Music Manager Paul Rosenberg Moving On

SELLER: Paul Rosenberg
LOCATION: Beach Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $4,950,000
SIZE: 4,634 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...a massive 4634 sf triplex with 785 sf of combined outdoor space, currently configured as three bedrooms (two en suite masters), 3.5 baths, plus a home office & dining area.Not only is this an elegant loft home, but a total environment as well which offers a patio with hot tub and outdoor Viking Professional grill with food and beverage center, a Crestron system which has integrated speakers and lighting control throughout every room and patio, home theatre room, glass enclosed wine and cigar bar, game room, and exercise room with sauna...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Whenever we get a hankering for the hustle and bustle of New York City we poke around the internets to see who might be selling what. Our most recent spin through the always informative StreetEasy turned up a 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom TriBeCa triplex maisonette owned by music manager Paul Rosenberg and currently listed with an asking price of $4,950,000.

While Mister Rosenberg is hardly a household name, his number one client is. In addition to managing angry Academy Award winning white rapper Eminem, Mister Rosenberg has also had his voice sampled on most (if not all) of Mister Eminem's albums and together the pair founded Shady Records, a label that also signed D12 (whoever that is) and the mega-rich money machine that is 50 Cent. Mister Rosenberg also manages The Knux and Three 6 Mafia (who won an academy award for their song It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp from the film Hustle and Flow) as well as co-manages the newly reformed pop-punk band Blink 182.

Property records and previous reports reveal that Mister Rosenberg scooped up the 4,634 square foot Beach Street maisonette, carved out of a former warehouse known as the Fischer Mills building, in August of 2002 for around $2,700,000. For all the non-New York puppies who don't know because they probably don't exist in places like Peoria, a maisonette is a multi-story house-like apartment, usually on the ground floor of a larger building, that possesses its own entrance from the outside. Maisonettes provide the privacy of a private home, but still have access to the amenities and security measures offered by the building.

According to listing information, the maisonette's main floor, includes 14-16 foot ceilings, lots of exposed brick and the original, rough-hewn wood beams and column supports which are classic (if cliché) TriBeCa loft conversion aesthetic features. The living room measures nearly 600 square feet and includes loads of built in storage cabinets, a wet bar and an small section of thick glass flooring that looks down into and provides much needed light for what listing information calls a "wine and cigar bar" on the lower floor.

Also on the main level is a stone floored kitchen with maple cabinetry, black counter tops that appear to be stone rather than granite and a large work island with a quartet of bar stools similar to those that can be found in about a thousand cheap Chinese food restaurants below 23rd Street. The adjacent dining room has a soaring 16 foot ceiling, a set of French doors that open to a balcony overlooking the apartment's private patio below, and an entire wall covered in varying shades of green color-blocks that we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly are leather panels affixed to the wall. Rather unfortunately, a powder pooper for guests opens directly into the dining room, which for obvious reasons is not optimal but could easily be relocated to a slightly better location on an adjacent wall.

One of the maisonette's two master bedrooms completes the middle level and features two sets of French doors opening to the aforementioned balcony, a couple of not particularly commodious closets and a bathroom with a radiant heated stone floor. Hovering above the living space is a small loft office space and a second master bedroom with more generously sized closets than the master on the main floor and a large bathroom also, we presume, fitted with radiant heated floors, a feature Your Mama's tootsies can not get enough of.

The lowest level of the triplex is where it becomes obvious that a man lives here. In addition to guest bedroom with direct access to the private patio, there is a home gym set-up with a dry sauna large enough to accommodate a few friends, a windowless recreation room with a round, poker game friendly table and chairs, an arcade game or two, a glassed enclosed wine and cigar bar and a media room with stone walls, caramel leather cover recliner like chairs.

A small and enviable private garden includes a built in grill area and a hot tub which sounds like a good idea except we're more than a little concerned about all the windows that might look down into the patio which would make skinny dipping and hooking up with a hottie a bit more of a exhibitionist's fantasy that Your Mama would feel comfortable.

According to listing information, Mister Rosenberg first put his three floor bachelor pad on the market in November of 2008 with an asking price of $5,450,000 and recently hacked five hundred grand off the price, a not so unusual maneuver in a somewhat stagnant Manhattan real estate market. None the less, Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that even if Mister Rosenberg has to slice and dice the asking price even further, he could still easily pocket a million or more smackers on a sale which is, of course, nothing to sneeze at.

Anthony Clark Is Flipping Out Again

SELLER: Anthony Clark
LOCATION: Senalda Road, Los Angeles CA
PRICE: $1,995,000
SIZE: 2,574 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Extraordinary brand nu 2009 remodel never been lived in. 2 years in the making! The finest materials & design. Amazing residence w/ serene Costa Rica style cnyn vus. Magnif Douglas Fir hi pitch beam ceilings. Beaut ironwood, teakwood, oak, slate, & basalt accents thru-out. Dramatic black bamboo flrs. Sub-zero kitchen. Fleetwood doors. Hansgrohe fixtures. Master suite has incredible entertaining terrace & all glass window bath w/ grand steam shower. 3rd bedroom has sep entrance.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in early January Your Mama discussed a couple of California cribs being flipped by actor/comedian Anthony Clark who the children may remember from his six year spin as an excessively uptight film executive on the now canceled sit-com Yes, Dear.

We first discussed Mister Clark's Robert Byrd designed digs at the tippy-top of Outpost Drive in Los Angeles which listing information shows is still available with an asking price of $2,395,000 (reduced from $2,795,000). Mister Clark, according to listing information, would also be willing to lease the house at $7,800 per month under just about any circumstances...short term, long term, furnished or unfurnished.

The very next day we shooshed on down to lovely (if way too boho-luxe for our taste anymore) Laguna Beach where Mister Clark is selling a comely contemporary house on Coast View Drive. Listing information reveals the 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom dwelling was first listed nearly a year ago with an asking price of $3,289,000, a figure that has been hugely hacked to $2,495,000 and which records show is just $295,000 more than he paid for the place in April of 2004.

Recently Mister Clark flipped a third property in the celebrity packed Outpost Estates area of Los Angeles onto the market. Located on Senalda Drive and just a few doors down from Scarlett Johansson's never lived in mansion on the same street, the property is currently priced at $1,995,000 after recently receiving a substantial $200,000 price chop from its original listing price of $2,195,000.

A peep into the property records reveals that Mister Clark, one of the few out homosexual actors in Hollywood, picked up the property in June of 2007 for $1,200,000. Mister Clark spent the next couple of years fixing up the fixer upper (and it was truly a fixer children because we've seen the photos).

Listing information shows the hillside house measures 2,574 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, a bed to bath ratio the Dr. Cooter swoons over, but one our harsh tongued house gurl Svetlana does not feel the same way about for obvious reasons.

As do many houses in the hills above Hollywood, the front facade is set back only a few feet from the road behind a stacked stone pony wall and has been clad in lovely horizontal strips of multi-toned woods that may or may not be ironwood and/or teak. Now listen here children, Your Mama does not want to hear from all you whiners who want to prattle on about how terrible it is that this house sits close the road. For your information, there are probably about 19 cars that drive by here everyday and whether any of you rural queens or space hogs like it or not, geography often dictates that houses in the hills hug the streets on which they sit.

Anyhoo, the organic modern vibe continues on the interiors where the floors are either feel good on your feet slate or durable and environmentally friendly black bamboo. The open plan living/dining and kitchen areas share a high peaked wood ceiling and floor to ceiling windows that open to a series of not quite big enough to bbq balconies.

The horizontal motif returns in the kitchen which is wrapped in strips oak and teak (and perhaps iron wood). A complete suite of high grade stainless steel appliances have been slipped into custom oak cabinets topped with basalt counter tops. We are particularly fond of the nearly 900 pound, 2-door and 4-drawer Sub-Zero refrigerator/freeze that costs somewhere in the neighborhood of fourteen thousand dollars.

The master bedroom, located on the lower level, continues with the organic shit and features a stacked stone wall, more of that beauteous black bamboo flooring and gigantic bathroom with double sinks, a party sized steam shower and a soaking tub that sits in front of a wall of windows that slide open so that the soft scents of pine and scrub can waft in while sitting in a pool of dirty water.

Due to it's hillside perch, there really isn't much of a yard for kiddies or our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly , but a large covered terrace has been fashioned out of what was once just the spider filled underneath part of the house. Easy maintenance Mother-in-law's tongue plants have been planted up against the house in a planting bed filled with some of those zen-ish grey stones and little green poofy plants. Although we think those paltry pillows and that little wicker table thing-a-majig are simply unacceptable as patio furniture (what grown person who doesn't contort their body with that yoga shit can get up and down off the floor like that?) we can imagine that with the proper outdoor furniture set-up, this under the house terrace would be a nice place to sip gin and tonics while reading the latest gossip glossies and watching the sun go down through the "Costa Rica like" trees that dot the slope below the house and obscure what might actually be a spectacular view if they weren't there. A less environmentally inclined person will figure out a way to send those trees to the wood chipper, but clearly Mister Clark is a tree lover.

It's unclear to Your Mama which of Mister Clark's three houses he inhabits (or if he lives in yet another property) but we presume he'll simply move to one or another when one of his three properties finally sells to someone appreciative of this renovation style. Your Mama hopes Mister Clark sells something soon–or gets a damn acting job–because just thinking about his crushing monthly carrying costs makes Your Mama shudder.

The Big Digs of Deion Sanders

SELLER: Deion and Pilar Sanders
LOCATION: N. Preston Road, Prosper, TX
PRICE: $21,000,000
SIZE: 29,122 square feet, 10 bedrooms, 9 full and 4 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: The ultimate party and family ranch. 2 story entry, sunken living, banquet dining, your own Dave and Busters, indoor basketball court and bowling alley, indoor and outdoor pools, movie theatre, billiard room, hall of fame gallery, football field, 12 acre lake, tennis court, guest house, 10 car garage, furniture negotiable, approx. living area 29,112 sq. ft. and 38,831 gross sq. ft. footage in main home.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to the Texas Twostepper we've learned that notorious egomaniac, publicity hound, sports commentator, reality television star (Deion & Pilar: Prime Time Love), and retired professional athlete Deion Sanders and his wifey Pilar have listed their farm/estate in Prosper, TX with an asking price of $21,000,000.

Not being familiar with much in the way of the manly sports, Your Mama had to take to the internets to figure out who this Deion Sanders person is. Our brief research showed that not only did the man play professional baseball he also played professional football for the Atlanta Falcons, the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys who in 1995 paid the well-built corner back $35,000,000 for a seven year contract that included a staggering $12,999,000 signing bonus. He later, according to the interweb, played with the pigskin for the Washington Redskins and finally the Baltimore Ravens before hanging up his cleats. Football players wear cleats, right?

Deion and Pilar's property sits 10 or 20 long miles north of the Dallas metro-plex on more than 100 acres of flat lands in picayune Prosper, TX. Now children, we don't know eh-nee-thing about real estate in North Texas, but we have a hard time imagining there are many moguls or oil tycoons looking to drop twenty some million clams on a house in teeny-tiny and not particularly prosperous Prosper, TX where we can assure you there isn't much in the way of businesses that cater to Maybach owners and Gucci lovers.

Listing information shows Mister Sanders' sprawling mega-mansion of indeterminate and indiscriminate architectural style measures a titanic 29,122 square feet of glossy marble floors, soaring ceilings, colossal crystal chandeliers and some of the most disturbing drapery Your Mama has seen in a very long time. The house is so humongous that the able bodied Mister Sanders often gets around on one of those Rascal scooters that are more commonly used by the old, the infirm, the physically decrepit and apparently, the lazy.

According to listing information, the multi-winged monster mansion contains 10 bedrooms including a first floor master bedroom suite with a sitting room that spins like a damn turn table, a large, round and orgy friendly bed, more smoked glass and black lacquer than we recommend be in one place at one time, a two story walk-in closet, kitchen, a behemoth bathroom with a garden tub (whatever that is) and a private 2-car attached garage separate from the 10 or 12 other garage spaces that house Mister Sanders extensive collection of tricked out whips located at the opposite end of the house.

Listing information also shows there are 9 full and 4 half bathrooms which our bejeweled abacus shows adds up to an unlucky thirteen terlits. Our tyrannical and seriously superstitious house gurl Svetlana would demand that Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter either add or remove a bathroom before she'd even step across the threshold because she refuses to enter a house with 13 of anything.

There are, according to one listing we located, multiple staircases, an elevator, 5 fireplaces, 3 dining areas and 7 living areas including a marble floored, hotel lobby sized living room featuring funeral home style curtains. The vast and seriously dated kitchen complex includes maple cabinets, marble floors, stainless steel appliances and black counter tops and accents. Other rooms include a family room with 10 tee-vees and 2 security monitors, a library, a solarium, a home gym, office, billiard room, a barber shop and something called a "Hall of Fame Gallery." There are probably about a dozen other rooms for various uses we can not even fathom and there is a detached guest house in the back for all those who think 10 bedrooms in the mega-sized main house is not enough space when it comes to shacking up the in-laws.

Outdoor and recreational facilities include a multi-level movie theater, an indoor swimming pool and spa with some of the ass ugliest swagged drapery we have ever had the displeasure of witnessing with our own eyes, a two-lane bowling alley, an indoor basketball court, two adjacent outdoor swimming pools including a lagoon style number with a concrete island in the middle, a party sized outdoor spa, a 12-acre lake stocked with fish, equestrian facilities, pasture lands...breathe, breathe, breathe...a sport court, children's playground, sunken trampoline, batting cage, a full sized damn football field (with goal posts), a lighted tennis court and a gargantuan game room modeled after a Dave & Busters which, much to Your Mama's horror, is some sort of restaurant, arcade, sports bar and gambling parlor franchise.

We can't imagine why Mister and Missus Sanders, who have three young children together and two more teenagers from Mister Sanders' previous marriage, would want to up and sell this self-contained estate that while depressing to Your Mama's delicate decorative sensibilities is surely a resort-like wonderland for pre-teens, toddlers and adult men who do not want to grow up.

For a more in depth peep at Deion's digs check this out but Your Mama recommends y'all get yerself a nerve pill and pour some booze down yer gullet first.

Mariah Carey Buys West Coast Crib

BUYER: Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon Carey
LOCATION: Antelo Road, Bel Air, CA
PRICE: around $7,000,000 (allegedly)
SIZE: 11,750 square feet (approx.), 5 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Magnificent gated private view estate on 3 acres. Incredible site. Prime Bel Air address. Staggering 360 degree vus of entire city.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Turns out all the hoopla, head spinning and spilt ink regarding music super star Mariah Carey buying couture queen Suzanne Saperstein's near mythic mansion in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles was just that...hoopla. That certainly comes and no surprise to Your Mama who never imagined that the wild and wonderfully kooky Miz Saperstein would ever allow her real estate baby to slip into the hands of a woman likely turn her heavily gilded ballroom into a hair and nail salon and stuff her boo-dwar with a bunch of Hello Kitty crap which is, apparently, one of the whistle stop wonder's preferred decorating motifs.

According to our sources Allez Oup as well as the legendarily knowledgeable Lucy Spillerguts, Your Mama has learned that Miss Carey and her huzband Nick Cannon Carey dumped "around seven million" smackers on a house high in the hills above Bel Air that once belonged to poster princess and original angel Farrah Fawcett, who is, bless her pap hating heart, being ravaged by the cancer even as we type our fingers to the nubbins.

A peep into and a poke around property records reveals that Miz Fawcett sold the Antelo Road residence back in 1999 to a prolific and Grammy winning music engineer/producer named Allen Sides who has used his pin sharp musician's ear while working with music masters like like Eric Clapton, Faith Hill, Mary J. Blige, the incomparable Joni Mitchell, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, André Previn and that freaky (and deceased) Frank Zappa dude to name just a few. No doubt, the man has crossed musical paths with Miss Mariah a time or two as well.

Thanks to Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air, we've learned that Mister and Missus Sides listed their dee-voonly secluded 3-acre estate above Stone Canyon in August of 2008 with an asking price of $9,500,000. Before long, the asking price had been sliced, diced, slivered and slashed to $6,995,000 and shortly thereafter the property was removed from the open market but was still, we understand, shopped around off-market. Then along came Miss Mariah who, records show, quietly closed on the property in early April of 2009 for an as yet undisclosed sum of money.

