Mama is quite sure musicians will salivate over and for which non-musicians will want to tear out immediately.

From the looks of the listing photographs, Your Mama thinks it's probably safe to assume that Mister and Missus Beck did not bother to consult or hire a nice gay decorator to do up their day-core. And while it's refreshing to see a house that has not been wrecked by an over processed high-celebrity day-core, they really should have called one of Your Mama's nice gay decorator pals because let's be honest children, there's really little to love when it comes to the furniture choices and placement. The large entrance hall would be better off if the round table was removed, and do we even want to know about that white lady standing in the corner? Good lawhd children that thing would scare the buhjeezis right out of Your Mama peering out of the corner some dark night when we came a-sneakin' down to the kitchen for an after midnight Popsicle.

The living room is lacking in any sort of warmth (a nice rug would be a good place to start cozying things up) and the dining room the table is pathetically small for the generously sized room. Unfortunately, the addition of the rug and two slipper chairs to fill one end of the dining room only enhances the lack of decorative vision. We do, however, appreciate the cluster of thrift store portraits in mismatched frames. That's working just fine.

Upstairs in the master bedroom, everything looks like it was put in the correct place, but why does it all look so curiously small? Your Mama is not so bothered by televisions sitting above fireplaces in family room, but it would have been so dman easy to hide the television in a cabinet in this room. So easy in fact that it seems sorta silly not to. It's fine when you're watching it, but what about when you're not? It's a little troublesome to think of that big black screen staring out at you while you're trying to read a dee-lishus Richard Yates novel.

Undoubtedly the kitchen and family room is where this young family of four spends most of their time. We're thrilled–and not surprised–to see a wall chock full of books. We may not appreciate Beck and Marissa's decorating sensibilities, but the fact that the couple has actual books in their house in a room they actually use makes up for a lot of interior design crimes. The books absolutely do not make up for that upsetting white lady in the entrance hall, but they do soften us to the notion that Mister and Missus may have simply not gotten around to selecting a rug for the living room or purchased a properly sized dining room table.

Although records show that Mister and Missus Beck also own a modest house in the Point Dume area of Malee-boo, Your Mama can't imagine why this couple would bother to buy and move into this house only to turn around a sell it just a year later. But if we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times, who are we to make sense of the crazy real estate ways of the rich and famous?

Now then children...Happy freaking Fourth of Joo-lie. Go watch some fireworks and leave Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter to sip some juicy gin and tonics in peace.

UPDATE: Veronica Hearst

For quite some time now there have been all manner of whispers, rumors and salacious gossip sweeping up and down Fifth Avenue about financially beleaguered socialite Veronica Hearst selling off the palatial Renzo Mongiardino designed digs at 4 East 66th Street that she reportedly shares with her super social daughter Fabiola Beracasa.

Back in mid-April Your Mama heard from sources Yelena Yaksitup and Fifth Avenue Flap Jaw who whispered in our big ear that the full floor co-operative apartment had been quietly sold.

Just a week later, celebrity real estate boy wonder Max Abelson at the NY Observer followed up with a report that included high-larious quotes from a well connected female resident of the Widow Hearst's swanky building who confirmed that the unit had indeed been sold but that she was unaware of the identity of the buyer. Your Mama didn't believe the ladee for as far as we would be able to throw her, but we certainly understand why she clammed up.

And then yesterday, like manna from heaven, we got the dishy dénouement from Braden Keil at the NY Post who gleefully revealed that Miz Hearst sold her lavish 6th floor residence for $36,500,000. The 7,200 (approx.) square foot apartment includes 6 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms, at least four fireplaces and a master bedroom with a huge dressing room, where Your Mama imagines the notorious clothes horse donned all her extravagantly priced couture finery. The sale is said to have include an 800 square foot staff apartment on another floor.

Thanks to another friendly informant we'll call Helpful Henry Your Mama was directed to recent property records which reveal that the new owners are thirty something year old hedge hog Charles (Chase) P. Coleman III and his lovely young finance heiress wifey Stephanie, who until she got married in 2005 did a little PR work for Upper East Side fashion goddess Vera Wang. Back when Mrs. Coleman (nee Ercklentz) was young(er) and single, she appeared in Band-Aid heir Jamie Johnson's documentary Born Rich in which she dropped revealing and bewildering bon mots like, "I love purses. They are so easy to buy. I have shelves and shelves of them...It's not a big deal. I want a Gucci purse, I buy it...I would have to marry within my [social group], because I couldn't have a husband who would freak out if I bought a $600 Gucci purse." Forget about a damn $600 Gucci purse, behawtcha could just buy Gucci now.

