Saturday, February 14, 2009

A Wee Bit of Monday Morning Mash Mash

1.
Holy Mary Mother of God, it's back.

We're talking the about the legendary Singleton house up on Mulholland Drive owned by hair honcho Vidal Sassoon which was listed in June of 2007 with a blistering asking price of $19,995,000 where it languished un-bought for 470-some days before disappearing from the MLS in late 2008.

The fully rehabbed 4 bedroom and 5 bathroom Richard Neutra designed domicile has recently reappeared on the MLS with a new listing agent and a new asking price of $14,995,000. Your Mama does not even need to flick the beads of our bejeweled abacus to figure out that Mister Sassoon has hacked a huge five million clams off his original asking price, an indication he must be getting serious about unloading the architectural white elephant.

All you mid-century modern purists can start ranting and raving about how this house was wrecked and ravaged by an insensitive rehabilitation, and all you sky is falling types can start screaming about how it's still $10,000,000 over-priced while the rest of you figure out a way to get your voice heard over all the stiffly worded and righteous indignation.

2.
According to the ladee at the L.A. Times, Your Mama's favorite middle aged and mouthy rock babe Courtney Love recently moved house. As far as we knew, she'd been shacked up in a rental on gated La Collina street in West Hollywood, but apparently she's decamped to a house on nearby St. Ives Drive that was formerly owned and (fairly) recently sold by Aussie songstress Natalie Imbruglia.

Miz Imbruglia snagged $3,725,000 when she sold the 5 bedroom and 6 bathroom house to movie making Mexican heiress Jeanette Longoria who has apparently decided to live elsewhere because according to recent reports and whispered words on the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine the a-list lesbian leased the place out at (about) $20,000 per month to the Ho from Hole.

We tease. We love Miz Love and all her high-larious high-jinks.

3.
According to the always well informed Josh Barbanel at the New York Times, Tantric sex loving rock star Sting and his Tantric sex loving ladee-wife Trudie Styler have reportedly re-listed their long time Manhattan doo-plex pied a terre at the Brentmore with an asking price of $26,000,000.

The 18 room spread–once owned by piano man Billy Joel–is comprised to two combined units in a lovely Beaux Arts building on Central Park West. The floor plan shows the dee-luxe doo-plex measures in at approximately 6,600 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms including a surprisingly modest master suite on the upper floor. Other amenities include a tightly curving staircase connecting the two floors, two kitchens, two living rooms looking into the tree tops that line Central Park West, two fireplaces, a book shelf lined office, two private elevator landing entrances and a library with a discreet back entrance into the dressing room of the above mentioned modest master suite.

If the children will put on their thinking caps they might recall that the global do-gooders tried to unload this place way back in the summer of 2006 when it carried an asking price of $24,000,000. The two floor sprawler sat on the market for well over a year, was briefly reduced to $20,000,000 and then taken off the market just a few weeks before listing agent Linda Stein was bludgeoned to death in her Fifth Avenue aerie by her assistant.

Given that the boho Brits forked over a whopping $26,500,000 for new doo-plex digs in the newly built, much lauded and perhaps over-hyped 15 Central Park West last year, it would seem obvious that their old crib up the street at the Brentmore has become somewhat superfluous. However, what's puzzling and perplexing to Your Mama's little booze saturated pea brain is that the real estate rich couple re-listed the apartment in a swiftly declining market at a price six million smackers higher than the last asking price. Is anyone really going to offer anywhere near twenty six million when they know the couple was willing to part with it at twenty million? No, we don't think so either, but we do wish them luck at doing so anyway.

According to rumor and report, in addition to the two leviathan apartments they currently own on in New York City, the couple also maintain an ocean front house in The Malibu Colony, a large estate in Tuscany, Italy, a couple of places in London as well as a couple of places in the English countryside.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would somebody plese explain the MAGIC of 15 CPW? All those gorgeous old buildings on CPW, why does this new one have such selling power? Also I am still mad at 15 CPW becasue i had some of the best sex of my life at The Mayflower, but that's another story.

StPaulSnowman said...