Property records show the sprawling, multi-winged mansion measures 9,951 square feet with 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. However, listing information we managed to get our grubby mitts on shows the house spans 11,750 square feet (approx.) and includes 5 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms. We don't know why the discrepancy.

Anyhoo, listing information shows that in addition to all the bedrooms, terlit rooms and seven fireplaces, the 2-story center hall traditional includes formal living and dining rooms, den, family room, lanai, library/study (as if), media room, office, an eat in kitchen, and while listing information does not say so, we would not be remotely surprised to learn there is a recording studio on the property. This would, obviously, be a wonderful convenience that would allow Miss Mariah to warble and slide up and down every note on the damn scale without ever changing out of her robe, which we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly is one of those shorty numbers that barely covers her nether regions.

The grounds include two motor courts, a huge rectangular swimming pool with a pool side pavilion, a large brick terrace with long views down the rugged canyon towards downtown Los Angeles, several flat lawn areas, a gazebo, and three gated entrances, all of which Your Mama can assure the children will be secured with armed sentries prepared to pepper an automobile with a curtain of bullets should anyone be stoopid enough to try and peer through Miss Mariah's tall hedges. Don't even think about it children. Seriously. If you think Ellen Degeneres is serious about her security, then you ain't seen nothing compared to the pretzeling Miss Mariah's burly men will do to anyone who gets nosy enough to cruise on by hoping to catch a glimpse of Our Lady of the Micro Mini and Hair Extensions.

In New York City, Miss Mariah still owns a tremendous triplex apartment in TriBeCa and down in the Bahamas, she owns a multi-acre ocean front compound on guard gated Eleuthera Island where the soft sands are, natch, Miss Mariah's favorite color, pink.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Moving On

SELLER: Gavin Newsom
LOCATION: Green Street, San Francisco, CA
PRICE : $2,995,000
SIZE: 1,693 square feet, 1 bedroom and 1.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: This 1-of-a-kind Russian Hill Penthouse is located in a prestigious full service doorman building, Bellaire Tower, an amazing Art Deco style building designed by noted architect BAUMANN, H.C. This residence was completely remodeled & stripped to the studs & designed by Michael Agins & Assoc. Interior Design firm in SF. This spectacular residence offers the best landmark Vus SF has to offer including 3 Bridges & water VUS from all rms. In unit lry, wired for surround sound, strge, pkg & rf dk.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: All morning long we've been receiving email after email after email from real estate obsessed San Franciscans directing Your Mama to a myriad of reports that reveal the fetching and slick haired mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom recently plunked his Russian Hill penthouse on the market with an asking price of $2,995,000.

The smooth talking and socially progressive Mister Newsom became a political super star in 2004 when he took the controversial step of allowing marriage licenses to be issued for gay guys and lesbian ladees. We all know what's become of that. Can the children say Proposition 8? However, he of the glittering and perfect chompers recently tossed his hot potato carrying hat into the ring to become the next governor of California. Lefty liberal Mister Newsom sitting up in the governer's chair in Sacramento is a scenario that no doubt scares the beejeezis out of homophobes all up and down the great Golden State who imagine that if homos and lezzies are allowed to get married the institution of marriage would somehow be compromised. Pleeze. That is just stoopid. Married heterosexual people seem to do a fine job of screwing up their marriages without any help from the gays and lesbians. None the less, we are not here to get all frothed up on our soap box so let's just move on to the real estate. (And p.s., homosexual bashing comments will be removed so spare yourself the effort.)

A peep into the records on Property Shark shows the entrepreneurial Mister Newsom snatched up his 1,693 square foot unit in February of 2006 when he paid family friend Peter Getty–brother of Mister Newsom's former bizness benefactor and boozum buddy Billy Getty–$2,350,000 for the 1 bedroom and 1.5 bathroom Green Street aerie.

The Newsom nest is located on the 20th floor of the beautiful Bellaire Tower, an Art Deco extravaganza built in 1930 and has wrap around views that stretch from the gorgeous Golden Gate Bridge, across to Marin County, over downtown and the TransAmerica Pyramid and all the way down to the hard working Bay Bridge.

An ride up the elegant elevator leads to the front door which opens to an entrance hall and an adjacent powder pooper for guests. The apartment pivots around a sizable central living room which has a wood burning fireplace, arched windows that frame the views and a brown and beige day-core done by a nice gay and local decorator named Michael Algin that is part Jonathan Adler and part Rose Tarlow. Okay, truth be told, we don't actually know if he's gay so lay off.

Anyhoo, to the left of the living room is a media room with more brown and white day-core, a dee-voonly cozy looking chocolate brown velvet sofa, and a giant flat screen tee-vee for catching up on all the reality programs Your Mama would bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly are one of Mister Newsom's many guilty pleasures. Behind the media room is a slightly too narrow dining room with Palladian windows, dark chocolate brown walls and a huge abstract painting that is, quite frankly, to much of the same brown and white color as the rest of the room (and apartment). Like in the living room, where an orange color field painting has been hung above the fireplace, it is our humble and meaningless opinion that something more colorful would really help the dining room from looking, well, a little bit dead. Plus we don't like the lack of a chandelier in here. We assume a pendant fixture was nixed in order to keep sight lines of the big views clutter free, but we really like a chandelier in the dining room.

The gore-may kitchen is bathed in Calcutta marble counter tops atop white cabinets, brown paint, and includes an expensive suite of stainless steel appliances including Viking brand range and microwave, SubZero refrigerator/freezer and a Marvel wine cooler and beverage refrigerator. The trio of arched niches for displaying stemware and booze are far too decoratively gimmicky for our personal taste. According to the floor plan, a door leads to the service hallway and a large pantry and laundry room is tucked away off the kitchen.

On the right side of the living room is a beige library/den with both arched and Palladian style windows, another velvet sofa and a collection of books that all appear to have similar bindings which makes them really more about impressing guests than about reading. Beyond the library is the brown and beige bedroom which offers a giant walk in closet with marble counters, custom built-in, drawers, wall mirror and laundry hamper. The bathroom is painted a pewtery sort of beige with grey veined marble on the floor, half way up the walls, on the counter top and in the steam shower where we can imagine Mister Newsom sweats out the toxins from City Hall.

By any estimation, nearly three million clams for a 1 bedroom apartment in San Francisco is a screaming amount of money. However, listings in the very desirable 65-unit Bellaire Tower are exceedingly rare which, of course, tends to keep prices through the roof even in a lackluster economy. The people at Property Shark show that between February of 2006 and June of 2008 not a single apartment transferred ownership and since 2000 and in fact only 10 units have changed hands since July of 2000. Monthly maintenance charges are $1,414.73 and all that moolah pays for the water and garbage services, the 24-hour doorman, building insurance, earthquake insurance, steam heating, storage, care of the common areas including the roof garden and valet parking, because who wants to park their own damn car if they don't have to?

Given that Mister Newsom and his ack-turuss wifey Jennifer Siebel Newsom are with baby, we imagine their next residence will be a bit more family friendly, no less impressive and, we hope, less brown and beige than their soon to be ex-penthouse.

Gwyneth Paltrow Has Rats?

RENTER: Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin
LOCATION: Mandeville Canyon Road, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: We have no idea
SIZE: 5,706 square feet, 8 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms total
DESCRIPTION: Classic architect designed Monterey Colonial on 5+ park like acres. A true gentlemen's Country Ranch Estate in town that is gated and completely private. Main house entry w/ curved staircase opens to spacious liv rm, paneled pub/game rm. Galleria opens to patio & gazebo. Din rm w/ butler pantry & Jr. Din rm off gourmet kt w/ break area. Master suite w/ FP down & 4 beds up. Pool, sp, guesthouse, tennis court, 6 stall barn, rm for riding ring, foaling barn/GH, spectacular playground & meadows.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Over the weekend Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter went hiking in Mandeville Canyon with Sister Cooter and her pal H.R. Huffandpuff. As we we screaming down Sunset Boulevard in Sister Cooter's overheated Saab sedan on our way trail head, H.R. asked Your Mama what dish we knew about all the recent reports that wishes she were British Oscar winning actress Gywneth Paltrow was having a problem with rats in her L.A. home.

Well children, we are not embarrassed to tell y'all that we knew nothing. Not. A. Thing. At least not about this rat bizness.

When we arrived home, legs exhausted and a-trembling from exertion, we took to the internets where we read that poor Miss Paltrow recently rang up the pest control people after she discovered her new (leased) Los Angeles residence was swarming with the vermin. Vermin! The article went on to say that the rat-infested residence is a luxury apartment near where her soo-blime mother Blythe Danner shacks up. (As far as we know, and of course we don't know nuthin', Mizz Danner lives in an ocean view condominium in Santa Monica.)

This mention of an apartment sorta didn't make sense to Your Mama because, according to Glinda the Good Witch, a gal with her finger on the pulse of current celebrity real estate doings, Miss Paltrow and her rock star huzband Chris Martin recently leased an impressive and sprawling estate in the Mandeville Canyon area of Brentwood that was on the market earlier this year for a knee knocking $28,500,000 and is most definitely not an apartment.

Property records show the 5.3 acre estate sits on multiple parcels with a main house that measures 5,706 square feet (it seems bigger to Your Mama). Listing information shows that between the Monterey Colonial style main house and the guest house there are a total of 8 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms which should be just about enough space for the family and their retinue of of nannies, macrobiotic chefs, yoga instructors, exercise gurus and ass wipers.

According to listing information the main house features four fireplaces and includes a curving staircase in the entrance hall that opens to the living room, a formal dining room and a junior dining room (whatever that is), a gore-may kitchen with yet another dining area, an office, paneled pub/game room, family room, library/study, loft and lanai.

Outdoor amenities on the celebrity style estate include a tremendous terrace where Gwyny and Madge will have plenty of space to contort their bodies during sunrise yoga sessions, a swimming pool and spa surrounded by a big brick terrace, a properly oriented north/south tennis court, parking for a dozen or more automobiles, a 6 stall horse barn, meadows for pony rides, one of those over sized chess games boards on the back lawn, a play ground and a play house for Miss Paltrow and Mister Martin's oddly named offspring.

Now children, we do not know if this is the rat infested property about which has been reported or if the Paltrow/Martin clan were bedding down in a different rat-infested residence prior to moving to their temporary Mandeville Canyon crib where they're planning to stay a few months while Miss Paltrow gets paid big bucks film the action sequel to Iron Man 2.

Miss Paltrow and Mister Martin live primarily in London where they are reported to own two adjacent townhouses in the Belsize Park area (how very Madonna of them). Stateside, the outrageously rich and successful couple own 3,892 square foot penthouse apartment at the River Lofts building in New York City as well as a 6,800 square foot spread on Old Montauk Highway in Amagansett, NY (which is the Hamptons, dahlinks).

Jeff Lewis Is Back In The Saddle...Sort Of

Ever since the bottom fell out of the house flipping market in Los Angeles–and make no mistake my chickens, the bottom fell out of the house flipping market–obsessive/compulsive reality tee-vee star and serial renovator/flipper Jeff Lewis has flown largely under the radar.

Yes, Miss Lewis did manage to get a good price for a 4 bedroom and 3 bathroom house on N. Edgemont Drive which was listed at $1,395,000 and sold in early January of 2009 for $1,300,000 to a couple of Asian ladees. However, keep in mind that the extremely tightly wound developer paid a million bucks for the property in June of 2008 and probably spent a couple hundred grand in carrying costs, doing up the interiors and putting in a swimming pool. So, by our crude and meaningless estimations, after he paid the fat real estate fees Miss Lewis would have had barely enough left over to keep Zoila and Jenni paid let alone keep his cat in therapy.

Anyhoo, in May of 2008, Miss Lewis and his overly coiffured ex-beau and current bizness partner Ryan Brown listed a house on Valley Oak Drive with an asking price of $3,195,000. They had a devil of a time getting someone to buy the house and eventually, by late July, the asking price had been chop chop chopped down to $2,595,000. Shortly thereafter the house was marked "Looking for Backup" in the MLS and Your Mama breathed a sigh of relief that those high-larious Flipping Out freaks managed to get out of that property by the skin of their well maintained teeth.

But alas...apparently that deal did not go through because Miss Lewis is back riding the real estate rodeo and just yesterday the property appeared back on the open market with an asking price of $2,695,000.

It is our understanding from someone who will remain nameless that Miss Lewis has been shacking up in the house and will need to find a new place to live when someone finally signs on the dotted line for the 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom residence.

As a quick recap...records reveal that in addition to the house on N. Edgemont, Misters Lewis and Brown sold a house on Ben Lomond Place in April of 2008 for $1,250,000 (which was first listed at $1,525,000) and in May of 2008 they sold a house on N. Commonwealth Avenue to Lost actor Dominic Monaghan for $1,595,000 after being listed with an asking price of $1,795,000. Prior to that, back in 2007, records show the dysfunctional duo sold a big house on Nottingham Avenue for $4,350,000.

But what we really want to know, is when will Miss Lewis be back on the boob-toob because we love that queen's antics almost as much as we love all those tawdry bee-hawtchas on The Real Life Housewives of New York City, Orange County, Atlanta and now those tough talking beasts in New Jersey.

From Corea to Keener/Mulroney to Moore to...

SELLERS: Estate of LeRoi Moore (at least we're pretty sure that's who it is)
LOCATION: Linwood Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,199,000
SIZE: 4,866 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Grand Laughlin Park 1930s estate of exquisite craftsmanship & detail. This unique estate has 4 br 2 ba plus 2 sep gst homes, a prvt courtyard entry to main foyer, voluminous rooms or rich wood floors, walls & ceilings leaded sanctuary style windows, Bo trussed ceilings of gallery proportions & leaded glass French doors leading to spectacular stone loggia. Over 18,000sf lushly landscaped grounds w/ a beautiful pool. Systems have been upgraded including state-of-the-art security control system.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Bear with us babies, because this one is a wee bit confusing.

As we were perusing the listings in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles recently, our beady little eyes settled on a bit of residential lovliness in the celeb-packed and gated community of Laughlin Park currently listed at $3,199,000. Property records were confusing, so we got on the horn with the always happily helpful Lucy Spillerguts who confirmed that the property was formerly owned by bizzy actor Dermot Mulroney (Georgia Rule, The Family Stone, Must Love Dogs and etc.) who lived here with his ex-wifey, the soo-blime Oscar nominated silver screener Catherine Keener (Hamlet 2, Capote, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Being John Malkovich and etc.).

Property records reveal the former marrieds paid $1,325,000 in April of 1997 when they purchased the dignified Linwood Drive digs from Grammy winning musician and big time Scientologist Chick Corea. Records also show that in October of 2005, before the once happy couple went splitsville, the mini-estate was sold to an entity linked to a charitable organization in North Carolina that belongs to Grammy winning singer/songwriter Dave Matthews. The children will please note Your Mama's consternation and furrowed brow over that unexpected bit of information. However, after a bit more digging around on the interweb, Your Mama feels confident (if not 100% sure) that the house on Linwood Drive is not owned by Mister Matthews but rather by his recently passed saxophonist LeRoi Moore who went to meet his maker in August of 2008 from complications resulting from an freak ATV accident.

Publicity courting love them and leave them musician John Mayer also has some connection to this property according to Miz Spillerguts. But if we're being honest, and we always are, we don't know what his connection might be particularly considering that he owns a modest house in Pacific Palisades and, according to Glinda the Good Witch (and others), is temporarily shacking up in a humongous house in Hidden Hills while he records his next album.

Anyhoo, records shows the house in question was built in the mid-1930s and measures 4,866 square feet with 4 bedrooms and just 2 poopers. Now children, neither Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter nor our imperious house gurl Svetlana are fans of having half a dozen terlits peppered throughout the house. However, we strongly believe that a residence of this size should have at least two point five if not 3.5 bathrooms even though there are, according to listing information, two dee-lishus and detached guest houses on the .42 acre property each, presumably, with their own private pooper.

A brick courtyard at the front of the walled and gated property leads to the entrance which is set into an imposing wall of what appears to be rough hewn and stacked granite slabs. The entrance hall has wood floors, high ceilings and carefully cared for woodwork that include several display niches and a carved staircase.

