Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Elvira Is Flipping Out in Silver Lake

SELLER: Cassandra Peterson
LOCATION: Moreno Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,499,000
SIZE: 2,821 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Warm and inviting traditional home in prime Silver Lake, with mountain and lake views. 4 bedrooms, 3 bath, cozy den with fireplace & an office/guest room. State of the art cook's kitchen with counter island and large sitting area with French doors to private wisteria-covered pergola, nude pool with spa, and a grassy yard.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The other evening as we were calmly working our way through our third gin and tonic and sorta watching Big Love with that amazing Chloe Sevigny chick we were sifting through the listings in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles and came across a house that jiggered something in the deep recesses of our multi-tasking and boozy brain.

We put on our thinking cap and immediately starting peeping into property records and before long we discovered that the aforementioned house in Silver Lake is owned by a woman the children will best know as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. The the big wig wearing boobtastic double entrendre expert's real name is Cassandra Peterson and she recently listed her brick and clapboard crib with an asking price of $1,499,000.

Property records and previous reports reveal that the Madam of the Macabre picked up her surprisingly traditional style house on Moreno Drive in June of 2007 for $1,698,000. Your Mama does not even need to consult our beloved and bejeweled abacus to see that Miz Peterson is likely to lose a whole heap of money selling this house in a swiftly declining market and after owning it less than one year.

Listing information indicates the home includes 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms while prop records show the house measures in at 2,841 square feet, which is hardly huge, but certainly large enough for regular people. The two story house, which sits atop a front facing two car garage, is perched high on the up sloping lot and is accessed up a curving driveway.

The main floor includes a good sized "formal" living room with a large, multi-paned bay window flanked by two cute porthole windows, a wood burning fireplace, and lovely light colored wood floors. It also appears to have the same light celery paint on the walls as when Miz Peterson purchased the home, a baby grand piano that we really hope someone plays, and an unexpected, quirky and large portrait of a Saint Bernard.

With it's slip covered chairs and wine cabinet that looks like someone whitewashed it in their garage and then beat the hell out of it with a chain, the formal dining room would certainly please Rachel Ashwell, the high priestess of Shabby Chic day-core. The adjacent kitchen appears to be well appointed with high-grade stainless steel appliances and a work island large enough for Miz Peterson to perform an autopsy. The adjacent family room contains more more green painted walls, a flat screen tee-vee mounted over the corner fireplace, and more slip covered furniture.

As hard as we looked, we did not locate a single skull, cross bone, bucket of blood or anything that might be construed as a Gothic knick knack in all of Miz Peterson's home. All that hints at the owner's legendary livelihood are the few little Elvira action figures hanging out on the built in shelving unit in the room Miz Peterson uses to run her campy little empire. We do rather like the table lamp with the zebra shade that sits on what looks to Your Mama like a patio table placed between the two white slip covered wing back chairs that sit opposite Miz Peterson's boxy chocolate brown desk.

The master bedroom, or at least we think it's the master bedroom has several multi-paned windows that appear to be without any sort of privacy shades, French doors leading to a private terrace and the private pooper features dual sinks where Miz Peterson and her man-friend (if she has one) can freshen up before bed without getting on each others nerves.

We don't presume to know why Miz Peterson would choose to sell after just a year of ownership, but we do wish her well wherever it is she lands next.

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

and to think that everyone thought I was an idiot from 2 years ago when I kept on saying over and over again "the sky will be falling soon"

the RE market is in a freefall

I give it another 2 years before it settles down

Anonymous said...

and the untended victims of the RE crash ?

indie film studios

UPDATE: Icahn Ups Lionsgate Stake; Stock In Freefall After Lousy Quarter

UPDATE: Carl Icahn Affiliates confirmed control over 10.56% of the common shares of Lionsgate Entertainment today after the market closed. The acquired Shares were purchased on the New York Stock Exchange at a price of $4.53 per common share. Icahn Affiliates now own and control 12,235,723 common shares of Lionsgate Gate and said it bought them because they were "undervalued". In other words, Icahn is buying the company on the cheap.

Anonymous said...

YAWN

Not you dearest Mama, that child you should have aborted or at least "accidentally" left in a carrier in the back yard as coyote food.

Anonymous said...

For someone who has made a career out of being hideous. Her house is shockingly tasteful...

Anonymous said...

IIRC, Elvira sold her Ridgedale, Beverly Hills home to then super couple Brad and Jen for a boat load of $$$$, like 17-18 million. She made a huge profit on that sale. No need for ready cash, I'd say.

There has to be more to this since she's willing to take a bit % loss on this purchase. Or she just hates the house and could not care less about losing money on the sale.

(oh, sorry about that "super couple" thing....Bleechh)

WrteStufLA said...

Los Feliz is NOT the same as Silver Lake.