Anyhoo, all this Manhattan real estate wheeling and dealing comes on the Christian Louboutin heels of Miz Hearst losing her massive Manalapan mansion in a public foreclosure auction that brought in $22,000,000, a huge sum of money by anyone's standards, but far less than what was hoped for and waaaay less than Miz Hearst owed her primary lender New Stream Capital. Hopefully with the sale of her fancy Fifth Avenue crib, Miss Missy Socialite can pay off New Stream and move on to something more modest and manageable at The Sherry or on the Left Bank.

As far as we know Miz Hearst continues to own a 45 acre estate up in natty and nabobish New Castle, NY so no one need worry about the poor dear going homeless. But the real question now is, "Where oh where has Veronica Hearst gone?" Is she hiding out in New Castle? Couch surfing for the summer in the Hamptons? Or, as Fifth Avenue Flap Jaw suggested, did she whip out her well stamped passport, hire a plane and head some place South American?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Candy Spelling Unloads a Couple in Century City

Thanks to Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills, Your Mama has learned that the insanely rich Hollywood widow Candy Spelling is lightening her real estate load by two high priced properties. Turns out that in addition to her massive mansion on S. Mapleton Drive, Candy Darling owns a couple of costly condos in Century Woods, a small gated community which sits in the western shadow of the tall towers of Century City. Listing information and property records show Miz Spelling recently foisted both of the condo/houses on the market.

The rather large residences at the Century Woods are really less like condos and more like mid-sized mansions squeezed on to itty bitty lots where owners share guarded gates, pristine streets, green spaces and a community pool. A community pool? Do any of the children want to take bets on whether Miz Spelling spends any time sitting out by the community pool in a YSL one piece? Anyhoo, let's start with the larger and more expensive of the two condos which are separated by a grassy and landscaped lot that is also available for purchase and can be combined with either of the two other properties.

SELLER: Candy Spelling
LOCATION: Century Woods Drive, Century City, CA
PRICE: $7,895,000
SIZE: 8,424 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Very rare opp. to purchase one of the largest homes in Century Woods on dbl. lot! Exquisite Tuscan villa featuring elegant grand scale rooms and dramatic cathedral ceilings w/ quality materials throughout. Formal living/great room opens to pvt. gardens w/ fountains & spa. Elegant library/den, gourmet kitchen. Upstairs has 3 bedrm suites inc. spectacular master w/ 2 luxury baths and office; 2 add. bdrms, elevator, 3 car gar. Adj. lot is also for sale & can be incorporated to create a 22K SF property.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Property records show that Miz Candy Spelling–whose real name is the much less fun Carole–purchased this 8,424 square foot "Tuscan villa" in April of 2006, just a couple of months before her Hollywood honcho huzband Aaron Spelling went to meet the great executive producer in the sky. Your Mama really has zee-roe idea why Miz Spelling would buy two expensive condos in Century City when she lives only a mile away in a hotel sized house. Perhaps the diamond dripping Miz Spelling purchased this as an investment? Or maybe it was used as uber-dee-luxe staff quarters? Or perhaps this was simply the folly of a very rich ladee, something akin to Marie Antoinette's Petit hameau de la Reine where Candy Darling could escape the queenly confines of her major S. Mapleton Drive mansion, put on a simple print dress from Chicos, work Sudoku puzzles and pretend she still knows what it feels like to live the life of a "poor" rich person who can only afford to own and maintain a huge house as opposed to a gargantuan 55,000 square foot behemoth. We tease.

Listing information reveals that in addition to the 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms which include lavish and large dual bathrooms in the master suite, the free standing 2-story villa includes 3 fireplaces, garaging for three luxury automobiles, 1 elevator–because apparently rich people don't like to exert much energy on their way to bed, a double height living room, a posh paneled library and a gourmet kitchen, a marble and stainless steel extravaganza that Your Mama likes to pretend Miz Spelling has never seen let alone used.

We have no doubt that no expense was spared in whatever improvements and/or renovations Miz Spelling may have done during her brief ownership, and clearly what's here appears to be of good quality even if as a whole it's not to Your Mama's particular taste in interior architecture and day-core. None the less, there are a few notable and impressive features we'd like to point out.