The long and elegantly proportioned living room focuses on a baronial fireplace and the raised paneling on the walls is wrapped over the peaked and beamed ceiling from which a couple of swoon worthy vintage chandeliers hang. Listing information says the ceiling is "bo trussed" which we think means buttressed, but we're not sure.

A round room with a soaring wood ceiling currently holds an ass-uglee curving leather and wood sofa and what we think is sound recording equipment. We would not stake anything valuable on it, but we think this room may have been originally intended as the dining room. Or maybe it was a den. Or a library. Oh hell, we don't know.

A family room with leaded glass windows lies beyond the living room and the kitchen complex includes a heavenly butler's pantry with wonderfully restored original cabinetry, updated marble counter tops and an almost indestructible stainless steel sink. The kitchen proper has more marble counter tops and an island with a mack-daddy Wolf brand range over which has been hung the largest and most threatening looking pot rack Your Mama has ever seen outside of a commercial kitchen.

A wide brick terrace stretches the length of the rear facade and overlooks the simple, rectangular shaped swimming pool which has been sunk directly into the lawn with a simple stone border. The two above mentioned guesthouses ensure the homeowner will not be subject to the grotesque sounds and odors of fornication and defecation created by over night guests.

According the listing information, the property is currently under offer and we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that the house will be sold to another celebrity...or at least it should be sold to someone high profile since the house has only known famous inhabitants for decades and it seems a shame not to continue in that vein.

We don't have a clue as to where Miz Keener decamped, but according to Miz Spillerguts, Mister Mulroney also owns a house on 6th Street in Santa Monica, so perhaps that's where he's shacking up with his baby momma Tharita Catulle whose name Your Mama dare not say out loud because we do not, unfortunately, speak the I-talian.

Tim Gunn Takes the A Train

BUYER: Tim Gunn
LOCATION: West 90th Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $1,500,000
SIZE: 1,765 square feet (approx.), 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: This triple mine 1,765+ sqa ft 2br/2.5 bath condo with a 527 sq ft terrace feels like a private home in the sky yet it is in a full service bldg with a gym on the Upper West Side. This apt is a bright corner duplex with 3 exposures, a separate windowed dining room that has a Sub-Zero wine cooler and a wet bar, a top-of-the-line windowed kitchen with a granite counter that has seating and floor to ceiling windowns in the spacious corner living room and both bedrooms.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Model slash baby factory Heidi Klum may be the hostess of the reality tee-vee program Project Runway, but the show's real star is the prissy, prim and dee-lightfully proper Tim Gunn. Your Mama confesses that we have a sweet spot in our cold and dark heart for Mister Gunn because not only do we love his mincing ways on the boob-toob but also because Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter used to live in the very same New York City building as Mister Gunn and would frequently find him in clogs (yes, children, clogs) and a perfectly pressed white t-shirt placidly gliding up and down the funky aisles of the grungy grocery store located on the ground floor of the building. We found him to be oddly entrancing in that he never looked left or right, just straight ahead, perhaps uncomfortable with his new found fame and just a little bit concerned he might be spotted and outed in an article on Page Six about buying up a couple of Lean Cuisines for dinner.

Anyhoo, according to Miz Keil who now pens the Gimme Shelter column for the NY Post–and confirmed with property records–Mister Gunn has moved out of his West 24th Street rental and to the Upper West Side where he recently forked over $1,500,000 for a doo-plex condo apartment on West 90th Street.

According to listing information the two-floor, 2 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom unit has approximately 1,765 square feet of interior space and a heavenly 527 square feet of outdoor space. The front door opens to a small entrance hall which leads directly into the dining room which is, of course not optimal but also not so terribly unusual in smaller New York City apartments. The dining room includes a wet bar with SubZero fridge so Mister Gunn's dinner guests can get liquored up before, during and after dinner. An adjacent guest terlit does double duty as the laundry room and opens directly into the dining room, a potentially disastrous set up for obvious reasons.

At the opposite end of the apartment from the dining room is a corner living room with gigantic floor to ceiling windows, wood floors and custom built cabintry fitted for the flat screen tee-vee. In between the living and dining rooms sits the unfortunately countrified kitchen with white cabinets, wood floors, sand colored granite counter tops and one of those horrid Fisher & Paykel double drawer dishwashers. Those things might be expensive, trendy and perhaps even energy efficient but it is Your Mama's personal experience with the contraption that they are also unrealiable and too small for washing oversized dishes. In fact, this coming Monday a muscular man named Juan is coming by to swap out the not-functioning Fisher & Paykel dishwashing lemon in our kitchen for another, hopefully more reliable model with just one door. Halle-damn-lujuh!

But we digress...The floor plan for the unit shows one of the bedrooms on the first floor which includes a private pooper and large windows facing both south and east. Upstairs a small landing leads to the master bedroom which includes a windowed bathroom and three closets for Miss Gunn's large collection of slim and conservative suits. A large built in unit in the bedroom can be used for sweater storage, electronics and stashing porn.

When Your Mama lived in New York City we would have gladly given the Dr. Cooter's left leg for a terrace. Mister Gunn, fortunately, will not have to sacrifice a limb for his commodious outdoor space where he can watch the sun rise over the Upper East Side and discreetly sunbathe his slender and girlish body should he choose to do so.

Your Mama begs the children to keep in mind that the current day-core is that of the seller and not that of Mister Gunn. So let's not get all wacky yakking about that obscene wall to wall white carpeting in the upstairs bathroom, the painfully purple walls in the dining room, or any of that crap in the living room because it's all going to be removed and reworked by, we hope, by Mister Gunn's nice gay decorator.

If Your Mama is being honest, and we always are, we are deeply concerned about the overwhelming architectural banality of this apartment and worry that it will take nothing short of a massive overhaul to bring the place up to snuff. So, like Mister Gunn, we're just going to hold our chin between our thumb forefinger, squint our eyes and tell him to, "Make it work," and hope for the best. Your Mama sincerely wishes Mister Gunn a happy new home and many congratulations on his recent television successes and encourage him to let us know if he needs a list of nice gay decorators to help him pull his new crib into shape.

Super Producer Brad Grey Buys New Bel Air Digs

Oooo-wee children, Your Mama bets Mister Nicolas Cage's real estate panties are all in a snit this week. While poor Mister Cage has whacked the asking price of his languishing on the market Copa de Oro Road residence from $35,000,000 to $19,750,000 and still not attracted a serious buyer, the property immediately next door sold off-market for what Your Mama hears was $22,000,000.

We first heard of the 8-figure transaction a week or so ago from the ever-accurate Nelly Knowsitall and then again later from Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air who both whispered in our big ol' ear that the renovated residence was purchased by diminutive super-producer Brad Grey.

Mister Grey is currently chairman and chief executive of Paramount Pictures and his gilded hands have successfully produced scads of tee-vee programs including The Sopranos, Real Time with Bill Maher, Just Shoot Me, and The Larry Sanders Show. His impressive film credits include Running With Scissors (which was really a much better book than movie), The Departed, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Wedding Singer and The Cable Guy.

Anyhoo, it appears that the dignified white Colonial style crib–or maybe it's Georgian–with black shutters was never on the open market and as best as we can figure was sold by an heir of the recently deceased Franklin Otis Booth Jr. who made some of his billion or two bucks by doing bizness with Oracle of Omaha investor Warren Buffet. Records indicate that a trust controlled by Mister Booth purchased the property in May of 2003 from none other than, surprise!, next door neighbor Nicolas Cage.

Records show the "L" shaped house measures 10,616 square feet and includes four bedrooms and 7 terlits. Since we were unable to locate any listing information that's all the 411 we have on the house and we're just going to have to assume the property records on file with the County of Los Angeles are correct.

In addition to Mister Cage and one of his many real estate white elephants, nearby neighbors include Paris' parents Rick and Kathy Hilton and the sprawling, newly built multi-winged mansion of Benny Alagem who founded Packard Bell Electronics and now owns, among many other things, The Beverly Hills Hilton hotel

Given that Mister and Missus Grey are heading to the court of dee-vorce, it's unclear who will live in the Copa de Oro Road residence and who will live in the family's 13,143 square foot spread on Monaco Drive in the ritzy Riviera area of Pacific Palisades. Records reveal that Mister Grey also own an oceanfront getaway on a particularly posh stretch of sand on Broad Beach Road in Malee-boo where property records reveal nearby neighbors include aged lounge lizards Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé and tool tycoon Eric Smidt who in 2005 famously paid a reported $46,000,000 for the The Knoll, the late Marvin Davis' legendary and vast Beverly Hills estate.

A Big Deal in Beverly Park

SELLER: Jeff Bazyler
BUYER: Some really rich Ukis
LOCATION: 40 Beverly Park, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: We don't know yet, but last listed at $31,500,000
SIZE: 27,000 square feet (approx.), 10 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Remarkable new mansion never lived in stands 3 stories tall w/ a gorgeous waterfall running down its side. 27,000 sf on approx 2 acres of lush land. Designed by renowned architect Richard Landry. Features an unbelievable library with a glass floor overlooking 2500 bottle wine cellar, grand ballroom & astounding home theater. Full marble spa in basement, wet/dry massage rms, indoor pool & hot tub, fully landscaped yard (w/ permits for tennis court), outdoor pool w/ fountains and covered loggias.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Although big 8-figure deals are increasingly rare even in the rarefied and high-priced Platinum Triangle areas of Los Angeles, they have not stopped happening altogether. We recently received word from Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills that a 27,000 square foot speck-built faux-Chateau at 40 Beverly Park that was last listed at $31,500,000 recently sold. That's right children, sold. S.O.L.D..

It is our understanding from Glinda the Good Witch that the seller and developer is a biznessman named Jeff Bazyler who heaved the over-sized mansard roofed monster manse onto the market in the fall of 2008 wit a mind-numbing asking price of $49,000,000. It wasn't long before the outrageously lavish property underwent several jumbo price chops (for obvious reasons we will not discuss) until it reached its last asking price of a much lower but still staggering $31,500,000.

At some point, the 10 bedroom and 14 bathroom behemoth was put up for lease with a monthly rent of $145,000. Boo-coo bucks by any standards, but nowhere near the rumored and reported two-hundred grand per month the Little Purple One Prince paid to lease another hotel sized house in Beverly Park last year. According to Glinda, a seemingly endless fountain of high-end and celebrity real estate scuttlebutt, there were no takers at that price.

Your Mama briefly described Mister Bazyler's palatial pile this way in a previous discussion in early March 2009 when we hadn't an inkling anyone was actually interested in writing a fat check for the place:

"The three stories of unrestrained opulence include monumental entertainment spaces including an honest to God ballroom, a poshly paneled circular library with a glass floor that looks down into a 2,500 bottle brick-lined wine cellar, a huge home theater, a marble spa in the basement that includes wet and dry massage rooms, a gigantic gym with mirrored walls, a hot tub and an indoor pool for all those chilly southern California winters. The grounds include a swimming pool, deep loggias for lazy afternoons lounging in the shade and the necessary permits for a tennis court. The necessary permits? Thirty one million bucks and you get permits for a tennis court? Pleeze. For that amount of money we don't only want a tennis court, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter want a deeded to the property and scantily clad tennis pro available at day and night at a moment's notice."

Anyhoo, just when everyone, meaning Your Mama, thought none of those steroidal houses up in Beverly Park was ever going to sell, it happened. The moment we got wind of the sale, we got on the horn to see if we could sort out the identity of the deep-pocketed buyer. After several stabs in the dark and a couple of dead end roads, we heard from the all-knowing Nelly Knowsitall who whispered in Your Mama's big ear that the new owner–whose name she did not offer–are the same really rich Ukrainians–or Ukis as my not so rich Ukrainian pals call themselves–who recently flipped a mansion on Marilyn Drive in Beverly Hills on the market with an asking price of $24,000,000 after purchasing the place in November of 2007 for what records reveal was $17,500,000.

UPDATE LATER SAME DAY: Almost as quickly as we posted our discussion above we heard from Lucy Spillerguts who swears on her lacquered nails and fake boobs that the buyer is a ladee named Oksana Borzina, who may or may not be a front for some other shadowy figure who prefers not to be identified. Miz Borzina appears to be some sort of real estate investor/flipper who also owns two adjacent properties just above the Sunset Strip that records show were purchased for a total of $8,225,000 in 2006 and 2007 and flipped back on to the market in June of 2008 as a single property with a gutsy asking price of $14,600,000. The listing languished on the market for nearly a year and was price chopped to $10,900,000 before the two parcels were uncoupled and recently re-listed as two separate properties. The larger contemporary crib on Sunset Hills Road has an asking price of $8,500,000 while the much more modest property on Cory Avenue has an asking price of $1,995,000.

Tina Fey Gets All Uptown

BUYER: Tina Fey and Jeff Richmond
LOCATION: West End Avenue, New York, NY
PRICE: $3,400,000
SIZE: 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Huge and gracious family home in premier full service pre-war coop....Private elevator landing leads to rooms of enormous proportions, 4 master bedrooms plus maid's room, eat-in kitchen, 20 x 19 dining room, 27.5 x 18.5 living room with WBFP and a peek of the river, plus library and 4.5 bathrooms.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to a gentleman we call The Legal Eagle, we were recently directed to a short story on the notoriously naughty Gawker website that reports six time Emmy winning writer/actress/comedienne Miss Tina Fey and her composer huzband Jeff Richmond dropped $3,400,000 for new digs on the Upper West Side of New York City.

Ever Miss Tina Fey became the head writer at Saturday Night Live in 1999, she's been comedic catnip. She co-hosted Weekend Update on SNL, wrote and starred in the movie Mean Girls, got herself a damn fine tee-vee show called 30 Rock, yes she did, and starred in a not very funny movie called Baby Mama with the usually very funny Amy Poehler. But her star turn, the bit that made Miss Tina Fey a household name, was her blistering, spot-on spoofs of former Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin which even the right wingers of America have to admit were dee-lishus.

Located on West End Avenue, Miss Tina Fey's new spread, according to listing information, includes a private elevator landing, a central entrance hall, a dignified 27 and a half foot long corner living room with a working wood burning fireplace and a peekaboo view of the mighty Hudson River, and a dining room large enough that she could comfortably host a weenie roast for the the entire cast of 30 Rock.

Listing information shows the half floor sprawler was first listed nearly a year ago with an asking price of $4,100,000. The Gawker guys and gals divulged that the purchase price is $3,400,000. Given that property records for the unit have yet to clear the interweb location(s) Your Mama uses to check these things, we can't yet confirm or deny whether that purchase price is accurate.

Listing information indicates the apartment, which has windows on all four sides, includes 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. Our beady little eyes count three principal bedrooms, each with a private pooper, and a fourth room that can be used as a family bedroom or a staff room or maybe a Pilates room since that form of exercise torture is so popular. The fourth (bed)room does not appear to have a direct connection to a terlit, but a full bathroom is accessible off a small room behind the kitchen. A powder room just off the foyer ensures Miss Tina Fey's guest will not need to enter the family's private quarters in order to do their pre-dinner coke snorting and/or after dinner dirty bizness.

Listing information also shows a 17+ foot long library, a kitchen with a large butler's pantry and the master bedroom features a large dressing room and a second non-functioning wood burning fireplace. The apartment is described in listing information as in "estate condition" which in real estate speak usually means some old person has been living up in there for a long time and that the apartment is in desperate need of a smart architect and a nice gay decorator to bring the place up to snuff.

If we were Miss Tina Fey, which obviously we are not, we'd just knock out that fourth (bed)room and bathroom–who really wants their household staff living up in their bizness anymore?–and open the space up to be a good sized family room. At the same time, we'd add a proper laundry room and convert the powder room to a full sized lavatory with a stand up shower.

We'd also recommend making some traffic flow changes to the master bedroom suite which would include closing off the door to the shared bathroom with the adjacent bedroom, moving the entrance to the room a few feet towards the front of the apartment, combining the small closet with the large walk-in from the adjacent bedroom, add a closet to the adjacent bedroom and then enlarge the bathroom by making the dressing room smaller. The plan still needs tweaking and the details need working out, but this is just a few apples to ponder about reworking the place.
According to CityFile and confirmed with property records, Miss Tina Fey and her man-mate Mister Richmond continue to own an 1,873 square foot apartment at 500 West End Avenue which they bought in early 2005 for $1,900,000 as well as a 659 square foot place on W. 85th Street they picked up in May of 2006 for $550,000 and reportedly use as an office.