It is difficult to even imagine the amount of money it must take to maintain all of the Stinging properties Mama has cataloged. Does tantric sex reduce your carbon footprint? Acres of heated, uninhabited space while he is off hugging trees in Central America. I would suggest he consider using some of these properties to start new saplings for the rain forest. This is truly magnificent hypocrisy.

Anonymous said...

that's an excellent point. But oh, that sex at The Mayflower............that was beyond tantric, honey

Anonymous said...

Date and headline do not match.

Anonymous said...

Out of all celebs Sting & Trudie must have one of the largest property portfolios ... think it's 7 homes in total, not including the homes of their children ... Their Wiltsire & Tuscany properties are huge country estates where they have their own organic food ranges [Wiltshire] & produce their own branded olive oil & honey [Tuscany] ...

Anonymous said...

To me, 15 CPW is like suburban tract homes but in a high rise on a prime block in NYC.

The building is crappy looking and has standard finishes. I can't afford it, but it would seem there are so many other better buildings in NY. It must be the new-ness and location.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (10:52 AM) is right: The juxtapositioning of "Saturday, February 14, 2009" and "A Wee Bit of Monday Morning Mash Mash" suggests that Mama had one of those delightful booze-filled-and-fueled, nerve-pill-enhanced LOST WEEKENDS so typical of Mama's new Hollywood neighborhood.

Mama, I once played a doctor in a school play so I can tell you this: Take FOUR Advils with lots of water three times today (unless your tummy acts up or you already know that’s not for you)!

Screw the Singleton Residence. Why the hell won't it just GO AWAY? Who gives a rat’s ass about architectural integrity, price and that kind of thing? Girls just want to have FUN! Who cares what you paid or what the place looks like (although a view is nice). The REAL question is: Can the owners and their friends run around drunk in the NOOD in the back yard without the neighbors seeing (or at least complaining to the police). Don't you just HATE it when everyone's finally naked and drunk and having a really good time in the wee hours as they party themselves towards a MAJOR lost weekend (any of that sound familiar, Mama?) ... and THEN THE POLICE COME WITH THEIR SCREAMING SIRENS AND FLASHING LIGHTS TO TELL EVERYONE TO QUIET DOWN? Answer the door for the police with your wanker hanging out? That stinks! I know I hate it.

Of course, there ARE those nasty, nasty market forces out there. You know, those pitiless (not like that handsome young police officer who came to my place last time), gravity-like forces that DO tend to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the best business plan is NOT spending boo-coo bucks to savage every room, surface and wall of an important mid-century modern classic, bloat its floor space with third-rate architectural acreage and stick a zebra skin on the bed, then marketing the resulting pozole as an “updated” but “authentic" Neutra through a realtor of VERY dicey reputation. Yes, there is that.

Hey, it's not MY money (thank god)! I ADORE Mr. Hair Wedge! I want to plant a BIG WET KISS right on his aged mug. I hope he and his deranged archicidal wife make a FORTUNE on this thing. That is my dearest HOPE. But the single truculent commenter on the Radar link Mama provides seems to pretty much nail the grim REALITY:

"They'll be lucky if the sale price of this house equals the cost of the land less what it takes to demolish the bloated pseudo-Neutra they've created on it."

Pretty much says it all.

Anonymous said...

Sting has a ton of money and it keeps rolling in.....he can afford to buy property.....but obviously has too much to take care of. Guess he will sell a few off.

Anonymous said...

Here's a link to Sting's estate in Tuscany if anyone is interested in seeing it.

http://www.palagioretreats.com/

Anonymous said...

What's there to complain about? This house looks better than 95% of mid-century houses in LA. Most look like they never got out of the mid-century, which is unfortunate and ugly, really.

Anonymous said...

not to mention that Sting's duplex at 88 CPW is on the second and third floors (true, of a great building)which is kind of like living in the middle of an intersection. Then again, I'd take it anytime over something at 15CPW (in case anyone is offering); 15CPW is for people who don't really understand New York but want to show up here occasionally.

Anonymous said...

StPaulSnowman...you read my mind...celebrities preaching about global warming (a legitimate concern), then jetting off to one of their multiple estates. These folks would probably tsk tsk some poor slob driving his 1988 Chevy across town to a minimum wage job, that b*stard is single handedly destroying the planet and needs to be educated!