We're completely revolted by the exterior facade that surrounds the living room with it's faux quoins and smoky office park tinted glass. However, from the inside the sky high living room sends shivers of joy up and down our spine. Due to the extreme ceiling height, this will not be an easy room for a nice gay decorator to cozy up, but we're luh-ving the impressively tall windows and the built-in curved banquette where we imagine Miz Spelling liked to sit with her nipped, tucked and exuberantly preserved gurlfriends sipping cocktails and complaining about the nightmare of finding anyone reliable to tie their tennis shooz on Saturday mornings.

The children will note the stunning custom glass doors throughout the house which look like something out of a posh Parisian apartment. It's just a shame that due to the proximity of the other condo/houses, these pleasing panes probably need to be covered up most of time lest the nosy neighbors be able to peep and peer into the boo-dwars and bathrooms. Before we move on, let's not pass by the beautifully paneled and dignified library or the magnificent patterned wood floors in each of the rooms, a bit of floor design joie de vivre that makes Your Mama swoon with envy.

While there are plenty of details to love in Candy Darlings sweet shop, Your Mama still has eyes and let's face it children, the exterior of this condo/house is no architectural prize. Besides, who wants to sit in a square spa that feels like it's been dropped down in the middle of a damn office park? And is it really necessary to do up dual bathrooms with such stereotypical notions of what is male and female design? What if homosexuals or lesbians wanted to buy this house? That's right children, the ladees would have to spend a fortune ripping out the pink bathroom and the queens would have to, well, hmm, we don't really know which bathroom a couple of rich queens would chose to re-do.

Now then, let's move on to the second condo/house in Century Woods that Candy Darling owns and also recently put on the market.

SELLER: Candy Spelling
LOCATION: Century Woods Drive, Century City, CA
PRICE: $4,795,000
SIZE: 4,843 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Highly sought after private villa in exclusive Century Woods. Elegant living room, formal dining room, gourmet kitchen/family room built around a romantic sun-filled courtyard. Upstairs 4 bdrms. en suite inc. a spectacular master w/ fireplace, skylights, walk-in closet, balcony & beautiful master bath. Downstairs there is a 5th bdrm. & direct access to a pvt. garage. Wonderful for entertaining. Quality throughout. Adj. lot is for sale & can be incorporated to have property of over 16,000 sq. ft.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Across the circular drive and beyond the aforementioned grassy flat pad at the front of the Widow Spelling's other condo/house in Century Woods sits this ivy covered and blue shuttered traditional condo/house which property records show Miz Spelling purchased in August of 2006 for an undisclosed sum of money.

Listing information for the 4,843 square foot house indicates there are 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms including 4 en suite set ups on the second floor providing private poopers for the homeowner and several guests. Tucked back into a quiet corner of the condo complex, the fully detached two-story condo/house also features a 2-car garage, two fireplaces, and a central courtyard surrounded by an army of Palladian style French doors. Listing information we received indicated the home owners dues clock in at $2,280. Your Mama presumes that's a monthly charge.

Although the house appears to have been cleared of every stick of furniture, the interiors (and the exterior too) have been done up and did over in what appears to be a French Provincial style with a bright and energetic yellow and white checked floor in the entrance hall, pale yellow cabinetry, acres of floral print curtains and balloon shades of the size and variety that make Your Mama's head spin like a bottle of bad gin. Just look at that giant thing hanging over the tub in the master bathroom looking all mean and menacing. One quick yank of the pull-string and that voluminous curtain could easily gobble up and suffocate a nekkid bather in a sea of $150 per yard Scalamandré.

Interior spaces include long and narrow living and family rooms, each with a wood burning fireplace as well as a long and narrow kitchen that is well appointed with a large Viking range and a butcher block center island. Outdoor spaces include a private balcony off the master bedroom and a pretty tree shaded and quiet courtyard, which is perhaps all the outdoor space required for a west coast pied a terre or for an older person not interested in paying a small fortune every year for lawn care and hedge trimming.

Rumors have long swirled up and down the better streets and boulevards of Bel Air and Bev Hills that the Spelling Mansion is quietly for sale. Not long after Papa Spelling passed it was whispered to Your Mama from someone who said they heard from someone else that the real estate white elephant had been sold to an Arab sheik. That turned out to be nothing but idle gossip, of course. Over the last year or two Your Mama has discreetly asked around, natch, and received nothing but cagey responses from several high brow agents we spoke to. However, that sort of response could easily mean they don't know anything either but would like Your Mama to think they do. Anyhoo, as of today, it appears that Miz Spelling intends to remain a queen in the castle her television king built for her.

