Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Did Anderson Cooper Find New Pole To Slide Down?

Hang on to your britches children because the gay gossip mills are beginning to gush and grind about increasingly muscular CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper and his muscle Mary man-friend Antoine "Ben" Maisani snatching up a very butch firehouse on West Third Street in New York City's Greenwich Village.

These roiling real estate rumors of Misters Cooper and Maisani–who recently vacationed together in India where they holed up at the insanely expensive Rambagh Palace in Jaipur–purchasing Fire Patrol House #2 seems to have first found legs a few days ago on the New York City-centric gossip site Gawker. A little digging around on the interweb and Your Mama located an old New York Times listing for the firehouse cum alleged love nest which the Gawker folks referenced in their fun little expose about the sometimes mustachioed Mister Maisani, a co-owner of a naughty East Village gay bar called Eastern Bloc who, apparently, does not always feel compelled to wear a shirt when he goes to work.

Listing information for the four and some story firehouse shows it was listed at $4,750,000, measures a considerable 8,420 square feet, and still has its original brass poles, circular stairs, a herringbone brick floor and a two-story detached building that was once used as a stable. Further investigation turns up property record information that reveals the firehouse was sold in early September of 2009 for $4,300,000. The buyer(s)–listed only as Firepatrol, LLC c/o of a well known celebrity money manager whose name appears on deeds for folks like Lisa Loeb, Ethan Hawke and Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany–are not named in the deeds and documents.

Keep in mind children, all this firehouse bizness is just rumor and gossip until someone snaps a photo of Misters Cooper and Maisani moving their mountain bikes, matching Fred Perry polos, and Soloflex machines into the building. Until then, Your Mama presumes that Mister Cooper, who reportedly rakes in $4,000,000 a year from CNN, will continue to bed down in his architect designed doo-plex penthouse on New York's West 38th Street and Mister Maisani will head home his own apartment which as best as we can tell is on E. 3rd Street, which happens to be very near where Your Mama used to live a lifetime ago.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would love to have the resources to covert a space such as a firehouse into a residence. I'm looking forward to following the progress of this project, if it really happens.

If anyone is interested, here is the listing for a firehouse in San Francisco that was converted a long time ago. It is for sale:
SFFirehouse

If that embedding attempt doesn't work, you can cut at paste:
http://www.sothebyshomes.com/norcal/sales/0084323

dolly said...

It doesn't seem very likely to me that they would buy a place like this for reasons of security and privacy. But the old stable would be a great place to park their bikes. BTW I have the exact same Trek as Andy!

stolidog said...

Oh, Mama, I strongly suggest you follow that link to the SF Firehouse for your own enjoyment...I can imagine you'd have a few thoughts about it.

Anonymous said...

The firehouse story is totally true, it's been on all the drag queens lips in the East Village for many weeks now...

JB in Silver Lake said...

Oh dear jeebus in the hebins...that zebra charging right off of the railing was enough to make me quite literally spit my caffeinated beverage all over the damn keyboard. I'm so distracted by that hot animal mess I can't even find room to discuss what those ab-liscious fellows might, or might not, do to that engine house they may, or may not, have purchased in the NYC.

Babe "all for the homoerotic" Parish said...

heehee you said "head".

anderson is d.i.v.i.n.e. and his manfriend is, if i may borrow the eloquent words of theresa from TRHONJ, "built and juicy".

dolly said...

Thank you 9:59. We all know DQs never lie.

Anonymous said...

Considering who his mother was, I suspected he has a nice stash of inherited money to go along with what CNN pays.

Some years back a couple bought a firehouse in Washington DeeCee and he used the ground floor to make harpsichords.

Anonymous said...

Sorry but this story sounds like a pile of horseshit to me. Anderson, a beefy gay bar owner and a firehouse in NYC? Come on, who made this up. Some gossip queen in Chelsea?

Anonymous said...

Just because two men buy a firehouse in the West Village doesn't mean they are gay...well, actually it does.

Anonymous said...

Anon 11:52, Anderson's mother is still alive.

Anonymous said...

This anon 9:06 apologizing for not posting a warning about the hazards of viewing the SF firehouse interior pictures.

My bad.

Anonymous said...

Cool purchase, but pretty conspicuous for the intensely private AC. Everyone's going to know he and his muscle man live there and there will be a ton of gawkers around the place. Having said that Ben Maisani is the luckiest man in the world because he landed Anderson and won his heart.

Anonymous said...

Damn Mama, your title for this post. lol

Anonymous said...

That would make one hell of a cool house. However, I think this is some sort of commercial project. I saw a permit application posted elsewhere that showed redoing the building is intended to cost $16 million, so if AC and/or his "close friend" are involved I'll bet it's as a part of a group of investors.

Village said...

Is it possible this could be a bar/restaurant adventure together, not a residence? Cooper bought the penthouse in his building after living on a lower floor for years, and it is magnificent space.

This looks like it would make a great bar. Upstairs would make great private party space.

chris said...

