A Bit of Mish Mash for Tuesday

Your Mama has a little mish-mashing to do this morning.

1.
The first item we would like to discuss is the comely casa on N. Catalina Street in Los Angeles' Los Feliz neighborhood that everyone besides Your Mama has been reporting is owned and being offered for sale at $3,697,000 by the exceedingly well paid prostie luvvin' sitcom star Charlie Sheen (Two and a Half Men) and his third legal ladee-mate Brooke Mueller.
According to the listing agents in a recent report in the increasingly anemic Hot Property column in the L.A. Times, after forking over $2,575,000 for the 4,179 square foot crib in November of 2007 and spending a year and boo-coo bucks rehabbing the residence, Mister Sheen and Missus Third Sheen have decided to sell the property (pictured above) because they desire bigger digs in which to raise their expanding family.

Now listen chickens, Your Mama does not know nuthin' from a dung beetle but according to three–that's right, three–of our better connected informants this is not entirely accurate because while Mister Sheen and Missus Third Sheen do own the property in question, they do not nor have they ever officially occupied the house in Los Feliz.

Each of the sources we questioned whispered in Your Mama's big ear that Mister Sheen and Missus Third Sheen live in a 7,924 square foot manse in the guard gated Mulholland Estates community in the hills above Sherman Oaks. Records show that Mister Sheen paid $7,200,000 for the 5 bedroom and 7 pooper property in April of 2006 during the bloody dee-vorce from his second ex-wife Denise Richards.

For what it's worth, Mulholland Estates is the same gated community that perplexedly successful Paris Hilton lives as well as tee-vee ack-tress Judith Light, British pop star Robby Williams (who has reportedly decamped back to the U.K.), boob-toob bench sitter Judge Greg Mathis, cheese ball crooner Tom Jones, letter turner Vanna White and a few others we won't bother to bother with today.

2.
Not that many if any of the children have anything that even resembles sympathy for them, but it's not been a good couple of weeks for Bernie and Ruth Madoff. Yesterday, to a cacophony of cheers and tears, the justifiably vilified Ponzi putz was sentenced to a stunning 150 years in the pokey for his grisly financial shenanigans that left thousands destitute. Last week, his bird-like wife Ruth was ordered to vacate the couple's posh apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side of which the NY Daily News somehow has interior photos*. Of note, according to the article, are the $35,000 carpet and the $20,000 tea table.

*Reader beware: The fine folks at CityFile have heard the photos were included in a coffee table book about Manhattan interior dee-zine style and are 20 years old. So really kids, who knows if this is the expensive frippery Miz Madoff is currently living with and soon to be giving up.

In addition to their nifty New York apartment–located in the same building where the Today Show's Matt Lauer paid $5,882,353 for a sixth floor crib in 2004 and expected to be sold for somewhere around seven or eight million clams–the gubbamint also seized the couple's water front property in Palm Beach, a beach house in Montauk, NY and a modest but expensive condo in the super swish South of France. All properties are expected to be liquidated and sold off with any proceeds going to the many victims of Madoff's Machiavellian scheme.

According to the floor plan that made its way around the interweb (and which we are not at all convinced is the actual plan of the Madoff penthouse), the East 64th Street apartment includes a private elevator landing that opens to a small foyer. At the front of the apartment is a living room with a fireplace, a corner library and dining room. A large butler's pantry separates the dining room from the small kitchen which in turn leads to 3 sinfully small staff rooms that all share just one terlit. The master bedroom includes a large dressing room and small bathroom. Each of the other three bedrooms also features a private pooper.

A new and salacious report in the always entertaining NY Post reveals that poor Ruthie, once a pampered woman who is now reduced to riding the subway like a common person, is having a wee of trouble finding new rented digs. Maybe one of her sons will make room for her in one of their pricey properties in New York or Greenwich, CT.