We know that daughter Tori wrote a scandalous book that said all sorts of salacious things about Mommy Dearest, but Tor-bear and her huzband Dean are living up in a rental house in Bev Hills while Miz Spelling has these places sitting empty? Seems a little cruel to Your Mama, but then again, we really don't know the torrid details of that (alleged) family feud.

According to property records, other well known owners of luxe Century Woods condos include octogenarian insult comic Don Rickles and multi millionaire media heir Wallis Annenberg.

Ellen Does it Three Times On Cabrillo Drive

While visiting the left coast last week, a good lookin' and well built acquaintance of Your Mama's whispered in our big ol' ear that he heard through the gurl gossip grapevine that talk show titan Ellen Degeneres and gal pal Portia Di Rossi had scooped up a third property on Cabrillo Drive (shown above).

And you know what children? Our little talkative tipster was correct. A peek into the property records reveals that the lesbian lovebirds–who are bizzy as beavers planning their upcoming big gay wedding–did indeed recently close on the last piece of the Cabrillo Drive real estate puzzle that will allow the Sapphic sisters to request permission from the city of Bev Hills to gate the entire damn street and provide them with the perfectly private lesbian lair they've long craved.

Let's recap: First the couple forked over a mind numbing and jaw dropping 29 and some million clams in a private deal for Will and Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick's recently built house that measures 8,500+ square feet and includes a detached guest house and staff quarters located under the infinity edge swimming pool. Yes children, under. Miz Moneybags quickly whirled around and spent another $8,500,000 to buy the 4,580 square foot house across the tiny street that was owned by celebrity real estate agent Jade Mills which Miz D and Missus dR tore down tout de suite.

Miz Degeneres then set her real estate sights on the third and final house on Cabrillo Drive and because money talks she was able to convince the long time owners to sell. Records to not indicate what Miz Degeneres paid for the third property that sits below the two other properties on a hair pin turn, but what is clear is that she has spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000,000 for her Bev Hills compound, a massive and perhaps even masochistic amount of money for these three properties.

Your Mama can't help but wonder if the gurls plan on using the 2,785 square foot house with 1 bedroom and 3 bathrooms as another guest house, staff accommodations, converting it into a security center/gate house or if they'll tear the bitch down and cantilever a tennis court out over the canyon. With this peripatetic pair, one never knows what pricey and privacy making plans they have up their real estate sleeves.

Whatever the case Your Mama asks, pleads and begs that none of you moe-rons get the not very wise idea to motor your automobiles up Cabrillo Drive. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Not only would that be stoopid, but you're likely to get a wicked and well deserved ass pounding by one of Miz D and Missus dR's beefy security goons.

JoeBabs Selling Again

SELLER: Joseph Babajian
LOCATION: Warner Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,995,000
SIZE: 2,011 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 1.75 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Built in 1935 w/ architectural integrity preserved. Timeless design w/ great scale, proportion & symmetry, wonderful authentic moldings & details. Recently restored & brilliantly refined w/ updated kitchen, baths, wd flring & new roof, central A/C. Separate den/office w/ built-in bookshelves. Formal dining rm plus charming junior dining rm. Private brick courtyard w/ fireplace.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It's been quite some time since Your Mama has heard hide, hair or how-dee-do about much maligned and publicly shamed celebrity real estate agent Joseph Babajian who was indicted late last year on multiple counts of conspiracy, bank fraud and loan fraud. In fact, the last we heard was in late March 2008 when his recently and expensively renovated 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom domicile in Trousdale Estates sold for $6,510,000. But thanks to Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills, Your Mama has learned that another of JoeBabs' properties has been recently listed for sale.

Located on Warner Avenue in the leafy, lush and centrally located Little Holmby section of Los Angeles, the 2,011 square foot house currently carries an asking price of $1,995,000 and happens to sit spitting distance from Candy Spelling's famously monstrous mansion on S. Mapleton Drive. Property records show that JoeBabs purchased the modest ranch house in February of 2003, long before news of his alleged real estate scheming and conniving became public. Although JoeBabs took a $789,000 mortgage at the time of purchase, Your Mama finds it interesting that the sale price is undisclosed. Hmm. Probably nothing suspicious, but with all JoeBabs' bad press we can't help but look a little cross-eyed at all his real estate doings.