The apartment is located in the same building where the fine boned musician/actor/activist Harry Belafonte famously combined two apartments into one sprawling and not particularly well feng shui-ed apartment. Mister Belafonte sold the 18-room spread in October of 2006 for $10,750,000 to Micky Mouse heiress Abigail Disney for $13.75M who quickly flipped the bitch back on the market with an asking price of $13,750,000 after deciding she didn't want to take on such a large residential renovation project after all. If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand-million times, rich and famous folks can be so damn fickle with their real estate choices. Miz Disny had a devil of a time selling her never occupied apartment but according to Josh Barbanel at the New York Times, she recently signed sales contracts but had to split the joined apartment back into two separate units to be sold to two different buyers. For anyone who cares, Miz Disney and her huzband Pierre Hauser forked over 12 and some million clams for an apartment at the newly converted 15 Madison Square North building.

Your Mama Hears...

...That Grammy winning R&B superstar Usher has been out and about looking at real estate in the City of Angels. According to our sexed-up snitch Luwanda Courvoisier, Mister Usher recently, "worked his milk chocolate skin up and down the twisted streets above the Sunset Strip" where he checked out at least one contemporary crib listed at "around 5.5 million bucks."

Although Mister Usher is married to and has a couple of kids with some ladee named Tameka who recently had a plastic surgery emergency in Brazil, the peeped property isn't exactly family friendly. We're not saying anything about Mister Usher's family life because we don't know eh-nee-thing about Mister Usher's family life. We are simply saying that Miz Courvoisier snickered that the glassy house in the hills is far more suitable to a bevy of horny babes in bikinis than a couple of small children and a newly liposuctioned mommy wife.

Of course, Your Mama got to wondering why Mister Usher even wants a house in Tinseltown. Best as we can figure, the man probably wants to be a movie star just like that over-blinged egomaniac Puff Daddy (or Diddy-P or Fiddle Faddle or whatever stoopid name he wants to be called nowadays) wishes he was. Queen, please. Stick to what you know, which is singing smooth, sappy songs meant to get women in the mood to make babies and leave the film business to actual actors.

Anyhoo, some of the children may recall that way back in September of 2007, the dapper Mister Usher listed his 8,022 square foot suburban Atlanta mansion with an asking price of $1,950,000. Listing information shows the 5 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom house in the celeb friendly Country Club of the South community is still available and, much to our surprise, has a slightly higher asking price of $1,995,000. Your Mama questions the wisdom of upping the asking price of a property even as the real estate markets continue to limp along like a lame horse. Then again, it's been proven over and over again that Your Mama don't know nuthin' from nuthin' about how to price property, particularly in suburban developments filled with newly built mcmansions.

A Nicolas Cage New Orleans Double Whammy

Prolific property collector Nicolas Cage continues to keep all us naughty celebrity real estate gossips busy as beavers trying to keep up with his still substantial but slowly shrinking real estate empire. In early 2008 the hairrific Oscar winning actor sold his waterfront house in Newport Beach, CA to a gas station mogul for thirty some million dollars. More recently he managed to get rid of a little used 28-room schloss in Bavaria which he, puzzlingly, to his German advisor.

As far as Your Mama knows (and we really don't know nuthin'), Mister Cage continues to own luxury real estate in San Francisco, Las Vegas, the Bahamas, two high floor apartments in New York City's Olympic Tower on a fancy stretch of Fifth Avenue, and the UK–where he has a four story Georgian style townhouse in Bath and an 18th century castle. He also owns a handful of houses currently languishing on the open market including his brick built and ivy covered spread on Copa de Oro Road in Bel Air, CA which has been price slashed from $35,000,000 to $19,750,000. Also for sale (at least the last we checked) is an undeveloped 45-acre private island in the Bahamas, an ass-uglee house in a gated community in Las Vegas, a 24,000+ square foot manor house in Middletown, RI and two historic houses in Loo-zee-anna's Big Easy which–against our better judgement–we're going to spend the morning discussing.


SELLER: Nic Cage
LOCATION: Prytania Street, New Orleans, LA
PRICE: $3,450,000
SIZE: 13,176 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: The most superlative of Garden District mansions with the best of every amenity. Ample room for a large family and big-time entertainment venue with formal gardens, parking, and everything anyone could possibly want in a most grand of grand, star-quality home.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The first of the two properties we're going to chat about is Mister Cage's big ol' house in the Big Easy's gorgeous Garden District which first arrived on the open market sometime in the fall of 2008 with an asking price of $3,700,000. After six or so long months of sitting around without a serious buyer, the asking price now stands at $3,450,000 which property records reveal to be the exact same amount for which Mister Cage bought the house in June of 2005.

Before Mister Cage, the three story grande dame on Prytania Street was owned by several other notable characters including the Catholic Church who gave it the wonderfully ridiculous name of Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel. The corner property later fell into the hands of the formerly brooding now Christian author Anne Rice who sold it to antiques dealer Reuban "Buzz" Harper who had a famous flair for turgid day-core and who, in turn, sold it to our Mister Cage.

Listing information shows the 13-room "L" shaped mansion measures a considerable 13,176 square feet and includes 6 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathrooms. There are wide covered porches with flamboyant iron balustrades on the main and second floors, four kitchens and an elevator that does not appear to rise to the third floor. Perhaps most remarkable about Mister Cage's crib is the vast living and dining room area on the first floor which spans over more than 2,000 square feet of high-ceilinged architectural elegance that features extremely high-gloss wood floors, intricate plaster mouldings and ceiling medallions, four fireplaces and a swooping staircase that could raise Norma Desmond from the grave.

Your Mama wishes we had such florid words for the day-core which manages to be lackluster and lifeless despite the dramatic length of the dining room table and the campy period furniture. But we don't. Also, it seems unlikely that a home of this age would have been built with such loft-like public spaces. Even though we thrill at the idea of roller skating in the nood around the giant room, the architectural purist in Your Mama wishes the public rooms had been maintained as their original, properly proportioned and separate chambers.

Anyhoo, behind the dining room is a large, chef friendly kitchen with white cabinetry, granite counters, beige tile floors, navy colored walls and somewhat bizarrely, a red ceiling. The main floor is completed by a laundry room, a small room of unknown usage, a half bathroom and a master suite comprised of a medium sized bedroom, 33-foot long walk in closet and a bathroom that only Victoria Gotti (and Nic Cage) could love with its spectacularly silly spa tub set in the center of the room and surrounded by columns .

The second floor includes a landing/sitting room and a second master suite with a dressing room, large bathroom and access to two balconies. Another suite of rooms on the second floor includes a mini-kitchen, a commodious closet, an elevator landing and both a full and a half bathroom. The extreme rear of the second floor is a separate staff or guest suite with bathroom, walk in closet and eat in kitchen.

The lone terlit on the third floor is located off the large landing which separates two suites of rooms. One side contains yet another small kitchen and a couple of sitting rooms painted an eye-popping and grimace making shade of hot pink and then further punished with banal brown leather furniture, crushed velvet drapery, heavily carved wood pieces and a couple of wall mounted flat screen boob-toobs. The other two rooms on the opposite side of the landing are, we presume, bedrooms.

The grounds include well tended box hedges that surround a terrace with formal gardens and a gurgling fountain as well as a large brick terrace that encircles an in-ground swimming pool. Listing information also indicates there is off street parking, but honestly children, we can't figure out where that is or how many automobiles can be parked on the property.

Given that Mister Cage owns at least two (some say three) houses in New Orleans, it's unclear whether he and his much younger wifey and child occupy this house or the blood soaked and rumored to be haunted LaLaurie house, which is also currently for sale.



SELLER: Nicolas Cage
LOCATION: Royal Street, New Orleans, LA
PRICE: $3,550,000
SIZE: 10,284 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: One of the most beautiful homes in America. This home was originally built for French royalty and all the details of this period show it. Named the LaLaurie Mansion and known for its ghostly history, it is the height of superlative. if you want the best of the best, then here it is! Galleries, widow's walks, parking and prime location.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Although he already owned one house over in the Garden District, in December of 2006 Mister Cage could not resist his historical real estate desiring demons and spent what records show was $3,450,000 to purchase a second home in New Orleans.

According to listing information, the four floor French quarter mansion, commonly known as the LaLaurie House, was originally built for French royalty. However, it was later owners Dr. Louis Lalaurie and his wife Delphine who moved into the house in the early 1830s and who gave the property both its name and its witchy and macabre reputation as a house of unspeakable horrors. Mister and Missus Lalaurie were prominent pillars of New Orleans high society and well known for their lavish parties and for swanning around town with their impeccably dressed daughters. However, the couple had a deeply perverted and bloodcurdling dark side that will scare the skin right off the children.

Like many big living rich folks of that era, the Lalaurie House was taken care of by slaves. Sadly, and although it wasn't uncommon for slaves to be mistreated, Mister and Missus Lalaurie launched slave abuse into an entirely new and savagely sadistic realm of hell. The cook, the same one who prepared feasts for the Lalaurie family and their friends, was allegedly kept chained to the fireplace in the kitchen. Missus Lalaurie, whip in hand, was seen by a neighbor chasing her personal servant up to the roof of the house from where the tortured young girl leaped to her death. Later, authorities investigated and found a secret door in the attic behind which more than a dozen brutally abused slaves were chained to the wall and locked in cages. There were reportedly severed body parts strewn about the floor and decapitated heads in buckets. Some of the men had their private parts lopped off and a hole had been drilled into the top of the head of one male victim where a stick was inserted to "stir" his brain. More than a couple women had been cut open, their intestines pulled out and tied around their waists. Another woman had her arms and legs ruthlessly amputated and yet another had all of her limbs broken and re-set at alarming and unnatural angles. Shockingly, the Lalauries managed to escape authorities and their barbaric crimes against humanity were never prosecuted. It's unknown what fate befell the sick and twisted Lalauries, but Karma is a bitch children and even though it pains and challenges our own Karma to say so, Your Mama can only hope they met an untimely and hideously painful end.

Anyhoo, property records and multiple reports show Mister Cage picked up his haunted house in December of 2006. Records also reveal that Mister Cage paid $3,450,000 for the six bedroom house which has 8 terlits divided into six full and 2 half bathrooms. The property was first listed in the fall of 2008 with an asking price of $3,900,000 but has since been karate chopped to $3,550,000. It doesn't take even a brief consult with our bejeweled abacus to determine that when the property sells and after the fat real estate fees are paid, Mister Cage will likely lose boo-coo bucks on his real estate folly.

The sinister looking grey lady lords over the corner of Royal and Governor Nicholls Streets, measures 10,284 square feet, according to listing information, and wraps around a brick courtyard filled with a bunch of raggedy looking trees and potted plants. The house is entered on the ground floor through a narrow foyer with a classy black and white checkerboard floor. To the right of the entrance are two generously proportioned reception rooms, each with a gray and yellow marble fireplace surround, gray and white checkerboard floors, tall windows, built in book cases, a bunch of kooky Gothik meets Art Deco furniture and some really wretched looking paintings. Much to Your Mama's chagrin and dismay, it is our humble and meaningless opinion that these are indeed the best rooms of the house in terms of day-core. Behind these rooms is a pooper for the guests and small suite of rooms used for we don't know what. To the right of the foyer is a staff or guest suite with sitting room, kitchenette, full bathroom and bedroom. At the rear of the property is a garage that looks large enough to hold one big car or perhaps two itty-bitty but impossibly cute FourTwo Smart cars which would be perfect for tooling around the French Quarter and down to the the Jolie-Pitts place on Governor Nicholls Street.

The main part of the second floor contains the primary public rooms which include the dining room, a butlers pantry, a 1980s looking kitchen with some updated appliances and a double parlor style living room with wood floors, elaborate pilasters and pediments, dee-voon dentil ceiling moulding and a hodgepodge of unfortunate leather and brocade furniture. On the walls hang more of that upsetting artwork that, we're sorry Mister Cage, makes our flesh crawl. At the rear of the second floor there are two staff or guest suites with small kitchens and bathrooms that open to a balcony that wraps around the courtyard below. A mezzanine level contains two more staff or guest suites each with a small kitchen and bathroom.

Up on the third floor are the principle family bedrooms. Each of the bedrooms has its own private pooper and the master features a good sized bathroom and a walk in closet for all of Mister Cage's black jeans and leather jackets.

While it is well known that Mister Cage owns the Lalaurie House and a giant house in the Garden District, it has been reported (and whispered in Your Mama's big ear by Little Mary) that he and his family actually live next door when they are in town. Perhaps the viscious history and lingering bad juju makes the Lalaurie House simply too frightening to live. Or maybe Mister Cage is just strange like that.

Eventually, of course, Mister Cage will either make a butt load of money that will enable him to keep all his many dee-luxe digs or they will sell at prices that will surely leave him a few hundred grand (or maybe even a few million) in the hole. What is clear is that according to a recent interview in a German publication regarding the sale of his Bavarian schloss, Mister Cage said, "Due to the difficult economic situation, unfortunately, I was no longer able to keep it." Pity that.

More News About Mariah

Although Your Mama would like the children to think we are a wise and omniscient wizard of celebrity real estate, the truth is what we do know is far less than what we don't know. For example...

For weeks now rumors have been swirling and swelling that maybe she's pregnant, maybe she's not Mariah Carey made an offer on on Fleur de Lys, the freakishly opulent mega-mansion in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles currently owned by couture queen Suzanne Saperstein and listed for sale with a pee your pants from shock and awe asking price of $125,000,000.

As soon as that bit of gossip began to slip and slide down grapevine Your Mama got on the horn with a few of the folks we thought might actually have some knowledge of Mister and Missus Carey's real estate bizness. The always well informed Donna Tellaitall snitched that the newlyweds had been peeping and poking around some of the more expensive zip codes in the San Fernando Valley for homes in the ten million dollar range. Although we cannot confirm this, it is our understanding the couple had a look-see around a recently re-habbed residence in Encino which had previously belonged to glassy eyed and gravel voiced chanteuse Macy Gray.

Another of our regular bean spillers scoffed and hissed at the very notion that Mariah Carey could even afford a house of Fleur de Lys' magnitude. Of course, even though Your Mama don't know nuthin' from bacon about Mrs. Carey's finances, we too confess it required a bit of mental stretching to get our gin soaked mind around that idea ourselves.

Our next query went out to Virginia Slim who is kind of like our Fleur de Lys Deep Throat given that she actually fraternizes with Miz Saperstein and her coterie of younger man friends. Miss Slim whispered that she heard from someone in a position to know that Mister and Missus Carey did tour the mammoth manse but as far as she could suss out, no offer was proffered.

Shortly after speaking to Miss Slim we heard from Donna Tellaitall again who whispered in our big ol' ear that she'd heard the house hunters had signed on the dotted line for an approximately $12,000,000 property in Bel Air that was definitely not Fleur de Lys and that's all she knew. Mister Carey recently confirmed the couple did indeed purchase a place in L.A., but not surprisingly clammed up like Fort Knox when it came to the details.

So once again we put the feelers out for the 411 in order to figure out which fancy house to which the couple cottoned and have come up empty handed.

Because we know deep in our compromised soul that at least two of the children have got the skinny we want, we're going to do something we've never done before...ask the children what's what. So spill it. No one but Your Mama has to know who you are.

Your Mama Hears...

...From two separate sources, one we'll call Glinda the Good Witch and the other we'll call Winnie Baygo, that large lipped ack-tress Scarlett Johansson (Vicky Christina Barcelona, The Other Bolyn Girl, Lost In Translation and etc.) is fixin' to list her house on Senalda Road in the Outpost Estates area of Los Angeles.

If the children will put on their thinking caps they might recall that the formerly curvaceous now twig thin Miss Johansson purchased the 4,352 square foot Spanish style pile in May of 2007 from director Harold Becker who piloted movies such as the gripping The Sea of Love, Taps and The Onion Field.

