Monday, November 23, 2009

Oliver Hudson Lists West Hollywood Hideaway

SELLERS: Oliver Hudson and Erin Bartlett
LOCATION: Norma Place, West Hollywood, CA
PRICE: $1,035,000
SIZE: 1,438 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Priced to sell!! Romantic and elegant updated 2+2 Spanish Home with detached guest house. Gated entry with Flagstone courtyard and fountain. Beamed ceiling, authentic style arches, picture window and fireplace. Updated, light filled kitchen featuring Granite countertops and office area with French doors leading to grassy backyard. Separate studio with kitchen and bath.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A couple of weeks ago, in late October 2009, Your Mama discussed the Los Angeles property recently acquired by Hollywood scion Colin Hanks, son of Tom. Today we're going to discuss the Los Angeles crib of another beneficiary of Tinseltown nepotism, Oliver Hudson. Mister Hudson is, of course, the son of Goldie Hawn and her ex-huzband Bill Hudson and the brother of Kate Hudson who is fast becoming better known for her dating activities than her acting chops. Anyhoo, about two weeks ago, the usually scruffy-faced Mister Hudson and his ack-turuss wifey Erinn Bartlett listed their West Hollywood, CA house with a price tag of $1,035,000.

For the past couple of years, Mister Hudson has starred in the silly sitcom Rules of Engagement opposite the diminutive comedian David Spade who, as far as Your Mama is concerned is one of the more spectacularly unfunny comedians making mountains of moolah in Hollywood. Mister Hudson previously appeared in The Mountain, Dawson's Creek and My Guide to Becoming A Rock Star, none of which Your Mama has ever seen. That's right butter beans, Your Mama never bothered to tune in to even a single episode of Dawson's Creek and we ain't afraid to admit it. Mister Hudson is married to and making babies with a blondie named Erinn Bartlett, a former beauty queen turned ack-tress whose rather lusterless resume includes one time appearances on the boob-toob programs Navy NCIS, Four Kings, How I Met Your Mother and Out of Practice as well as a bunch of petite parts in mortifying movies like Little Nicky, Raising Helen, and The Benchwarmer, a cinematic clunker in which she portrayed–the poor little lamb–the character "Salad Girl/Sarah."

Property records show the Norma Place property was picked up in January of 2004 for $912,000. The would have been, according to 411 we dug up on the interweb, just before the lovebirds made their engagement public. According to listing information, the Spanish casa measures 1,438 square feet and includes 2 bedrooms and 2 poopers plus a separate studio/guest house with another pooper.

The Hudson house is located in the tightly packed West Hollywood neighborhood known as The Norma Triangle. To the west is Beverly Hills, to the north the Sunset Strip and to the south and east the gay, gay, GAY city of West Hollywood. Your Mama loves nothing more, real estate wise, than a forbidding front facade and Mister Hudson's WeHo house presents a sufficiently and pleasantly unfriendly vibe with high hedges and solid wood gates that bar access to both the front courtyard and the back part of the driveway.

As in so many of the small casas in Los Angeles, the front door opens directly into the living room which has a huge arched window looking out at the fountain in the front courtyard, wood floors, a fireplace with a flat screen tee-vee mounted where there ought to be art, and a vaulted, wood beamed ceiling that is so dee-lishusly dark it almost looks charred. A trio of arches separates the living room from the dining room where a large arched mirror that mirrors the front window has been hung on the wall behind to the dining table which has been shoved up into the corner of the room. The dining area of the dining room is done up in a style that Your Mama might call "Mario Buatta goes to the Pasadena flea market" with mint green farmhouse chairs and built in benches lined with mint green and floral pillows.

Two walls in the dining room are covered with collections of mismatched framed photographs, presumably of the comely couple and their famous friends and family members. While we do think it's just lovely that Mister and Missus Hudson care enough about their peeps to have pictures of them in their home, we're is afraid all them bug eyed and smiling faces looking down towards the dining room table while we're trying to get our grub on would make Your Mama feel like an animal at the damn zoo. Perhaps this sort of homey photographic display is better left to a room where one does not eat...or evacuate, because let's be honest, most people don't care for an audience when performing that particular task either.

Beyond the dining room, a long kitchen has been fitted with blond maple cabinetry and flecked, black granite counter tops. Although it's all a tad country for Your Mama's particular decorative sensibilities and we loathe that freestanding piece of furniture in the middle of the room, it's really a nice sized kitchen for such a small house and we do love that baby Viking range and the French doors open the house to the back yard.

The ho-hum day-core makes a not entirely successful effort at sophistication in the cramped master bedroom and renovated bathroom where crisply white walls are set against chardonnay colored linens in the bedroom mottled champagne colored tile in the pooper. Someone rang up West Elm and ordered a $99 capiz shell chandelier for the ceiling and someone else thought it wise to mount a monstrous flat screen tee-vee mounted on the wall at the foot of the bed.

The small but cozy back deck has apartment house style wrought iron railings and leads down to a wee patch of grass dotted with swaying Queen Palms and the separate studio space which appears to be all done up like some kind of damn man cave. Lo-ward have mercy children, is there anything worse than the term "man cave?" Seriously, think about it. Mister Hudson's eyeball punishing "man cave" has putrid and patterned red wall to wall carpeting and a soul crushing butterscotch and brown vertical striped wall paper. Tucked behind a wall is a refrigerator and a stacked washer and dryer and pushed up against one wall is a poker table surrounded by six chairs with wheels–wheels!–that is lit by a stained glass light fixture so ass uglee Your Mama wouldn't wish it on the blind. It's all so damn tawdry and depressing it has Your Mama reaching for a gin & tonic and a big, fat nerve pill.

Listing information boldly declares the property is priced to sell at $1,035,000. We wonder if Mister Hudson knows that a beautifully renovated and similarly sized 3 bedrooms and 2 pooper house just two blocks away was listed on the 10th of October for $1,239,000 and closed just 19 days later at a significantly lower $975,000 negotiation? Something for him to think about when he gets his first offer. Presumably Mister and Missus Hudson are hunting for or have their eyes on bigger digs that will better accommodate their growing family. Your Mama wishes them all the best in their next home, wherever that may be.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mama, love me some Queen Palms. Hmmmmmmmm. I wonder if Mommie Dearest pays for everything? My verification words are "wire hangers."

Anonymous said...

From the pictures supplied, apparently Goldie is not paying for everything. They're a pretty couple to be sure, but their house isn't so pretty. Don't they pay on those sitcoms anymore?