I must say I find it odd that people whom I presume are sufficiently up to date not to regard gayness as "abnormal" or "strange" or much less "perverted" still like to snicker, titter and wink and point fingers like little girls at the whole thing.

T. Thumb said...

This story seems suspicious. Could be but there's something so not right about this. Would someone like A.C. really splash our $4M on a house with a boyfriend (or whatever) after less than a year of dating? No, that's not very believable. Maybe, but...

Moving on to Chris' comment, I think it's that A.C. has never acknowledged his gayness–nor pronounced he straightness–and that's what makes people titter, especially people sufficiently up to date as to consider gayness anything but abnormal or strange.

celebs that are up front about their sexuality are sort of left alone. you don't see people snickering at ellen anymore, or wanda sykes or rosie or tj knight or any of the other gay people who were snickered about when they were in the closet. they get treated like anybody else in the tabloids and celeb rags.

it's not that these famous people who are in the closet should be forced to be gay advocates or lead the charge for gay marriage or spill the intimate details of their private lives (the way that straight celebs do in the tabloids every freaking day), but staying in the closet helps to maintain that old stigma of being a homo.

the truth really is that one can still keep his or her private life private and yet be publicly honest about what side of the fence they sit, so to speak. I don't go telling everyone I meet about my bedroom life, but I don't shy away from mentioning my gay partner either.

StPaulSnowman said...

Don't nobody never titter about Wanda Sykes.......she da bomb! No one working today is more fun to watch. Her standup work and Emmy worthy appearances on Curb Your Enthusiasm are great work!

Anonymous said...

I would love to see the floor plan for the this property.

chris said...

T. Thumb: I don't see why he needs to fess up to being gay if he doesn't want to. He isn't the one who started talking about his sexuality publicly. Why do we need to know the sexual orientation of everybody we see on TV? It ought to be irrelevant and thus unnecessary to either reveal or conceal. Saying a person is gay and then dissing him for not "revealing" it seems quite intrusive and unfair. Nor does it justify tittering about it in any case.

StPaulSnowman said...

The staircase hall is truly magnificent in both design and execution. The woodwork around the windows is pretty pedestrian and the bronze figure in the middle of the carpet is downright contrived. I love it but I can't believe they got that much money. It clearly zinged some wealthy person's heatrstrings.

aquaman said...

the fact that gay marriage keeps losing when put to the vote by about 52 to 48% pretty much tells the story as to why someone in anderson's position ain't gonna come out. he's fully out in his private life i'm guessing, but has made the decision that talking about it publicly ain't gonna do him or his career any good and could harm it.

that said, speculating about the sexual proclivities and situations of celebs is a sport, so it comes with the territory - being in the closet just adds another layer to it.

personally, yeah, i think he and others in his position should man up and belly up to the bar and declare themselves, cause, well it's the truth. so why not live it?

it's also the kind of action, that when taken cumulatively could hasten things like gay marriage becoming accepted.

hope they enjoy the house, the bf is hawt, but the appeal of the hairless and milk-colored body of Cooper eludes me

lil' gay boy said...

* sigh *

As someone who has ridden with Anderson often (just the elevator, alas), it matters not one whit to me if he's out or not; he's just a genuinely nice, friendly guy, regardless of what he gets up to behind closed doors...

...but damn! He even smells good.

Anonymous said...

"he's fully out in his private life i'm guessing, but has made the decision that talking about it publicly ain't gonna do him or his career any good and could harm it."

Tell that to Rachel Maddow.

Oooh, poor (not) Andy. It could harm his career. What could he possibly do with all the free time and no job? After all he'd only have mommie's millions to fall back on...

Uh, perhaps he could put his millions where his mouth is, and stand up as a proud role model and in doing so just might prevent young gay men (and even older ones) from considering suicide. Not everyone lives in NY, or even in any big city...homophobia and the violence connected to it is rampant across the country.

Instead, he's a coward, and a selfish one at that.

Anonymous said...

1:59, Anderson Cooper is just one of lots of glass closeted gays and lesbians, and that includes at the national level. Being in the glass closet is quite a standard thing in the industry. For no good reason AC takes all the stick about being closeted and gets all the outings which isn't a fair thing or a sensible thing for us strategically if we want to increase gay visibility and try to encourage everyone to come out of the closet. Yeah, you're welcome to disapprove of his decisions, but it should be done in context as part of a large phenomenon.

Rachel Maddow is a commentator not a news anchor and she works on a left wing network with a left wing audience. She wasn't risking the journalism career she built because she never built one. She's an activist talk radio person who leapt into hosting a show on a cable news network. She also has a very long, boring, monogamous, public relations friendly relationship that makes exposing her private life an easier career decision than, say, a private life filled with a lot of different boyfriends and/or hook ups including a shirtless bartender.

Anonymous said...

Fabulous San Fran House... way too much stuff goin on in there though. Rich people really do love their stuff dont they?

LubaSF said...

Anderson Cooper's purchase makes this firehouse in SF (with fire pole intact!) seem like a BARGAIN at about $1M. http://www.firehouse33.com/