3.
Since everyone else is talking about the recently deceased King of Pop Michael Jackson, we figured we might as well too. Thanks to the ever intrepid Legal Eagle, Your Mama was directed to an article in the Daily News which recently reported that Mister Jackson had been planning to relocate to a England this week where he was scheduled to reside in a Chislehurst, Kent estate called Foxbury Manor during his much anticipated 50-show run at London's O2 Arena.

Foxbury Manor was built in 1875, stands three stories tall and measures either 22,000 or 26,000 square feet depending on which report one reads. Although the house originally had as many as 32 bedrooms, the current owners reduced the count in a recent renovation to just 11 behemoth bedroom suites including an 1,800 square foot master suite. The recently rehabbed estate is reported to have password-controlled entrances and state of the art security systems–natch–and, while hardly the circus that Neverland Ranch was, recreational facilities are reported to include a private lake, a music room, an underground cinema and an indoor swimming pool.

The rumored to have been impoverished Mister Jackson reportedly paid a whopping £1,000,000 to lease the Grade II listed mansion until February of 2010. But alas...

Of course, anyone with a damn television knows that Mister Jackson and his three children–who may or may not be his biological children according to scandalous report–were last living in a leased mansion on N. Carolwood Drive in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles for which he was reportedly paying $100,000 per month.

The fate of Mister Jackson's once beloved Neverland Ranch remains up in the air, but the family is reportedly planning a public viewing of Mister Jackson's dead body this Friday at the ranch even though he was adamant that he would never live on the property again because it had been tainted by the allegations of child molestation. Lard have mercy chickens. Your Mama can't think of anything creepier and less dignified than the spectacle that will surely come down during a public viewing of Michael Jackson's dead body at Neverland Ranch. All those Screaming Mimis coming from miles around clamoring to get a damn photo of his dead body? Come on. This don't have nuthin' to do with the real estate and certainly this ain't none of Your Mama's bizness, but does that wackadoodle Jackson family really think this is a good idea? Pleeze.

4.
In other Michael Jackson related real estate rumor and gossip...

Your Mama hears from a someone we'll call Wanda Wannachat that Mister Jackson's (former) manager a–mysterious man named Dr. Tohme R. Tohme who is neither a doctor of any kind or an "Abassador at Large" to the country Senegal as his website proclaims–is in contract to buy a $5,800,000 mansion in Bel Air. However, now that faux doctor's golden goose is no more all the real estate peeps involved are on pins and needles wondering if the deal is going to stick together. Just rumor and gossip children, rumor and gossip.

Update: Madonna

Everyone, including their sister's mother's husband's third cuzzin and her baby daddy's other baby momma already know that ever since mid-April of 2009 rumors and reports have been swirling and sliding down the gossip grapevine about the one and only material mommy Madonna snatching up a size queen friendly 12,000 square foot triple-wide townhouse on the Upper East Side of New York that was last listed with a fearsome $42,000,000 asking price.

Well children, according to the New York Times, the sale is finally confirmed and "brokers briefed on the transaction" are blabbing that the Kabbalah Kween (K.K.) paid a spine tingling $32,500,000 for the East. 81st Street property. Is anyone really surprised that the formidable K.K. was able to get the sellers to whack nearly ten million clams off the asking price? Your Mama sure isn't.

The 57-foot wide 5 story house, located at the very edge of what many New York City real estate snobs would consider an acceptable address, includes two entrances, a rare and private 2-car garage with direct entry to the house, 2 dry bars, 2 kitchens with 2 pantries and 2 dumb waiters, 1 elevator, 9 fireplaces, 38 closets (or something like that), 13 bedrooms, 12+ bathrooms, and a private 3,000 square foot garden where K.K. reportedly wants to keep a few chickens in a coop to remind her of Ashscome House, the 1,200 acre estate that she gave to the ex-Mr. K.K. Guy Ritchie in the big dee-vorce.

Interestingly, according to the New York Times, the house is out of range of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and can be doubled in size under current zoning laws.