What's perhaps most titillating to Your Mama about this particular celebrity real estate rumor is that, according to Miss Baygo, the house will be listed for "around $5,100,000," a figure our bejeweled abacus reveals is a gasp inducing $1,900,000 less than the $7,000,000 property records show she paid for the 7 bedroom and 7 bathroom house. Keep in mind children, that's just Miss Baygo passing along idle real estate gossip, so until the house actually hits the market we will not know what number is slapped up as the asking price.

Glinda whispered to Your Mama that the four time Golden Globe nominee, whose mother owns a crash pad condo at the Hollywood Versailles apartment tower, never moved into the house on Senalda Road because she, "Had to make repairs and renovations...The house isn't pretty at all." Oh dear.

After first hearing this real estate rumor, Your Mama also contacted the The Easter Bunny to see what he knew. Mister Bunny immediately responded to our query saying he didn't know a thing about Mrs. Ryan Reynolds house on Senalda, but would not be surprised if she were to sell the property since it is his understanding that she's moving (or already moved) to Manhattan.

Miss Johansson was real estate gossip catnip in May of 2008 when she sold her New York City loft at 66 Leonard Street (at a reported $52,000 loss) and then quickly coughed up $2,100,000 for a 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom terraced penthouse apartment in an undistinguished building on East 53rd Street near–but not actually in–the swank Sutton Place neighborhood. These real estate distinctions make a difference in New York City in the same way that real estate snobs in Los Angeles get their panties in a kerfuffle about the difference between Beverly Hills and the Beverly Hills Post Office.

photo: Pacific Coast News

Britney Spears Takes It To New Jersey

Sounds like Little Miss Britney Spears is taking her real estate crazy train on the road. According to a report by Jennifer Gould Keil–who has taken over her huzband's Gimme Shelter column in the NY Post since his sad and untimely passing earlier this year–the lip synching and dancing super star has been house hunting in...

...are you ready for this children?

New Jersey.

That's right. New Jersey.

The touring pop princess recently and reportedly leased an ass uglee 7 bedroom quasi-Colonial with 8 full and 2 half bathrooms in fancy schmancy Alpine, NJ where she set up temporary digs while touring on the East Coast. The tabloid trainwreck apparently liked the Alpine area so much that she went out looking at $20,000,000 homes in the area. If we're being honest, and we always are, this twenty million dollar number makes little sense since with the exception of the $59,000,000 Frick Estate, there don't seem to be any houses in Alpine listed on the open market for more than seventeen point five million.

Whatever the case, according to Miz Keil, none of the properties peeped by Miss Spears met her–ahem–high real estate standards. If she does actually locate and buy an estate that comes up to her security standards and requirements, she'll be in all kinds of celebrity company like Puff Daddy (or PDiddy or Diddle Daddle or whatever) who has a giant house on Alpine's Anderson Road. Other Alpine residents are said to include tax evader Wesley Snipes and that increasingly freaky looking Lil' Kim ladee who lives just around the corner from comedian Chris Rock and looks more and more like the unholy love child of Kimora Lee Simmons and Queen Latifah every damn day.

Roger Birnbaum Lists For Less in Beverly Hills

SELLER: Roger Birnbaum
LOCATION: Summit Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $16,000,000
SIZE: 7,187 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Long gated drive leads to an estate of unparalleled quality & timeless design. Completed in 2007, this contemporary farmhouse includes a special master w/ sitting room, gym, walk-in closet, unique bath & huge terrace overlooking the city. A most extraordinary 2-story living room w/ floor to ceiling sliding glass doors that open to a covered veranda & over sized lap pool surrounded by gardens, dream kitchen, dining room & media room.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Every now and then a pricey Platinum Triangle property comes along that makes Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter drool with bank account envy and spit with financial jealousy. Such is the bewitching Beverly Hills property that prolific producer Roger Birnbaum recently listed with an asking price of $16,000,000. It's not that we have an incurable craving to live in a shingled contempo farmhouse, because we really don't. It's that the recent renovation and dignified day-core is so soo-blime that we can't help but covet thy neighbor's house.

Mister Birnbaum, for those who do not recognize the name, is what Your Mama calls a super producer. He has shepherded dozens of tee-vee programs and films through the Tinseltown gauntlet including (but not limited to) Four Christmases, The Love Guru, 27 Dresses, Evan Almighty, the unbelievably bad but stoopidly high-larius Stick It, Memoirs of a Geisha (which was, sorry Mister Birnbaum, a much better book), Seabiscuit, G.I. Jane and Who's That Girl, one of the Kabbalah Kween's more insufferable cinematic ventures.

Property records show Mister Birnbaum purchased his swank Summit Drive domicile in April of 2007 for $16,500,000. Several reports from the time suggest the sale price was closer to twenty million clams, but sixteen point five is what we find. If the records are accurate, and we have no reason to believe they are not, it appears that Mister Birnbaum will take a significant financial hit because, as our bejeweled abacus reveals, the property is currently priced half a million bucks below what he paid for the place in 2007.

The property was purchased from legendary former talent manager turned high-priced house flipper Sandy Gallin who, records reveal, purchased the property in November of 2005 for $5,350,000. Mister Gallin did what he's done with the 30 or 40 other fancy flips he's got under his belt: He Gallin-ized the place. That means, he knocked down what he hated, improved what he could tolerate and built what he thought the place needed to be elevated to its rightful place in the complicated lexicon of ritzy Beverly Hills real estate.

The house, tucked up behind other similarly sumptuous dwellings and invisible from the street, is approached down a long, tree-lined stone driveway that leads to a large gravel motor court. There are few sounds Your Mama enjoys more than the crackle and snap of tires on a gravel driveway. Not only does it evoke a childhood sense memory of our Grand-mammies long gravel driveway, it also reminds both Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter of our beloved farmhouse on the East End of Long Island that we sold when we moved west last summer.

Listing information shows the Birnbaum manse measures 7,187 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms including a clean lined master suite with a large, fully paneled bedroom, a kitted out closet/dressing room the size of of a Manhattan studio apartment, an expansive private terrace for nood sunbathing, a gym for working up a sweat and a behemoth bathroom with a beamed ceiling, wood floor and two shelving racks with enough fluffy white towels to stock a small boo-teek hotel.

The almost self-consciously modest entry leads to a dee-voonly double height living room with a wall of windows that slide open to the commodious covered veranda that overlooks the somewhat small yard and long lap pool. The living room is ringed on two sides by a second floor gallery with a modern horizontal railing that both reinforces the impressive length of the room and offsets the vertical volume of the space. Your Mama would like to point out that Mister Gallin and his nice gay decorator showed an extraordinary and all too uncommon restraint in the living room by not hanging two unnecessarily chunky chandeliers from the rafters, which would have wrecked the entire tableau. When people say, "less is more," this is what they mean.

The dining room has more of those barn-like sliding doors and a monstrous round dining room table surrounded by ten caramel colored padded leather chairs. The children will note, again, how Mister Gallin and his nice gay decorator showed tremendous self-control when it came to the heavy-duty but still barely there light fixture.

Other rooms, according to listing information, include a gore-may kitchen with all the super-sized stainless steel appliances a kitchen queen could want as well as a gigantic work island that does double duty as a breakfast counter. We're not going to discuss those ridiculous daffodils that are begging to be squashed by the large and looming pot rack. There is also, according to listing information, a large den with one of the home's three wood burning fireplaces, a large built-in bar for all the booze hounds to belly up to, a media room and an office.

The back yard is, admittedly, a wee bit small for a house in this price range. But truth be told, there's plenty of space for a child-free couple with one mean ol' pussy named Sugar and two long bodied bitches named Linda and Beverly who require only a wee patch of grass where they can lay around and soak up the sun for hours on end. The lap pool, according to listing information, is heated and over-sized, whatever that means. A wonderfully woodsy outdoor living space has cozy looking patio furniture facing a wood burning fireplace where we can imagine it would be nice to sip Chardonnay as the sun sets and the marine layer scoots in.

All the children know that Your Mama has often railed against the boring, banal and beige day-core we too often see in the homes of folks who think "neutral" makes their home more digestible to guests and attractive potential buyers. However, we've also many times claimed that there is a way in which to do beige without sinking into a monochromatic snooze-fest of tone on tone day-core. This, children, is how beige is done.

Property records indicate that Mister Birnbaum and his Missus Pamela own an 18th floor condominium at The Californian as well as another slightly smaller condominium at The Remington, both on Wilshire Boulevard. Records also reveal the condo crazy couple have a townhouse/condo in Boynton Beach, FL, and an oceanfront condo in Jupiter, FL. Obviously, we have no way of knowing if Mister and Missus Birnbaum occupy all those condos or if they are used as rentals or by other family members.

Going back to Mister Gallin...we recently heard from our dee-lishusly catty pal Kenny Kissintell, who always has all sorts of juicy real estate dirt to dish, that Mister Gallin recently completed his latest project, the former Jane Wyatt estate on Siena Way in Bel Air which he picked up in the spring of 2007 for seven million smackers. Kenny whispered the amount that he heard Mister Gallin wants for the fully rehabbed residence and the number is so damn high we don't dare repeat it because it simply can not be true. It's not that Mister Gallin can't work over a property like nobodies bizness, it's that houses just aren't selling for those kind of 8 figure prices right now.

Anyhoo, Mister and Missus Birnbaum's real estate loss on Summit Drive will surely be some lucky bastard's real estate good fortune. Now then, we've got to figure out a way to get all this green off our skin.

Castillo del Lago Is Indeed For Sale

SELLER: Joe Pytka
LOCATION: Mulholland Highway, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $14,950,000
SIZE: 7,783 square feet, 9 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Legendary 1920s Hollywood Hills estate. This Mediterranean paradise poised on +/-3 acres above Lake Hollywood with unrivaled vistas from Downtown to Catalina is superbly appointed throughout with state-of-the-art amenities. Exquisite craftsmanship with lofty 25’ beamed & coffered ceilings. Beautifully designed kitchen with marble counters, Sub-Zero, O’Keefe & Merit stove. Wine cellar, media room, gym, elevator, sumptuous master ste. Rose gardens, exotic fountains, a terraced courtyard, & pool.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It's official. Just as two tattlers whispered in Your Mama's big ol' ear in late February, the legendary Castillo del Lago estate, currently owned by hairrific commercial director Joe Pytka, has hit the open market with an asking price of $14,950,000.

The house was built in 1926 for oil explorer Patrick Longdon and it is widely believed to have been home to mobster Bugsy Siegel who reportedly used the house as an illegal speakeasy and gambling parlor, natch. In the 1950s, the property fell into a state of disrepair and transferred hands several times until 1993 when it landed in the hands of man-eating superstar Madonna who is, for better or worse, the person responsible for the Ronald McDonald color scheme. With the assistance of her bad-mouthing brother Christopher, Madge spent millions renovating the place. However, shortly after one of her security goons shot a moron attempting to scale a perimeter wall, she sold the place to our Mister Pytka who, according to property records, forked over $5,300,000 for approximately 3-acre ridge top estate on Mulholland Highway.

Property records and listing information show the house measures 7,783 square feet and includes 6 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms spread out over what we understand is 7 (or possibly 9) floors accessible by both elevator and a vertigo inducing spiral staircase. The living room, with its soaring beamed ceiling, matching chandeliers and zebra striped accents features a fireplace and a row of Palladian style French doors that open to a large terrace with staggering views of Lake Hollywood, the glittery lights of Los Angeles and Catalina Island in the distance.

The long narrow dining room has a tile floor and a honeycomb coffered ceiling and the large, all white kitchen includes marble counter-tops, a vintage O'keefe and Merrit stove and twin SubZero refrigerator/freezers. Other rooms, according to listing information, include a paneled library/billiard room, a narrow and dark looking library space with a couple of rows of floor to ceiling book stacks, a den, home gym, media room and, of course, a wine cellar. Are there any houses in L.A. priced more than five million bucks that don't have a freaking wine cellar? And of course there is the signature tower with 360 degree views of everything everywhere in Los Angeles.

The extensive grounds include a swooping and gated driveway, a terraced courtyard, private patios, shade pergolas, rose gardens, a few fountains and a large flat lawn with a long lap pool that looks private enough to skinny dip and sunbathe in the nude without being seen by nosy neighbors.

The relatively remote location of Castillo del Lago will surely turn off all those fancy folks who dare not drive their big bodied Benzes east of Doheny Drive. It will also not please the slightly less fancy folks who squish their faces in disdain at the notion of living east of the Hollywood Freeway. However, for all the deep pocketed privacy seekers who don't mind winding through the twisting roads of Beachwood Canyon to get home or climbing stairs and riding in elevators to get from room to room, this is a most unique and charming option...even if it does need a bit of sprucing up.

Is Madge Moving On Up To the East Side?

BUYER: Madonna (allegedly)
LOCATION: E. 81st Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $42,000,000 (asking)
SIZE: 12,000 square feet (approx.) 13 bedrooms, 12+ bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Reminiscent of a London townhouse, this 26-room classic Georgian residence is notable for its extraordinary 57-foot width, making it one of the widest houses on the Upper East side, its 3000 sq. ft. garden bordered by tall trees, rhododendron and roses, and its double-car garage, another Upper East Side rarity. The 4-story townhouse has approximately 12,000 sq. ft. above grade, and offers a 38' by 22' drawing room with tall south windows overlooking the garden, a paneled dining room off the garden terrace, intimate library, 13 bedrooms, 11' ceilings, 9 fireplaces, Georgian staircase, elevator, and future rooftop garden.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: According to the New York Post, the real estate krazy Kaballah Kween is scooping up a big krib in Manhattan and it's a $40,000,000 doozy. The Upper East Side double wide townhouse stands four stories above ground on an expensive but undistinguished block of East 81st Street, an area catty brokers sometimes call the "Far East" due to its location on the wrong side of Lexington Avenue. (That's east of Lexington Ave. for the those ignorant to the snobby nuances of Upper East Side real estate).

Anyhoo, the 26-room Georgian style townhouse is currently owned by the estate of a deceased ladee named Louise Saurel who was clearly a very rich woman but about whom Your Mama has almost no information. The approximately 12,000 square foot house was listed back in October of 2008 when it dropped on to the market a knee buckling asking price of $45,000,000. That huge figure was lowered sometime after the first of the year to a still staggering $42,000,000.

All rumors and reports say that Miz Madonna will be paying in the forty million clam range, which is a bit reckless when considering that no single townhouse has ever traded in the immediate neighborhood for more than twenty million dollars. Plus, according to tattle tales who have been inside the house, the nearby Lexington Avenue subway line can be felt and heard as it rumbles through the tunnels, an unfortunate auditory issue we imagine will cost Miz Madonna a fortune to remedy.

According to the floor plan provided with the listing, the property is essentially two adjacent but separate townhouses. Altogether we count 13 bedrooms, 12 full bathrooms and 2 more half bathrooms, 9 fireplaces, 2 kitchens with 3 pantries, 2 laundry rooms, 2 entrances, 1 elevator and 2 dumbwaiters, at least 36 closets and an exceedingly rare private 2-car garage with direct access to the interior spaces.

Other dee-luxe, super star friendly features include a 836 square foot drawing room that stretches 38 feet long, a couple more sitting and living rooms, two libraries, two dining rooms, 2 Butler's pantries, a wine cellar/grotto in the basement, a 3,000 square foot garden at the back and a plans for adding rooftop garden. All in all, there should be plenty of room for Miz Madonna, her growing litter of multi-cultural children and whatever staff dares to live-in with the allegedly demanding diva.

The layout, while commodious by any standards, is a bit awkward and will likely require a few million more to de-grandma the interiors and bring it up to Miz Madonna's hyper-exacting standards. Presumably, a large chuck of square footage will be devoted to a home gym set up where the exercise maniac can get her sweat on and Your Mama also imagines that the luxe-luvin' ladee is going to have to do something about the lack of a proper master suite. If she were to ring up and ask Your Mama–which, of course, she will not–we'd recommend devoting all or most of the third floor to Miz Madge's private quarters.