Your Mama said...

oh crap. it's correct in the write up, but the headline was wrong wrong wrong. thanks doll.

Anonymous said...

IIRC, Elvira sold her Ridgedale, Beverly Hills home to then super couple Brad and Jen for a boat load of $$$$

I thought it was the Los Feliz Craftsman Elvira sold to Brad. Did she also own and then sell Ridgedale to him?

Mike Cook said...

The facade makes me jumpy. A lot going on.

The living room looks soothing and bright.

StPaulSnowman said...

Mama..........I know it's coming.........I don't know when but one of these days we are going to see a celebrity house listed below a million. Then there will be no excuse for you and the good Doctor not to schedule a showing and report back to the chillun first hand. In the meantime, I would like to suggest that you consider starting work on a nice big glossy coffee table book.."Your Mama Does Homes of the Rich and Famous", or maybe......."Mama on the Decoration of Houses."

Anonymous said...

I share the other childs surprise that Elvira's home should be so...well, tasteful and sedate. I have to wonder if it hasnt been staged to within an inch of its life. Its a lovely place...I can find little to fault here.

Anonymous said...

12:52....you are absolutely correct. NOT the Ridgedale house. I don't know what I was thinking. Sorry.

I'd better go easy on the Aqua Velvas for the rest of the evening!!!

Anonymous said...

St Paul Woman...you're onto something.

I for one would be the first to enter my well worn credit cards numbers at Amazon for copy of mama's coffee table tome.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how soon I can get that 80MM penthouse for 5MM ?



"So New York's very wealthy are addressing their distress in discreet and often awkward ways. They try to move their $165 sessions with personal trainers to a time slot that they know is already taken. They agree to tour multimillion-dollar apartments and then say the spaces don’t match their specifications. They apply for a line of credit before art auctions, supposedly to buy a painting or a sculpture, but use that borrowed money to pay other debts."

Anonymous said...

Average Joe:

An up tick in foreclosures started happening in 2007 -- you're hardly special for saying that.

Anyone with a half of a brain recognized that housing was the bubble that replaced the tech bubble. I saw that in 2002-2003 when my friends who had no business owning a home were buying homes that they surely shouldn't have qualified for. Then it became oil.

We appear to be bubble free at the moment. Perhaps the next bubble will be buying up toxic assets thereby driving their values right back up again? Not a far-fetched and/or novel idea. The people with the cash are patiently waiting on the sidelines but they WILL strike. They always do. The billionaires are sitting on their piles of cash readying to double, triple or quadruple it. Great fortunes are to be made from this mess. Some day. Hopefully sooner than later. A few just need to wade out into the water and the rest will soon follow.

Also, a year or so later, it's listed at 88% of the original purchase price. That is HARDLY a fire sale or sky is falling scenario. It's not fun to have to do that but it's also not the end of the world. Prices rise, prices fall ... sometimes fast, sometimes slow. In fact, many areas around the nation have already seen 20-30% (or more) drops in prices.

It also seems to be priced realistically for a sale in a normal amount of time.

So no, the sky is not falling.

Not saying that it won't, but it's not right now.

Maybe next week...

One thing is certain: when it does you'll be here to tell us about how you predicted it. Like a rat that survives a nuclear blast.

Anonymous said...

As for Elvira vs. the home...let's just say that the drapes don't match the curtains.

She is great at pulling off that character. I always sensed she had a little freakiness in her real life. The demonstrates that she is as suburban as the next one.

I also love her that much more now.

Next you're going to tell me that Bill O'Reilly is nice...

Or that Michael Jackson likes girls.

Anonymous said...

Average Joe:

I forgot to mention:

Being able to become heavily leveraged will become nothing but a memory for a long time.

That is all that will change in the end.

The people that actually have money will still be able to multiply it.

The new rules are: you have to spend money to make money (as always) -- and it has to be your own money (now renewed). Some leverage will be allowed, of course, but you'll really have to have your skin in the game.

The people with nothing more than an idea and/or are good at computer modeling won't be able to walk into any investment bank and borrow $40 or more for every $1 they have ... only to buy a company that is already bloated and teetering on financial ruin.

Those days will be over.

The folks like Mark Cuban...who still have $3 billion or more lying around because they've spent the last year shorting every stock imaginable...they will be the one's who dive into a pile of shit and stand up in it with an extra few billion.

I do regret that I didn't over-leverage beginning in the new millennium, convert it to cash in 2007 and then sit patiently.

I should have bought up a bunch of commercial in 2003-04, held it and dumped it onto a private equity folks or REITs beginning in late '07.

Commercial was still strong.

20/20 hindsight.