Ditto Jolie-Pitt, always dashing through airports. Are their planes powered by the sun, or corn oil? Perhaps they should consider a vividly colored hot air balloon for travel; it would well suited for the low key, under the radar lifestyle they seem to enjoy.

Anonymous said...

Does Trudie buy expensive real estate every time Sting messes around?

Ah,that explains it.

Anonymous said...

I love Courtney Love, but why does she waste all her $? Crack? She sold her apt in NYC for like $6M, and always rents?

Anonymous said...

Mama your column today is dee-licious, the comments are great, and WhiteChocolateMess and Kissyface yours are hilarious, thank you :)

Anonymous said...

I almost forgot! This house originally came on the market in 2007 at $25 million, but was quickly and mysteriously reduced to $19.95 million.

So the real, aggregate price chop from the original listing price here is a mind boggling $10 million!

The original $25 Million listing has been deleted from the universe, but here's the evidence from an old Luxist post:

http://www.luxist.com/2007/07/10/singleton-residence-estate-of-the-day/

Anonymous said...

O, and for those who care, here's another reference to the original $25 million listing price on Elite Choice:

http://elitechoice.org/2007/07/10/singleton-residence-estate-of-the-day/

I'm sure there are more out there. There's probably even an odd cache of the original Sotheby's $25 million listing post somewhere on the web. Of course, Sotheby's - and Barry Sloane - have now been given the Sassoon boot. Or maybe they just threw in the towell.

Anonymous said...

Indeed like those before, the Singleton house hit the market for $25m originally. What a price chop. Can't really consider it much of one tho cuz truthfully the house should have been price where it is now from the begining and they probably would have sold it. Which how the market has changed, I don't think people care for the "architectural pedigree" of the estate and it may sell for far less than it's even presently listed at.

I myself love the house. I don't need some 10-15k plus square foot McMansion. I'd rather have a beautiful modest architectural house on a large private plot of land.

Anonymous said...

why is mama reporting on so much NYNY trash. Sure these places may be $25,000,000 in this polluted city, but in any other city/country a 2,300sf place would go for $1.5m.

Not worth reporting on!!!

StPaulSnowman said...

Mama is always very good about covering NY and California trash equally and fairly. You sound like someone a pidgeon hit while you were a tourist in NYC. It is an amazing place even though most people, "would never want to live there." I think there is great mystery and fascination in the idea of fabulous floorplans and magnificent interiors in the middle of all that exhaust, dust and litter.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (10:49 PM)-

There's nothing "wrong" with the Singleton house in the sense that it's ugly or unliveable ot that kind of thing! It's NOT any of those things. But there is a fact to be dealt with here: The Sassoons have been hoping to sell it for TONS OF MONEY ($25, $20 and now $15 million) exactly BECAUSE of it's Neutra "architectural pedigree" ... even though they have seriously altered that "pedigree."

For anyone who doesn't care for "architectural pedigree" there is simply no reason to pay huge money for a modest architectural house on a five acre view lot in not-prime "Bel Air" (actually a busy stretch of Mulhulland Highway) for one very simple reason: OTHER modest architectural houses on similar lots can be bought for much much less. Maybe $10 million less.

As for whether the Sassoons have commited an architectural crime here, we can leave that to the art historians as far as I care. But as an investment, this one is a dud.

Anonymous said...

I love the Singleton house, although I don't think it will sell for any where near even its current list price.

A similar house now with the Pedigree would probably sell $7-8mm and the house will probably sell for just a little more than that. Given the current market I don't think there are many buyers who care much about the Pedigree to pay heaps and horeds for it.

If i could buy it, I would for far less than they are asking. I'd also pick up the Kaufmann house in Palm Springs, it's gorgeous and does have the athentic pedigree. The wave roof house in Malibu is also on my list but if I was gonna pay $14m plus for a house in Malibu it would have to be on the ocean.

Anonymous said...

According to rumor and report, in addition to the two leviathan apartments they currently own on in New York City, the couple also maintain an ocean front house in The Malibu Colony, a large estate in Tuscany, Italy, a couple of places in London as well as a couple of places in the English countryside.