One option, as we've presumptuously and crudely illustrated below, might be to use the two rear bedrooms on the third floor for a private sitting room and separate bedroom, incorporate the front bedrooms into a boo-dwar and master bathroom plus a smaller second pooper for whatever man Madge might be entertaining and stringing along. We've added a small kitchenette flanking the dumbwaiter in the master suite and we've joined the two sides of the townhouse in order to utilized the other side as the private gym space which includes a fireplace and dressing area for where Gwynnie can keep her street clothes when she comes by for Pilates and egg whites.
Never one to do things on a small scale, The NY Post article snitched that Miz Madonna is also hunting for an equestrian property to purchase in either Westchester County Long Island. But Madonna's real estate madness does not end there because she's reportedly making noise about moving to the African country of Malawi in order to establish honest to goodness residency so that she'll be allowed to adopt another Malawian bambino named Mercy.

Miz Madonna already owns a trio of apartments in the Harperley Hall over on Central Park West–where she recently did battle with the board in order to purchase third apartment to the two she already had. As far as we know, Miz Madge still owns her two twin townhouses in London (although it's possible Mister ex-Madonna got one or both in the dee-vorce) and a private pad on a pretty and posh part of Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. What else? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Although listing information currently shows the property is "Under Contract," until her spokes ladee, the tough talking Liz Rosenberg, confirms or denies the purchase we'll have to call all this bizness and brouhaha about Miz Madonna forking over forty million bucks for a new house idle chatter and unsubstantiated gossip. Got that children? It's just a rumor at this point so don't go talking about this like it's gospel.

The Beige and the Brown

SELLER: Miguel and Yulanda Núñez Jr.
LOCATION: Brewster Drive, Tarzana, CA
PRICE: $1,750,000
SIZE: 2,754 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Almost a full acre & gorgeous panoramic Valley and City light views from almost every room of this spacious home plus 1,000 sq. ft. guest house all on a very private gated site. The living room features high beamed ceilings, hdwd flrs & walls of windows opening to the expansive patio, sparkling pool, spa & huge yard–all overlooking the Valley floor. There are 3 bdrms., 3 baths, den/office & gym plus very spacious Family rm. & large detached GH w/ bath & kitchen.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Every now and then Your Mama peruses the listings in some of the less glittery zip codes of Los Angeles. More often than not, we hit celebrity real estate pay dirt as we did when we landed up on the long time Tarzana home of actor Miguel Núñez currently listed for sale with an asking price of $1,750,000.

Although Mister Núñez is hardly a household name, his long list of boob-toob credits include a recurring role on the quickly cancelled sit-com Joey and a number of episodes of Tarzan. His film roles have been in such cinematic gems as Kickin' It Old Skool, Return of the Living Dead and Juwanna Mann.

Property records show Mister Núñuz and his wifey Yulanda purchased their near 1-acre mini-estate on Brewster Drive in October of 1997 for $588,000. The two story ranch style main house sits at the top of a long and gated celebrity style driveway and measures 2,754 square feet and, according to records, includes 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms all dee-pressingly done up in about 49,000 shades of beige and brown. Listen children, Your Mama ain't got a problem with brown or beige and we are well aware that a monochromatic color scheme can be effectively thrilling. However, that is clearly not the case here.

Anyhoo, the formal living room features some shiny wood floors, a peaked and beamed ceiling and a fireplace that has been rather ridiculously placed in the corner of the room. The beamed ceiling continues into the dining room which has a slate tile floor and a wall of windows opening to a terrace. The kitchen appears large enough and offers a good amount of counter space. Plus, we appreciate the Viking range and what appears to be a Miele dishwasher, but holy goddam, what in the world is going on with the institutional beige paint and that poor cabinetry that's trying and failing to look like some tired ol' country kitchen? Pleeze.

The master bedroom, where all the Núñez magic happens, is filled with even more, ugh, brown things and...oh, forget it. Y'all get the idea...it's brown. It's all brown. What more is there to say besides it's brown?

Listing information indicates the 1-bedroom guest house, located about half way up the long driveway, measures 1,000 square feet and includes a kitchen and bathroom, hardwood floors and an air conditioner that's vented out the window in the kitchen. Now children, we know for a fact that temperatures in Tarzana can bake the paint right off a big bodied Benz and having the a/c is necessary. But surely, there is a better solution than this.

Your Mama hasn't any idea why Mister and Missus Núñez are selling their house or where they might be going. And frankly, we don't care because we do not need or want to know what property they'll next be punishing with all their beige and brown things.

Rent the House of A Housewife

OWNERS: Mario and Ramona Singer
LOCATION: Pheasant Close S., Southampton, NY
PRICE: $295,000 (Memorial Day to Labor Day)
SIZE: 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...7,000sf Mediterranean Villa, six bedrooms & baths, designer decorated and mint condition. Grand over-sized rooms, soaring ceilings in 1000 sf living room and 10' ceilings throughout. Grand Master Suite with its own separate wing and a private balcony overlooking the water for spectacular sunsets. Make this your own hidden paradise, with very private backyard protected by trees, a bocce court, 25 x 50' heated pool, and a sunken har-tru tennis court concealed by rock gardens and endless flowering English gardens...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: There's really nothing like starting the morning with a little dee-lightful dirt like this about those catty and (publicity) crazy beehawtchas from The Housewives of New York City. However, more than the wonderful public bitchery and verbal beat downs that these women engage in with each other, we are most concerned with their real estate doings. The fine folks at City File did not disappoint yesterday when they reported that wild-eyed entrepreneur Ramona Singer and her handsome (but temperamental) huzband Mario have put their south of the highway Southampton estate up for lease with an asking price of $295,000 for the full summer season which runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The couple would also, according to listing information, be willing to rent the property in a more piecemeal fashion.

Property records show the intensely competitive couple, who make mounds of money selling religious doo-dads and gew-gaws to the faithful, purchased their so-called "Mediterranean Villa" on Pheasant Close South back in November of 1995 for $875,000. Records on file with Suffolk County show the house measures 5,280 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms while listing information states the house measures 7,000 square feet and contains 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms.

Listing information for the allegedly "designer decorated" house indicates the living room–a not particularly successful decorative study in burgundy and white–measures a whopping 1,000 square feet and includes double height ceilings, a trio of French doors that open the the rear terrace and the sort of swagged drapery that Your Mama genuinely wishes were outlawed, particularly in houses at the beach.

The formal dining room, with its cane backed chairs and Home Despot "chandelier" is about as ordinary as a dining room can be and the best that we can muster about the 40-foot long kitchen and family room area is that it's forty feet long. The basement has been finished and fitted with a pool table and a gigantic 70-inch flat screen tee-vee which will surely appeal to all the sports fans and porn lovers.

The master suite, according to listing information, occupies a separate wing and includes a private terrace looking over the back yard and a large white bathroom with horrid gold accents and more of that shameful swagged drapery. Seriously people, what's with the swagged drapery? Is this sort of window treatment meant to be elegant? Sophisticated? Maybe in a over the top pile like Suzanne Saperstein's in the Holmby Hills but in a house like this, where there isn't even any damn moulding, these swagged things always look to Your Mama like someone tacked a taffeta prom dress from 1986 on the damn wall.

The grounds include an entertainment terrace off the family room, a large swimming pool, a properly oriented and sunken Har-tru tennis court, a Bocce court (which we love), views over a phallic shaped pond, and colorful ever-blooming gardens that while a bit fussy and English for our personal taste do look quite lovely and well tended.

When in Manhattan, Mister and Missus Singer reside in a 2,496 square foot condominium on the 16th floor of an undistinguised doorman building on East 80th Street which records indicate they purchased in August of 1997 for $1,420,500. According to the always informative StreetEasy, the Singers briefly listed their 4 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom apartment in the fall of 2007 with an asking price of $4,495,000.

Let's Do The The Mish-Mash This Morning

Buckle your seat belts babies because Your Mama is sitting on a mountain of miscellaneous celebrity real estate rumors and juicy tidbits that we need to clear off our plate and we think are best dealt with in a mish-mash manner.

1.
All the celebrity real estate hounds can breathe a sigh of collective relief because after an exhaustive search through every damn fifteen million dollar house on the Westside of Los Angeles not only did Garfleck or Jenben (or whatever the gossip glossies call Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner) finally buy a new house, we hear they've sold their old one too. Halle-damn-lujah! That's what Your Mama calls a gen-u-wine real estate mitzvah.

As Your Mama mentioned back in early March, Jennifleck (or whatever) finally decided on a perfectly private and classic Cliff May designed ranch house in a posh part of the Pacific Palisades being sold by dee-vorcing super producer Brian Grazer and his third wifey, writer/producer Gigi Levangie Grazer.

The 3-acre compound on San Remo Drive first hit the open market way back in late 2006 with a sky-high asking price of $27,500,000. As the dueling duo's dee-vorce proceedings reached a fever pitch, the asking price dropped to a still quite pricey $24,500,000. Although we can not yet confirm a sale price with property records, Your Mama hears from the always scandalously well informed Donna Tellaitall that the security conscious couple coughed up, "20 million, or 19.7 or somewhere around that price."

The Garfleck's new digs, according to listing information, include a sprawling, multi-winged 8,000+ square foot single story residence that wraps around a large motor court at the end of a long, gated, and heavily secured celebrity style driveway. The main house includes 5 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms while a hidden guest house located under the backyard lawn has 2 more bedrooms and 3 more bathrooms. A third detached building holds an office, art studio, gym and, we hope, a terlit.

Miz Tellaitall also whispered in Your Mama's big ol' ear that Affner (or whatever) also managed to sell Miz Garner's long time house in Brentwood on N. Tigertail Road where they'd been shacking up since coupling up. Ages ago we heard through the gossip grapevine that the property was being shopped around off-market with an asking price around 8.5 million dollars, but Miz Tellaitall snitched that the selling price was somewhere in the neighborhood of 6.8 million clams. We'll all have to wait on pins and needles until the prop records clear to get a more accurate assessment of the numbers.

Now then, let's put this particular celebrity real estate baby to bed by toasting the happy home buyers with an early morning gin and tonic, a sincere hope of happiness in their new home and a very real wish they'll not go house hunting for at least 5 years.

2.
Although Your Mama had heard she was touring ten million dollar properties in less thrilling locales like Encino and Studio City, we recently heard from a gabby gal we call Virginia Slim who revealed to us that–as was widely rumored and reported–whistle stop wonder Mariah Carey and her man-mate Nick Cannon did indeed have a peep and a poke around Fleur de Lys, the inordinately opulent Holmby Hills estate that couture clad dee-vorcee Suzanne Saperstein has long had on the market with a wheeze worthy asking price of $125,000,000.

We don't know whether the belly baring barely dressed babe made an offer on the palatial property and, interestingly, late last night we received a covert communique from the wonderfully loose lipped Donna Tellsitall in which she hinted that Mrs. Mariah and Mister Carey are actually in contract to buy something else. Unfortunately puppies, that's all we know at this point so don't be bugging and bothering us for more information about that rumor.

3.
Several weeks ago, over a liquid lunch at a celeb-friendly restaurant on the Sunset Strip, our sexed up bean spiller Luwanda Courvoisier told us that Canadian crooner Michael Buble bought the house on Blue Jay Way owned by former ack-tress Michelle Johnson (Blame It On Rio). But with no records to be found of a sale, we simply sat on the information.

Then, a few days ago, we heard from Our Fairy Godmother in the Sunset Strip who whispered that Miz Johnson, who was once married to a pro ball player named Matt Williams, sold her house for just $4,100,000. It will no doubt delight the Chicken Littles to know that Miz Johnson's fully renovated residence first came on the open market back in February of 2008 with an asking price of $6,350,000, and number Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows is a whopping $2,250,000 more than Mister Buble allegedly paid.

Soon after speaking to Our Fairy Godmother in the Sunset Strip we got on the horn to the always well informed Lucy Spillerguts who also told us that it is also her understanding that Mister Buble is the buyer of the 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom Bird Street aerie that has vertigo inducing views over the entire Los Angeles basin and sits di-rectly across the street from a house owned (but not occupid) by that poor romantically unlucky Jennifer Aniston ladee.

4.
Speaking of real estate in The Bird Streets, Real People host turned entertainment tycoon Byron Allen has long been trying to sell a house high in the hills on Nightingale Drive. The 4 bedroom and 4 bathroom house was did up and done over by noted L.A. based designer Steve Hermann, the same man responsible for Christina Aguilera's former digs on Devlin Drive.

Mister Allen, who apparently never occupied the property, listed the 4 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom house more than two years ago with an asking price of $6,995,000. At some point, for reasons unfathomable to Your Mama, the asking price was increased to $7,995,000 even as the market sank like a damn stone.

But wise to the wisdom of pricing we clearly are not, because it was not until after the substantial price increase that someone actually wanted to buy Mister Bryon's real estate white elephant. And who might that buyer be y'all are surely wondering?

Well my pretties, we can not yet confirm this with property records because the deal is not yet done, but we hear from our dee-lishusly well informed (and wonderfully prolific) informant Donna Tellaitall that the buyer is none other than Megan Ellison, the young, allegedly lesbian daughter of billionaire Larry Ellison who back in early 2008, the children may recall, dumped a staggering $12,600,000 of daddy's dough to buy another Steve Hermann designed house on Nightingale Drive that happens to be right next door to Mister Allen's property.

When we inquired of Miz Tellaitall what Miss Ellison might want with the house next door to the one she already owns, she said she really did not know but speculated that perhaps the young ladee wants a guest house, a place to have parties, or maybe even that she wants to knock both houses down to build something else. Which would be, of course, inconceivably insane. But then again, far be it for Your Mama to question the strange real estate ways of the ridiculously rich.

5.
Hold on to your britches children because it looks like former CSI siren Khandi Alexander my have finally sold her four floor quoin-set khrib in the hills above West Hollywood which she listed for sale back in early 2008 with an asking price of $4,495,000.

By July, the price had twice been kharate chopped bringingthe current asking price to $2,995,000 where is has languished ever since. However, glory be to God or Allah or whatever figment of the imagination y'all pray to, because according to the MLS, Miz Alexander's Woodshill Trail khrib is in escrow. That's right, we said it, in escrow.

We're just gonna cross our fingers and toes and hope for the best because Your Mama likes the smoldering Miz Alexander and we honestly hope her real estate melodrama comes to a quick end.

6.
As the children know, hair challenged actor Nic Cage owns about 47 houses around the world. Once the global economy began to sputter, cough and keel over, he listed about 72 of them for sale including a 28-room Bavarian castle he bought in July of 2006. About a zillion recent reports reveal the eccentric celeb sold the 395-acre estate telling a German publication that, "Due to the difficult economic situation, unfortunately, I was no longer able to keep it."

Somewhat strangely, Mister Cage reportedly sold the 10 bedroom Schloss Neidstein to his German advisor for around $2,300,000.

Still on the market is Mister Cage's legendary Bel Air mansion which has been on (and off) the market for years. The asking price started in the stratosphere with an arrogant $35,000,000 asking price, but with no deep pocketed fool willing to pay that high a number, the price was recently reduced to a more manageable $19,750,000.

Keeping track of Mister Cage's extensive real estate portfolio is a full time job in itself and takes more time and effort than Your Mama has to give. Therefore we may not be entirely up to date on his real estate doings. However, as far as we know, he's still hoping to offload a number of his pricey properties including a large estate in Rhode Island, a private island in the Bahamas, and one of his two (or three depending on who you ask) houses in New Orleans. He may (or may not) also be hoping to sell his New York City pied a terre, which briefly appeared on the open market in late 2008 but was quickly removed for reasons unknown to Your Mama.

Nightlife Impressario Sam Nazarian Wants to Unload in The Birds

SELLER: Sam Nazarian
LOCATION: Oriole Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $18,950,000
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 5 full and 1 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Pride of place, cutting-edge design and stunning views make this a trophy property in one of Los Angeles' most fashionable celebrity enclaves. Secluded and discreet, all room look through walls of glass to unobstructed vistas of the entire Los Angeles Basin to the Pacific Ocean. Three bedrooms, five and one half baths. The media room and bar lounge open to an exterior resort with infinity pool and spa, outdoor dining, kitchen and an intimate viewing space with fire pit.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: For weeks now our dee-voonly well informed pal Luwanda Courvoisier and her sassy assistant Shantal Polo have been whispering in Your Mama's big ear that thirty-four year old L.A.-based entrepreneur Sam Nazarian was preparing to put his super slick house high above the Sunset Strip on the market. Sure enough, Mister Nazarian's decidedly modern and recently built residence on Oriole Way has indeed been hoisted onto the market with an eye popping $18,950,000 asking price.