Anyhoo, listing information for the renovated residence shows it includes three bedrooms, 1.75 bathrooms, a nicely sized living room with wood burning fireplace, a den with built-in bookshelves which will be appreciated by the few folks who read actual books anymore, and an updated kitchen with depressing drawer pulls and low-brow tile counter tops. Listing information also indicates there is both a formal dining room and a junior dining room. Your Mama has never heard of a junior dining room but we presume that is high-fallutin' real estate speak for the smart looking breakfast room which has been staged with a slightly too small Saarinen table and a couple of cozy 1940s era upholstered armchairs.

Thanks the keen eyes of one of Your Mama's children we now notice that the oval mirrors in the bathroom are hanging over the damn window. Yes, we realize that people need a mirror to pluck, pick and preen, but surely there was a better solution than this.

Always a fan of outdoor rooms, Your Mama finds the interior courtyard inviting and lovely. Once the awning striped patio furniture was swapped out for something more to our liking we can imagine that sitting next to the outdoor fireplace working the knitting needles and sipping gin and tonics would be a perfectly pleasant way to spend the a late November afternoon. However, it concerns and troubles Your Mama that this appears to be the only outdoor space besides the front yard and the long driveway up the side of the house. While this somewhat wee courtyard would be adequate for Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly, it might not be so desirable for someone with a few bratty toddlers who require swing sets, sand boxes and room to swing a cat by its tail.

A quick search of property records reveals that the once high and mighty real estate agent who regularly brokered multi-million dollar deals for the likes of David Beckham and The Spice Gurl, sold a 1,370 square foot house on Sunset Ridge Drive in Laguna Beach in November of 2007 for $2,650,000. Records show JoeBabs bought the 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom house in the Emerald Terrace neighborhood in December of 2004 for an even steven $2,000,000. Records also show that JoeBabs continues to own the small apartment building on N. Sweetzer in West Hollywood that he purchased in March of 2006 as well as a 2,057 square foot house on S. Palm Drive in Beverly Hills that he purchased in March of 2003.

So it would seem that ol' JoeBabs is unlikely to wind up homeless even after he hands over the considerable cash required to pay his high priced attorneys.

Wednesday Morning Mish Mash

1.
Former CSI sex pot Khandi Alexander is having a real bitch of a time getting her Los Angeles khrib sold. The poor thing first listed her Woodshill Trail quoin-set hut (shown above) at an unimaginable $4,495,000 where is sat and sat and sat some more. First came a whopping million dollar price reduction and then the asking price was hacked to $2,995,000, just above the $2,850,000 that property records show Miss Alexander paid in January of 2006 for the 4,126 square foot house with four full floors of elevator-less living. The listing was recently marked "Looking for Backup" which would indicate that a buyer finally stepped up to take this real estate white elephant off Miss Alexander's delicate hands. But alas... that buyer seems to have evaporated like the wind and the house is back on the market and still available for someone who might enjoy spending their evenings peering and peeping through the panes of The Chateau Marmont which is located just behind the house.

2.
Academy award winning actress Angela Bassett has also been struggling to unload her Hancock Park home (shown above) for longer than Your Mama cares to remember. First listed for $5,999,000, the asking price for the 5 bedroom and 7.5 bathroom house on guard gated Fremont Place has been karate chopped all the way down to its current asking price of $3,900,000. The listing is currently marked "Looking for Backup" which indicates that the property is in escrow. Hallelujah! Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter can both rest easier now that someone has finally coughed up the cash for Miz Bassett's private gym, hair salon, guest house and European style back yard.

3.
Some time ago boob tube scribe and producer Mark Brazill (That 70s Show, 3rd Rock From the Sun) bought a big house on Aberdeen Road in Los Feliz from fashionista music icon Gwen Stefani and her husband Gavin Rossdale. Property records show the notoriously bombastic Mister Brazill paid $4,795,000 for the 5 bedroom and 4 bathroom Mediterranean manse (shown above). Rumors swirled that Mister Brazill only bought the house to thwart a purchase by an industry rival, but that's just rumor and gossip that Your Mama knows nuthin' about so don't any of you children go repeating that like it's gospel 'cause it ain't.