Why am I bothering? I forgot that you are the financial genius here. The one who bought a bank claiming that the true value of the acquisition was future land value -- while boasting in another post about how the sky is falling and nobody knows by how far. HUGE CONTRADICTION. It must be great to be all-sensing and all-knowing.

PS Don't worry, you're the only regular poster on here that I ever feel the need to school. I am not *too* full of myself.

Anonymous said...

I actually like this house, everything just seems to make sense, and it is cozy without being small, and nice enough to not be over the top. It should be a quick sale (Which in this market is around 6 months!) Seriously though, this seems like a house i could actually live in.

Anonymous said...

Now this is more reasonable than overpriced $9 million Hamptons houses.
Not a bad house.

Anonymous said...

It has always been clear to me when seeing Cassandra Peterson (not Elvira) interviewed that "Elvira" is a character. Peterson has a completely different personality. I guess that makes her a good actress (one who has been pigeonholed by a character).

Anonymous said...

The house is very nice. I would like to do Elvira in the pooper - and I'm not talking about the toilet.

Anonymous said...

5:14 - She'd end up doing you in the pooper with a toilet brush...and you'd love it.

Anonymous said...

Is is possible the place is haunted by ghosts that even the Mistress can't tame?

Anonymous said...

She's definitely one of the smarter women in Hollywood. She has taken a character, Elvira, farther than most actresses take their whole damn careers.

I don't think she's offloading it because she's broke...that house she sold Brad Pitt made her big bucks and she's licensed her name and likeness all over the place to good success.

Perhaps she bought the place for her daughter and then didn't think it was any good anymore?

The house is priced to sell, it's tasteful, comfortable and livable.

Anonymous said...

I sort of like her house - very comfortable looking and the rooms are scaled for human habitation. They're not grossly overscaled and/or vulgar in size and decor.

If you look closely, the master bedroom, office and bathroom appear to have Verasols/honeycomb shades mounted at the tops of the french door windows and on the regular windows, too. They're pulled up for the photos but can be lowered for privacy.

The only thing I don't like about houses like hers is having the garage a level down from the rest of the house. I don't have personal servants so I'd be the one schlepping groceries up from the car.

Anonymous said...

anon

I am not a financial genius

why ?

because I missed out on the plundering of this great nation of ours

and marc cuban ?

his 3 billion is most likely 200MM by now and that is not enough to sustain his lifestyle

I was hanging out with some known movie producers earlier today for drinks and they were telling me that they cannot believe on how quickly the well has dried up for financing movies, even with HUGE stars

I mean billionaires that only have 40mm in cash ? how is that possible ?

hell as of now you can buy lions gate studios for 500MM that is it,

so outside of getting loans from banks which will not happen I see thousands of movies not getting made this year

why do you think speilberg is getting his money from india

this economy just like the RE industry was all fiction

so in conclusion the producers said that you have to look at it this way and this is their new formula,

if a guy is worth 5 billion he is only has 250MM in cash so he can only risk 25MM

if a guy is worth 1 billion he only has 50MM in cash so he can only risk 5MM

as you know everyones net worth was based on paper on paper on paper on paper

so I doubt anyone will be able to buy up skyscrapers, cities or suburbs for pennies on the dollar

well that is unless they are on the government board from some other country

just my 2 cents

Anonymous said...

She has continually done a nice job on her houses and I assume made money, which is a very good thing, since she can't act at all and really stretched a character into a career.

Anonymous said...

Average Joe - It seems you suffer from a case of verbal (or keyboard) diarrhea. Please buy the Costco size Pepto Bismal and gargle with half of it while you soak your poor tired fingers in the rest.

Anonymous said...

This blog is getting too SERIOUS with all that Average Joe stuff! Please lighten up. Save that scary financial stuff for CURBED. We are Mama's chirrin and we just wanna dish on celebrity cribs! Please stop reminding me the world as we know it is over. Mama's blog is my only escape these days!

Anonymous said...

The house is very nice. Not overpriced.

I did not know she was a big flipper now.

My roommate in college met her on a 1980s camping trip to the California Channel Islands. He said she was very normal and very nice. Don't let the Morticia wig and spider eye lashes fool you.

StPaulSnowman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Well "average joe", by your own numbers, your "2 cents" is worth about a 10th of one cent. In other words - USELESS.

So don't you take your "2 cents" and put a downpayment on a brain.

Anonymous said...

great house great price.
her namesake film, Elvira Mistress of the Dark
is one of the funniest damn movies ever! she was a Groundling! she rocks and she still looks amazing!

Anonymous said...

The house is priced for a quick sale! Word on the the street is that they have 3 offers in already!

Anonymous said...

Wow! The interior is as sedate as a Pottery Barn catalog. I would have expected Gothic-Era-Cher on a budget.

Anonymous said...

I hear that this is in escrow around 1.6!

Anonymous said...
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