The son of a telecommunications tycoon, young Mister Nazarian grew up wildly rich on the mean streets of Beverly Hills. He parlayed his childhood connections and–we hear but can not confirm–a million bucks given to him by his father for his high school graduation into a constantly expanding company called SBE Entertainment through which he owns a handful of celeb friendly hot spots in Los Angeles including Hyde, one of amateur porn star Paris Hilton's favorite watering holes. He's also got several restaurants including a chain of successful and trendy sushi joints called Katsuya where if y'all can manage to look beyond the over-done Phillippe Starck frippery you can eat some mighty fine fish. Young Mister Nazarian also has his fingers and wallet in several hotel partnerships including SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills, the legendary Saraha Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and the Ritz Plaza in Miami's still swinging South Beach.

The entrepreneurial Mister Nazarian's mini-empire does not stop there. Through Element Films, he's involved in producing movies Your Mama has never heard of like Pride and Mr. Brooks, and through an entity called Bolthouse.Vox Productions his peeps plan swank parties for companies such as Prada, Target and Maxim magazine.

Anyhoo, let's get on with the real estate. Mister Nazarian, a man used to living high on the hog, has spent the last few years building a concrete and smoky glass party pad which property records show measures 5,976 square feet spread across three floors of quintessentially cliché Los Angeles real estate fabulolosity. However, we're not sure if that figure reflects the current house or the one that stood on the property before Mister Nazarian got his hands on it.

Listing information indicates there are 3 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. Entered on the top level, the voluminous entry features clerestory windows and a glass floor. Although he may prefer they don't, Your Mama recommends ladees with an ounce of modesty make sure they're wearing granny panties under their mini-skirts lest all the folks at one of Mister Nazarian's frequent festivities will be looking right up at their woo. The entry spills into the dining room which features a wall of floor to ceiling glass that tilts out at a funky, architecturally unnecessary and vertigo inducing angle. Your Mama, who is a bit squeamish about heights, would sooner run push pins under our nails that stand up next to that wall of windows. The lower floor, according to listing information, includes a media room and bar/lounge that opens to the rear terraces making for a seamless flow of indoor/outdoor entertaining.

The substantial rear terrace includes multi-level decking, an outdoor kitchen, a covered living room area with a giant flat screen tee-vee, a sunken viewing platform with a fire pit for warmig the tootsies and an infinity edged pool and spa all of which are cantilevered over a super steep hillside and have staggering jet-liner views all the way to the Pacific Ocean. We may not care for this particular brand of residential hyperbole, but even Your Mama can understand the appeal of paddling around in Mister Nazarian's swimming pool late at night with the glittering carpet of lights of Los Angeles spread out below like a giant Light-Brite screen.

Your Mama confesses that we have never seen a single episode of the enormously successful boob toob program Entourage, but we hear from Miss Courvoisier as well as Babbling Babette that Mister Nazarian's house appeared in several episodes, a fact that might be fun for a future owner to brag to the ladees about but not one that adds any particular value to the property.

This is not the first high priced and high profile domicile young Mister Nazarian has owned. Back in 2004 he paid bootylicious Jennifer Lopez $12,500,000 for a huge house in The Summit–the same celebrity packed and guard gated community where that twisted sister Britney Spears has been living the last few years. Property records reveal Mister Nazarian sold the 6 bedroom and 9 bathroom single story sprawler in August of 2006 for $13,250,000 to rock stars Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale.

Mister Nazarian's high profile neighbors include but are not limited to pap shy Leo DiCaprio who owns the two properties across the street and Keanu Reeves who shacks up around the corner on Thrasher Avenue. It's also just down the street from the long time home of recently deceased Ricardo Montalban currently on the market with a blistering asking price of $20,000,000 as well as the home of t-shirt tycoon James Perse who wants almost five million clams for his 1 bedroom bachelor pad.

The Hilton's Summer House of Horrors

OWNERS: Rick and Kathy Hilton
LOCATION: Fordune Drive, Water Mill, NY
PRICE: $400,000 (MD-LD)
SIZE: 6 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...The grounds are secluded wand the home feature a large living room with fireplace and French doors leading to a large screened porch. There is a large library with fireplace, a large in in kitchen and large formal dining room. The ground floor also features a den and a master suite. The second floor features a a large master bedroom and bath, 2 additional bedrooms with baths and a large office/den space. The is also a 2 bedroom, 2 bath suite accessed by separate staircase. The lower level features a large den and several staff bedrooms with baths...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Let's all get in our mental time machines and go back to late 2007 when a dee-lishusly scandalous article in Vanity Fair magazine reported that Rick and Kathy Hilton, proud parents of tabloid celebutards Paris, Nikki and Barron, leased their house near Southampton, NY for the 2007 summer season to a tenant who was bitterly unhappy with the bedraggled condition of the property. One of Vanity Fair's chatty and catty sources, an unnamed someone who claimed to have been inside the sprawling house, went so far as to declare, "Everything in it is moldy and filthy. Most of the screens on the windows are broken. Their dogs are obviously not house-trained. But they don't see it. These are people whose daughter has sex on a tape, and they think that's fine."

Oh dear. Ouch.

Given that real estate beat down in the mainstream media, Your Mama would have imagined that Mister and Missus Hilton would have sooner sold the house than to lease it again to a stranger who might tattle to the press about their impressions of the property. But alas, like their heat seeking pap magnet daughter Paris, the elder Hiltons appear to be gluttons for public punishments too. That's right puppies, much to the surprise–and delight–of Your Mama, the Hiltons and their big shingled house in Water Mill are back at the summer rental rodeo. Those gossipy gals who pen the Real LI column at Newsday recently revealed that Mister and Missus Hilton have put their summer house in the Hamptons up for a Memorial Day to Labor Day summer lease with an asking price of $400,000.

Property records indicate Mister and Missus Hilton scooped up their fully hedged 2.7 acre estate on Fordune Drive in September of 1999 for $2,385,000. Although listing information states the house is approximately 10,000 square feet, records show the house measures just 6,994 square feet. Your Mama will posit with no authority or actual knowledge that the additional square footage is probably located in the finished basement.

The main rooms, according to listing information, include a double-height entrance hall with a gently curving staircase and a few fake flower accents, a living room that seems to be trying–and failing miserably–to appear as if it had been done up by chintz queen Mario Buatta, a dining room with two large round tables and one too tiny chandelier, a library/den with a fireplace and blood red walls, and an eat in kitchen that Your Mama is petrified to even think of because we feel deep in our snarky heart that not only is it depressingly dated, but we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that there's a grotesquely giant pot rack swinging from the ceiling.

According to listing information, there are six bedrooms and 7.5 bedrooms spread throughout the house. There is a main floor master suite as well as a second master suite on the second floor where there are two additional bedrooms with private poopers. Above the 3-car garage and accessible by a separate staircase are two more bedrooms with private poopers. Down in the finished basement, according to listing information, is a large "den" and several "staff rooms" and baths.

While the day-core of the entire Hilton house is a vicious assault on Your Mama's delicate decorative sensibilities, the basement is where the horror comes to its full fruition. Admittedly, we have a sincere and strong aversion to any finished basement, but this one is beyond the pale. Clearly no nice gay decorator has ever stepped foot in that basement with its disturbing dropped ceiling and painted red floor. And let's not even discuss the Pinocchio figurine on the étagère, the bizarre profusion of fake flowers, the sofa set and coffee table that look to Your Mama like they were dragged home from the damn dump, or those dark and deeply depressing "staff rooms." If Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter told our imperious housegurl Svetlana that she would be staying in one of those dank looking basement bedrooms, beehawtcha would surely sneak upstairs in the middle of the night and slit our throats.

The grounds of the Hilton estate include a circular drive, a sport court, a free form swimming pool and vast stretches of flat green lawns. The property sits a short skip from Fowler Beach, a sugar sandy spot widely known among Hamptonites as one of the places fancy gays gather to sunbathe. Why Missus Hilton doesn't just pop down there and snag one of the many nice gay decorator types laying around in their itty bitty bathing suits to give her a hand doing up her house is beyond our comprehension.

In addition to their in desperate need of a do-over hideaway in the Hamptons, Mister and Missus Hilton also own a recently rebuilt estate on swank Copa de Oro Road in Bel Air, CA which records show they purchased in March of 2004 for an undisclosed amount of money. The Hiltons occupied a large suite at the Waldorf Astoria for many years, but Hotel Harry tells us they vacated their lavish rooms at the super swish Manhattan hotel back in 2002.

More Celebrity Beach Houses For Rent

Since the high cost of coastal real estate seems to stir up all sorts of righteous anger and moral indignation in the children, Your Mama wants to stir that pot a bit more by heading back to the glittery shores of Malee-boo where a number of rich and famous folks are foisting their oceanfront homes on the rental market after failing to sell them.

Last week, we mentioned unlikely Tinseltown Lothario David Spade who put a fat price tag of $65,000 per month on his crib La Costa beach which he unsuccessfully attempted to sell in the summer of 2007 for $16,000,000.
Also for lease on La Costa Beach is one of the two Malee-boo beach houses (above) owned by rock star Ozzy Osbourne and his impressively ambitious wifey Sharon which they've had on and off the market since at least March of 2006 when it was listed with an asking price of $14,000,000. The controversy courting couple, who have recently had their new variety show called Osbournes:Reloaded banned from airwaves coast to coast, did chop the asking price all the way down to $10,995,000. But alas, the three story house remained un-bought and in October of 2008 the property was put up for long term lease with an asking price of $25,000 per month.

Listing information shows the brick-built house on bizzy and cacophonous Pacific Coast Highway measures approximately 4,500 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms spread over 3 floors. Vines crawl up the walls of the small and pretty front courtyard that leads to the front door which opens into the living room and dining rooms which have been done over by the Osbourne's nice gay decorator with a white on white day-core that includes white floors, white upholstered furniture, a white dining room table, white curtains and, well, you get the picture. There is a fireplace in the living room for those foggy mornings and chilly evenings and a row of three French doors open to an ocean front terrace where the never tan Osbournes probably never sunned themselves.

Behind the white dining room is a glimmering and well equipped all stainless steel kitchen that Your Mama feels quite certain would throw our sturdy-framed and despotic house gurl Svetlana into a screaming psychosis that could only be cured with six weeks of paid vacation in the Maldives.

The ocean side of the second floor is devoted entirely to the master suite which is, as expected, another study of white on white. Although the Shabby Chic meets Louis XIV (or XV or XVI whatever) day-core is not to our personal taste, we can recognize that the dark wood floors and the fireplace save the room from feeling like a damn icebox. There is also, according to listing information, a large walk in closet and a marble clad bathroom. The children will note the lace curtains behind the spa tub in the master bath which are, as y'all might imagine, an inexcusable offense to our rather delicate decorative sensibilities. Your Mama's decorating rule #691: Lace curtains are always unacceptable unless in a rural funeral home or that of a spinster shut-in whose Social Security does not afford her access to cable tee-vee or the internets where he or she could learn that lace curtains are nasty.

Also on the second floor is a paneled office/library where, much to our chagrin and dismay, the Osbournes have placed a number of exercise contraptions. We certainly understand the need for tee-vee people to stay unnaturally thin (the camera adding ten pounds and all), but we really feel a better solution for the needs of a home gym could have been come up with.

The third floor, according to listing information, is comprised of 2 ocean front bedrooms that open to a terrace where one of those horrid plug in type of hot tubs has been placed. A third bedroom/office at the front of the house offers its own not particularly peaceful private terrace with a bird's eye view of the inevitable summertime traffic snarls on the PCH.

After selling the Doheny Road house they made famous on their now defunct reality tee-vee program to make-up loving songstress Christina Aguilera in summer of 2007, Mister and Missus Osbourne decamped for the celebrity packed suburban guard gated community of Hidden Hills, CA where they reportedly plunked down around $10,000,000 for a 10,930 square foot house with a total of 6 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms.
A few miles up the beach from the Osbourne beach house is one one of the three ocean front properties owned by three time Oscar nominated actor Leonardo DiCaprio, a man whose sex appeal to the cinema going masses has never been shared or understood by Your Mama.

If the children will put on their thinking caps, they'll recall that in January of 2007, Mister DiCaprio quietly purchased a cool and contemporary house on the Encinal Bluffs area of Malee-boo for what property records reveal was $6,350,000. His other two houses are located on Carbon Beach and behind the gates of the uber-exclusive Malibu Colony where rich and famous sun their buns free of the prying eyes of paps and regular people.

For reasons entirely unknown to Your Mama or the Dr. Cooter, Mister DiCaprio flipped Encinal Bluffs property back on to the market in November of 2008 with an asking price of $8,999,000, a figure our bejeweled abacus shows was a stunningly optimistic $2,649,000 increase over what the publicity shunning actor paid for the place just about 18 months prior. After no buyer stepped up to pay that high price, the notorious ladee's man recently karate chopped the asking price to its current number of $7,999,000.

With no apparent buyers at that asking price either, in late February of 2009 Mister DiCaprio put the property out for long term lease with a monthly rent of $25,000. That number, big but not big for Malibu per se, not only buys gated privacy and stunning bluff top views of the Pacific Ocean, but a well proportioned and modestly sized 2 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom main house as well as two one-bedroom guest suites that share a kitchen and are located above the detached 4 car garage at the front of the property.

As just about everyone who cares anything about celebrity real estate already knows, Mister DiCaprio's purchased his primary residence in the Bird Street area of the Sunset Strip from Madonna which he recently finished remodeling. Additionally, Mister DiCaprio also owns the house next door to his Bird Street aerie, and reportedly purchased a New York City condo in the meant to be environmentally friendly Riverhouse building in the Battery Park neighborhood.

Let's Talk About LuAnn De Lesseps

The other day, the people at Page Six reported that two of gals from The Real Housewives of New York City were selling their Hamptons hideaways. That same day we discussed the East Hampton house of Kelly Bensimon, the the newest and haughtiest of the housewives. However, no one seems to care much for or about the too tan Bensimon babe because we've been inundated with requests to know a little something about self-anointed etiquette expert Countess LuAnn de Lesseps' crib in Bridgehampton, NY that was rumored reported to be listed for $9,500,000.

Well children, y'all know Your Mama has a truly unhealthy obsession with all those unsettling hausfrau and spent an embarrassing amount of time scouring the interweb looking for a listing for the dee-vorcing de Lesseps digs. We regret to inform that we came up with nothing. Well, next to nothing. Although we have no reason to disbelieve the Page Six people, as far as we can figure, the de Lesseps do not currently have their house in the Hamptons on the open market.

What we did find, thanks to listing information provided to Your Mama by Heidi in the Hamptons, is evidence that the de Lesseps have previously attempted to sell their house on Highland Terrace at least three times. The first time was in the fall of 1998 when it was listed for $3,200,000. The second time was in the fall of 2000 when it was listed at $5,500,000 and the third time, which was not a charm, in January of 2007 when it was listed with an asking price of $9,500,000. Even thought the Page Six report about the de Lesseps currently trying to shed some real estate does not appear to be accurate, given their three prior tries and selling, it would certainly not be surprising if the house popped up on the market again.

Property records indicate the Count and Countess scooped up their 2+ acre parcel back in November of 1995 for $600,000. Listing information shows the 6,500 square foot (approx.) house was built in 1996, which would indicate the French aristocrat and his American Indian wifey who desperately wishes she were a French aristocrat, custom built their house. Property records show the house has 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, but listing information from 1997 shows 6 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms. Interestingly, 2 of the bedrooms and 1 of the bathrooms are located in the finished basement, which is most likely where they stick their charwoman Rosie. In addition to the sunken tennis court, which is oddly located in the front yard, there is a 20' x 40' heated gunite pool in the backyard and an adjacent pool house with a half bath and outdoor shower.

Oddly enough, Your Mama actually knows this house because Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter have a good friend whom we'll call Poodle who used to to lease a former chicken coop turned boho beach shack every summer that's just a around the corner from the de Lesseps' spread.

It is Your Mama's understanding that in New York City the de Lesseps bed down in a narrow townhouse on East 62nd Street on the wrong side of Lexington Avenue. We've also heard through the gossip grapevine–but can not confirm–the the de Lesseps townhouse is leased rather than owned, a suggestion that is somewhat supported by our inability to find any property records that show that particular arm of the de Lesseps family as owning any real estate in Manhattan.