Whatever the reason for the purchase, Mister Brazill clearly had no interest in keeping the casa and quickly flipped it back on the market with an asking price of $4,885,000. After many months of sitting around without a buyer, the price was given a serious karate chopped all the way down to $3,995,000, a figure which Your Mama's bejeweled abacus indicates will result in a teeth chattering financial loss for Mister Brazill.

This is not the first time that Mister Brazill will have to accept considerably less than he wanted for a high priced house. Property records show that in February of 2008 he sold a house in Toluca Lake for $2,850,000 which had earlier been listed at $3,900,000. Uh oh. Your Mama hopes Mister Brazill is still receiving some big fat residual checks to cover his recent real estate losses.

4.
Once upon a time funny ladee Brett Butler, a deep voiced southern blond with a reputation for being a wee bit difficult to work, had a television show of her own called Grace Under Fire that ran for five reasonably successful seasons in the mid-1990s. Back in 1994, when the TV money was rolling in like a tidal wave, Miz Butler went out and bought herself a celebrity style house on Woodrow Wilson Drive in the hills high above Hollywood for an undisclosed amount of money.

Fast forward to April of 2008 when Miz Butler listed her 3 bedroom, 4 bathroom and 3,314 square foot house with swimming pool, guest house, three fireplaces and sweeping city and Hollywood sign views with an asking price of $2,347,000. After several price chops and at least one deal that fell out of escrow, the property has finally sold for the nice round number of $2,000,000.

We don't have a clue where the once rehabbed and twice dee-vorced Miz Butler is headed, but Your Mama would not be surprised to hear that she's bee lining it back her native Alabama where two millions clams goes a long way in the in the real estate game.

5.
It certainly didn't take long for pulchritudinous Paul Bettany and Oscar winning actress Jennifer Connelly to unload their Brooklyn townhouse. According to the online listing, the 5,276 square foot Golden Age limestone mansion has already gone to contract and the rumor sweeping up and down Park Slope's 7th Avenue is that it's being sold for very close to the $8,500,000 asking price. The extremely successful but low key couple served as the de facto poster children for the Brooklyn real estate renaissance having scooped up their speck-tack-u-lar Prospect Park West mansion with 9 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in August of 2003 for $3,700,000.

All rumors and reports say that Miz Connelly and Mister Bettany have purchased a $7,000,000 (approx.) loft in the hideously expensive and tragically trendy celebrity and Wall Street enclave of TriBeCa. At least Brooklyn still has Oscar nominated Michelle Williams, one of the gays from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and of course the newly anointed king and queen of Brooklyn based celebrities Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard. For now.

Could this mark the beginning of the end of the Brooklyn or bust trend of the last 5 or 8 years? There isn't anything wrong with living in Brooklyn. In fact there are many and multiple reasons why it's a perfectly lovely place to reside. However, many die-hard Manhattanites moved to the borough of Brooklyn to escape the high cost of living in Manhattan and now that it's nearly as expensive to shack up in Park Slope, will they still suffer the 40 minute subway ride?

Denise Richards Is On the Move...Again

SELLER: Denise Richards
LOCATION: Long Valley Drive, Hidden Hills, CA
PRICE: $3,999,999 (reduced from $4,250,000)
SIZE: 5,651 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Here we go again. Bond gurl, boobie baring Playboy model, celebrity ex-wife, tabloid train wreck and newly minted reality television star Denise Richards is on the move. Again. Oh lawhd children, this ladee is about as real estate fickle as they come. In fact, she's becoming a real Ellen Degeneres with her real estate whirligig, never settling in for more than a year or two before moving on to new digs. Let's have a little recap of Miss Richards recent real estate transactions, just in case anyone cares.

In May of 2005, after fleeing the Encino estate she shared with her obscenely rich, prostie luvin' and (allegedly) porn obsessed huzband Charlie Sheen, she forked over $3,995,000 for house on Middle Fork Road in a gated Westlake Village community. Miss Richards' new crib sat just a stone's throw from her one time BFF and current arch enemy Heather Locklear. However, once Miss Richards started dating Miss Locklear's estranged huzband Richie Sambora, she unloaded that house lickety-split (for $4,100,000) and high-tailed it over to Hidden Hills, another swank and celebrity friendly guard gated community in suburban Los Angeles where in May of 2006 she purchased a house on Long Valley Road for $4,000,000. After owning the 5,188 square foot ranchette for less than one year, the peripatetic gossip glossy favorite flipped it back on the market at $4,495,000 where it sat until she karate chopped the asking price to just under three point eight million smackers. Property records (and reports) show that in late 2007 she finally sold the place for $3,800,000.