UPDATE: Mel B

We hear that Miz Mel B, aka Scary Spice aka one of Eddie Murphy's baby mommas, sold her damn house in the Mount Olympus neighborhood above L.A.'s Laurel Canyon for $3,140,000* after just 7 days on the market. That's right puppies, one week. We also heard–but can not confirm–there were multiple offers on the spicy contemporary domicile. The children will recall that she listed the property with an asking price of $2,999,999.

Although the sale price is a bit higher than the $3,000,000 she paid for the place in August of 2007, she's still losing a giant wad of money if you believe what we heard about Miz B dropping 800,000 or a million clams on renovations.

Your Mama's gonna keep our usually loose lips sealed on this one and let all the real estate agents and Chicken Littles throw down with each other about what a sale like this might indicate about the real estate market.

3.2.1. Go!

*Your Mama also heard through the gossip grapevine the sale price was $3,200,000, so we don't really know what the buyer has agreed to pay. We'll just have to wait until the transfer records hit the interwaves before we know for sure.

Model Milla Jovovich Wants to Unload Some Real Estate

SELLER: Milla Jovovich
LOCATION: Greenwich Avenue, New York, NY
PRICE: $7,000,000
SIZE: 4 bedrooms, 2 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Stunning Greek Revival 4 bedroom residential townhouse give you easy access to Greenwich Village's charming shops and transportation. Entering the foyer, you find yourself in a lovely restored home...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama's first memory of supermodel/actress Milla Jovovich is from the mid 1980s when she was snapped by famous photographer Richard Avedon for the pages of Interview Magazine. She was undeniably striking, but she was also just twelve years old and tarted up like one of those little girls that get dressed up in satins and sequins and paraded around by their usually hefty and homely mommies at child beauty pageants. (Sorry babies, we don't mean to be mean, but those practically pornographic child pageants get our blood up.)

Anyhoo, Miss Jovovich is one of the few moving mannequins who successfully made the transition from the catwalk to the sound stage. Although we don't think we've ever seen Miss Jovovich on celluloid, she's got a resume of gun-toting hottie roles about as long as Your Mama's arm.

Miss Jovovich, whose fiancee and baby daddy is director Paul W.S. Anderson (not to be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson, thank you very much), shuttles back and forth between New York City and Los Angeles where she has recently listed two of her homes for sale.

In Los Angeles, she shacks up in a desperately in need of a redo John Woolf designed house in the Beverly Hills Post Office that is currently listed with an asking price of $3,299,000. Okay, we confess, Your Mama does not really know if Miss Jovovich occupies the Woolf house when she's in L.A. because property records show that she owns another house up in the much maligned Mount Olympus neighborhood and her baby daddy owns a house on Alto Cedro Drive, also in the Bev Hills Post Office so it's not like she lacks for a place to lay her pretty head at night.

The informative Streeteasy website shows that Miss Jovovich purchased her Manhattan townhouse in February of 2005 for $6,375,000. Miss Jovovich first listed her downtown digs in May of 2008 with an asking price of $8,750,000. Since then, the asking price has been hacked to $7,000,000 and just a couple of weeks ago she also floated the house out as a rental with a monthly lease price of $20,000.

Listing information indicates the four floor and four bedroom house has 3.5 bathrooms, but Your Mama's boozy and beady little eyes count 2 full and 2 half bathrooms on the floor plan. Whatever the case, there are four terlits, one per floor.

The front door opens to a small foyer that leads to a petite parlor and a guest terlit. Your Mama is quite fond of this set up because it keeps the Chinese food delivery man from being able to peek inside your private quarters.

French doors swing open to a larger living room at the back of the house which is, balcony like, open to the floor below where the dining room and gore-may kitchen are located. The two floors are connected by a staircase with intricate wrought iron balustrades and mahogany banisters and the kitchen/dining room have stone floors warmed with radiant heat, a feature every one's tootsies appreciate in the freezing winter months.

The third floors is devoted entirely to Miss Jovovich's private boo-dwar and includes a large dressing area with a cedar lined walk in closet, a bedroom with a wood burning fireplace and French doors that open to a small terrace with antique cement balustrades, another walk in closet lined with mirrored French doors, a small atrium, a large bathroom (with a bee-day the children will note) and a laundry room.

The fourth floor consists of two smallish bedrooms overlooking the rear gardens, a large bedroom at the front with a fireplace and a single pooper for all three rooms. Since the kitchen is three lung busting flights down, someone has thoughtfully installed a handy dandy and much appreciated kitchenette on this floor. According to the floor plan, the roof top deck appears to have an outdoor shower, but don't nobody quote Your Mama on that because we're not certain of that.

Given that Miss Jovovich and Mister W.S. Anderson recently had a child they named Ever, it's not so surprising to Your Mama that she's selling off a couple of her houses. Birthing a baby is one of the many reasons real estate fickle famous folks sell and buy property. Our admittedly unscientific research shows other reasons include (but are not limited to) breaking up with a boyfriend, completing a multi-million dollar renovation, getting a big paycheck, and having a bad hair day.

If You Can't Sell It, Lease It

OWNER: David Spade
LOCATION: Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA
PRICE: $65,000/month
SIZE: 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Amazing architectural beach house on sandy La Costa beach with a beautiful pool and private patios available for seasonal rental. Unmatched design and comfort at the beach!

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Spring has sprung and all those people who still have money to burn on summer rentals have started to scour the streets and shores of Malee-boo and the Hamptons. Given the rather rough state of the economy, Your Mama imagines renters will be asking for some seriously steep discounts.

But that isn't stopping home owners from asking for big numbers. For example, itty bitty comedian David Spade (who reportedly gets all the ladees with his not so itty bitty spade) has put his ocean front crib on sandy La Costa beach up for a summer lease with an asking price of $65,000 per month.

It's perhaps not surprising given that Mister Spade wants to let out his daintily decorated beach house given that he had the place up for sale in the summer of 2007 with an exuberant asking price of $16,000,000.

Listing information reveals that in addition to 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, sixty-five grand a month in Malee-boo gets a rich renter garage parking for two cars, 4 fireplaces, a small swimming pool on the highway side of the house, a spa and a sauna for sweating out the booze toxins, a glassed in sun porch, an open plan living, dining and kitchen area with high ceilings, Shabby Chic day-core, wide-plank wood floors, a big daddy Viking range and French doors that open to a large deck facing the roiling Pacific Ocean.

Hank Azaria and His Baby Momma Buy a New Crib

BUYER: Hank Azaria
LOCATION: Perugia Way, Bel Air, CA
PRICE: last listed at $13,975,000
SIZE: 8,434 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Bel Air traditional in move-in condition. Master with his & hers and 4 additional bedroom/ bath up. Large living room opens to patio. Huge flat lawn and large pool. City and golf course views. New addition has family room, craft room, plus 2 bedroom and gym. Large gazebo by pool with fireplace and bath.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Not too long ago we were settin' around on the back patio sipping a gin and tonic and shooting the shit with our beloved bean spiller Nelly Knowsitall who, among other tidbits, informed Your Mama that Emmy winning actor Hank Azaria (The Simpsons, Huff, The Birdcage and etc.) purchased a new crib on posh Perugia Way in Bel Air.

As soon as ol' Nelly slid her boney I-haven't-eaten-solid-food-in-years backside into her black big body Mercedes Benz, we hopped on the interweb to see what we could find. It took some time to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, but records show the house Miz Knowsitall swears Mister Azaria and his baby momma Katie Wright bought is an 8,434 square foot mansion on that was last listed at $13,975,000. We don't know what Mister Azaria paid, so don't bother asking us because we are in a mood and we're likely to give you a verbal tail whipping.

The hedged, gated and secured traditionally designed house sort of resembles a Monterey Colonial (minus the adobe walls) and, according to listing information, includes 7 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms including a master suite with dual bathrooms. Each of the other four family bedrooms on the second floor have their own private pooper and there are two additional bedrooms in the recently added two floor extension that was somewhat haphazardly tacked on to the back of the house.

The architecturally wonky addition, according to listing information, includes a craft room, a gym, the two above mentioned bedrooms and a family room with views towards the Bel Air Country Club where according to their website, it may amuse the children to know, cell phones, dungarees, tank tops, shorts of any kind, swim wear, warm up suits and all sorts of other casual ensembles are strictly verboton on the golf course, in the clubhouse and, yes, even in the damn parking lot.

Anyhoo, a lovely if low ceilinged entrance hall leads to the large living room that features one of the property's four fireplaces, ebonized wood floors and a row of French doors opening to a rear terrace. Other rooms, according to listing information, include a dining room, a wood paneled library, a gore-may kitchen all did up with white cabinets and Carrara marble counter tops, a breakfast area, an office, den, a dance studio, an art studio, and a petite driveway leading to garage parking for three automobiles.

Outdoor amenities include a large flat lawn, a sport court, what appears to be a children's play house, a rectangular swimming pool and a circular spa. The flagstone terracing that surrounds the pool continues into the adjacent gazebo/pavilion where there is an outdoor living and dining area warmed by a fireplace and a blessed with a terlit, which is a good thing because it's a bit of a schlep from the pool deck to the house iffin you've got a bladder full of gin and tonics screaming to get out.

Mister Azaria and his baby momma's nearby neighbors include entertainment bigwig Robert Daly and his legendary songwriter wife Carole Bayer Sager who have a three parcel compound that property records show encompasses an 11,635 square foot main house, a 3,245 square foot guest house. Next door is philanthropist and children's rights do-gooder Nancy Daly Riordan (the former wife of the former mayor of Los Angeles) who was real estate gossip catnip back in the spring of 2008 when it was widely rumored and falsely reported that she sold her huge Malee-boo beach house for $68,000,000.

This is, apparently, not the only house in Mister Azaria's real estate portfolio. The likable actor has long owned a modest modern house on Bryn Mawr Drive in the Hollywood Dell neighborhood and, according to usually spot on Lucy Spillerguts, he also owns a 4 bedroom and 4 bathroom house in Beverly Hills that backs up to Franklin Canyon and sits across the street from the compound that kooky Sharon Stone bought back in 2006, never moved into, flipped back on to the market, tried to sell for an eternity and then, we hear from Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills, leased to some rich guy.

P.S. Sorry for the delay today. We had things to do.

Another Housewife Wants to Sell Her Crib

SELLER: Kelly Bensimon
LOCATION: Further Lane, East Hampton, NY
PRICE: reported to be $10,900,000
SIZE: 5,800 square feet 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms (as per listing)
DESCRIPTION: ...On 1.2 glorious acres close to the ocean and surrounded by historic estate. Four bedrooms, four and one half baths, plus maid's quarters. Large living room with fireplace, country eat-in kitchen with attached family area and fireplace, large playroom, and master bedroom with fireplace and luxurious master bath. Grounds feature sunny, open law area and heated gunite pool. There is also a two car garage and a full basement.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: For better or worse, those damn Real Housewives of New York City can't seem to keep themselves out of the dishy pages of all the tabs and gossip glossies. First we heard that new housewife Kelly Bensimon–whose claim to fame and money comes courtesy of her ex-husband, the wildly successful fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon–beat up on her sexy (and younger looking) boyfriend. Then we heard that the passively snide Countess Luann de Lesseps is being kicked to the curbed by her much older Euro-huzband who's reportedly trading her in for an Ethiopian beehawtcha in Geneva. Next we learned that Ramona–or Ramoner as our sassy gal pal at Scented Glossy Magazines calls her–is being black-balled by some of the concerned parents at her daughter Avery's private parochial school who do not wish to be associated by proxy to the tawdry reality program. And let's not even get started on the chimera that is Alex and Simon who, bless their little Becky Thatcher hearts, are blissfully ignorant of their intolerable pretensions and disturbing delusions of grandeur.

All of which is fascinating stuff if you watch the wild and wonderful reality program that is The Real Housewives of New York City but, of course, has zip to do with real estate. Well hold your horses children because the real estate gossip is starting to roll and this morning, thanks to the fine folks at Page Six in the NY Post, Your Mama learned that former model turned writer/gal about town Kelly Bensimon is looking to unload her house in East Hampton, NY. The NY Post reports an asking price of $10,900,000 for the South of the Highway cedar shingled cottage while listing information shows "Price Upon Request."

Property records indicate that Mister Bensimon purchased this property in August of 1994 for just $750,000. As far as we know from a brief crawl through the interweb, three times wed Mister Bensimon did not couple up with Miz Bensimon until sometime in 1996, so it would seem Miz Bensimon either got the property in their 2006 dee-vorce, or that the couple continues to share usage. Whatever the case, the Bensimon digs sit on 1.2 acres on one of East Hampton's most moneyed lanes.

We're sure some of the children are going piss and moan about how $10,900,000 is far to much for a house like this and that this house would cost about twelve bucks if it was in Nebraska or Alabama or Michigan (or anywhere else besides the Hamptons). Blah blah blah. The fact is, it is located in the high fallutin' Hamptons where the rich and wish they were rich come to bake their booties in the summer sun and plunk down $100 per pound for the legendary lobster salad at Loaves and Fishes in Sagaponack.

None the less, as high as the asking price for this house may be, the Bensimon beach house is, by far, one of the lesser residential lights on the pastorally gliztzy Further Lane where neighbors include Coach CEO Reed Krakoff who recently plunked down $24,000,000 for an historic estate called Lasata and who reportedly floated his recently rehabbed Manhattan townhouse quietly on the market for $52,000,000. Other high profile peeps on the block include hedge hogs Steve Cohen and James Chanos, residual rich comedian Jerry Seinfeld who is reported to have paid piano man Billy Joel around 32 million clams for his ocean front estate, art dealing honcho Larry Gagosian, and lavish living mutual fund financier Ron Baron who reportedly coughed up a rumored, reported, record breaking and wrist wringing $103,000,000 for a 40 acre ocean front property long owned by oil heiress and art patron Adelaide de Menil. Mister Baron, who also owned another Further Lane property for which he paid $23,000,000, was launched into the gossip glossy limelight back in 2003 when he hired private security to keep the gays from cruising in the dunes behind his house.

Anyhoo, listing information indicates Miz Bensimon's residence measures 5,800 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathroom plus "maid's quarters," a term we wish real estate agents would retire for something more generic and less demeaning sounding like staff quarters.

The exterior of the Bensimon crib was built to fit in with the architectural vernacular of the Hamptons, but the airy interiors are decidedly contemporary with glossily ebonized hardwood floors and a stainless steel kitchen that would have our imperious house gurl Svetlana screaming for a full time assistant whose only job would be to keep all that metal free of fingerprints and dog nose streaks.

In addition to formal living with its row of Palladian style French doors, listing information reveals indicates there is also an eat-in kitchen that flows into a family room with a vaulted ceiling and a brick fireplace, a play room and a first floor master suite with a third fireplace, French doors opening the rear deck, and a large bathroom with what appears to be black marble tile accents.

Although Your Mama finds Miz Bensimon to be impossibly dull, arrogant, childish, and all but inarticulate on The Real Housewives of New York City, we confess that we rather like her kooky taste in day-core. Whether she hauled her too tan booty around to all the good shops in New York or whether she sent out a well paid nice gay decorator to pick out the colossal cowhide ottoman and the big crazy shark that's mounted over the fireplace in the formal living room, we appreciate whimsy and casual sophistication of the the place. This kind of contemporay ain't for everyone, but Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are sick for white walls and bursts of bright colors in the furniture, art and accessories.

Records and reports indicate Miz Bensimon lives in a 6th floor unit in the fabulous people friendly Police Building on Centre Street in New York City while her ex-huzband occupies a separate apartment on the fourth floor. We're sure this set up is great for the ex-couple's kiddies, but it can't be so great when they run into each other and their respective "dates" in the magnificent lobby of the building.

Real estate in the Hamptons has sort of fallen off a cliff in the last several months due to the economic melt down and financial fracas on Wall Street, so it remains to be seen whether there is a buyer for Miz Bensimon's house who is willing to pay anywhere near her asking price. We shall see.

In other real estate news about those crazy housewives, the soon to be single Countess Luann de Lesseps has also listed her Hamptons hideaway for sale, reportedly with an asking price of $9,500,000.