But children, even before she sold the above mentioned house on Long Valley Road, the sometimes funny and often foul mouthed Miss Richards purchased another horse friendly house on Long Valley Road. In June of 2007 she forked over $4,395,000 for the 1.15 acre property across the street which property records and listing information indicates measures 5,651 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. And now, just one year later she's listed the house at $4,250,000, which even a moe-ron can see is less than she paid for the estate just one year ago. It's been well reported that Miss Richards hauls in boo-coo bucks from her ex-huzband, but can bee-hawtcha really afford to loose half a million dollars in her real estate transactions over the last few years? Considering single mother of two is reported to have a sliver of multi-million dollar back end pie from Mister Sheen's screamingly successful sit-com Two and a Half Men, Your Mama imagines she can.

Anyhoo, current listing information does not currently show pictures of the interior. However iffin the children have any interest in viewing the inviting foyer, grand chef's kitchen with marble counters and custom cabinetry, the luxurious master bedroom with retreat and sumptuous master bath with island spa tub, the gym, office and/or backyard swimming pool and spa, one need only TiVo her show on the E! channel.

Your Mama doesn't have a clue where Miss Richards will be moving next, but we fully expect that her house hunt will be filmed for her television program and printed up in all the gossip glossies. Because let's face it children, she may not be a contender for an Academy Award or an Emmy, but she makes for good tabloid reading. Admit it, she does.

photos: Pacific Coast News

Katherine Heigl Selling Starter Home

Okay children, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter have finally winged our way back home. We're jet lagged and a wee bit hung over from one too many complimentary gin and tonics on the plane, but we're gonna do the best we can on limited brain resources today starting with some old news.

SELLER: Kathering Heigl
LOCATION: Parva Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,750,000 (list)
SIZE: 2,369 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Celebrity owned redone contemporary w/ open floor plan. Stunning walls of glass to view city from downtown to ocean. Professionally designed dream kitchen w/ SubZero, center island, and granite counter tops. Large master w/ French doors to city view balcony. Sensational master bath w/ huge stone steam shower. Many upgrades such as hardwood floors, dual zone a/c, recessed lights. Entertainers yard w/ room for pool.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: According to the dee-voon Miz Ann Brenoff at the Los Angeles Times, getting a little big for her britches boob-toober turned film star Katherine Heigl (27 Dresses, Knocked Up) has listed her "starter house" on twisty turny Parva Avenue in Los Angeles' Los Feliz neighborhood. Property records show the cancer stick luving Grey's Anatomy actress purchased the 3 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom house in April of 2006 when she forked over $1,500,000 for the the frustration and annoyance of trying to squeeze her giant red Range Rover Sport into that standard sized garage.

Your Mama's bejeweled abacus tells us that with the current asking price of $1,750,000 Miss Heigl will barely make any money on this property, but given that she's currently one of the most in demand actresses in Hollywood, that's probably not a major concern of hers.

The 2,369 square foot house has clearly been staged to within an inch of livability so we won't bother to comment on the oh so common orchids, the sad artwork or the banal and exuberantly beige day-core. Listing information shows that the house includes an open floor plan, all wood floors (that parquet shit makes Your Mama woozy), long and impressive views over the city that worships at Miss Heigl's well shod feet, a master bedroom with a view balcony and steam shower (perfect for releasing all the tobacco toxins), and a kitchen that has been done over by a real live kitchen design professional and features granite counter tops and top grade appliances.

This modestly sized quasi-Mediterranean crib was a reasonable real estate purchase at the time considering Miss Heigl had yet to become the belle of the Hollywood ball when she snapped this place up. However, as soon as the recently married Miss Heigl hit it big on the big screen, she went house hunting again. Property records show that in September of 2007, flush with movie money and in possession of a newly won Emmy for her role on Grey's Anatomy, Miss Heigl plunked down $2,550,000 for a 3,960 square foot house with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms that sits less than a mile from the Parva Street property she has on the market.

Your Mama imagines that as Miss Heigl's star rises so will the price of her real estate. The young ladee clearly likes living in Los Feliz, but if we had to predict, we'd look for her next move to be to a proper estate with a long, gated celebrity style driveway and more terlits than there are days in the week. In the meantime, Your Mama wishes Miss Heigl a happy home and a little more tact in dealing with her bosses at ABC.