Alan Jackson's Southern Spread

SELLER: Alan Jackson
LOCATION: Moran Road, Franklin, TN
PRICE: $38,000,000
SIZE: 19,000 square feet (approx.), 6 bedrooms, 7 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Magnificent offering w/o compare. Bordered by Harpeth River, surrounded by equestrian estates. Amenities include stocked & aerated lake w/boat house & 3 ponds, 20 car garage, gymnasium, 2 bed log cabin overlooking river, barn w/2 bed apt above,pole barn & more.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Sorry for the delay children, Your Mama has had our big BMW in the damn shop all morning (and for the fourth time) with a niggling problem those people cain't seem to get fixed and it has left us exhausted, humorless and in search of a giant pitcher of mid-day gin and tonics.

Every now and then a celebrity owned property comes along that's really more resort than residence. Such is the case with new country music super star Alan Jackson's legendarily leviathan Franklin, TN spread that recently landed on the open market with a not very down home asking price of $38,000,000. This turn of events probably isn't much of a surprise with Nashvillians since just a couple of weeks ago Mister Jackson actually hinted to the good people at Nashville Scene that he and the wifey were considering lightening their real estate load and settling down into something a little less high maintenance.

Although Your Mama lurves us some old school country crooning we knew not a thing about Mister Jackson when we received word of the listing from Franky Franklin. A quick sweep across the interweb learned Your Mama that his heyday was the 1990s when he earned a slew of Country Music Award nominations, has been inducted into the Grand Ole Opry and in 2001 wrote some sort of sappy patriotic paean regarding the events of nine-eleven that shot him to the top of the charts, catapulted him back into the mainstream limelight, made him the belle of the NASCAR ball and more than likely earned him more money than Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter will see in a long lifetime.

In 1993, after buying up 135 rural acres in Franklin, TN bordered on two sides by the slim and winding Harpath River, Mister Jackson and his memoir writing wifey Denise spent two years building a massive and many-pillared monument to their new found wealth and success which is reported to measure in at around 19,000 square feet. Mister and Missus Jackson quaintly dubbed the estate Sweetbriar, which this Yankee imagines is pronounced Sweetbraher by all those people with that wonderful southern drawl that Your Mama likes so much.

Listing information for the colossal faux-Colonial style mansion on Moran Road reveals there are 6 bedrooms and 9 terlits spread throughout 7 full and 2 half poopers. The front gates open to a long, dead straight drive way that leads a circular motor court and the entrance hall has maple floors and two circular staircases rising to the family's private quarters at either end. To the east of the long French door lined entrance hall, according to listing information and previous reports, is a hotel lobby-like living room with shiny wood floors, adouble height ceiling, a monolithic curved wall of paned glass at one end and a Chevy-sized chandelier, The massive Mexican-marble fireplace surround is identical twin of the one in the adjacent dining room. Nearby is Mister Jackson's private paneled office where he reportedly keeps half a dozen gee-tars, a few of his many music awards and a tie that reportedly belonged to country king Hank Williams.

The west wing contains the oddly configured, maple and travertine floored country kitchen that is open to an informal breakfast room and the humongous family room anchored by a massive stone fireplace, filled with a truckload of beige and brown comestibles, rising to a double height ceiling with two very tall walls of paned glazing, and opening into a glassed in porch that looks out over the cee-ment pond and the pancake flat rear grounds of the estate.

Stuffed from carpet to ceiling with all things beige and gold and neutral colored, the master suite is far too Architectural Digest-y for Your Mamas personal preferences in home day-core. There are heavy moldings, a coffered ceilings, one of the home's 5 fireplaces and dual bathrooms including a beige and brown marble checker-floored number with a circular soaking tub, weird mood lighting and a ficus tree in the corner that we'd bet everything we have is fake.

The vast grounds include a 20-car garage where Mister Jackson keeps all his many vintage automobiles, a separate barn-like building that houses the indoor tennis and basketball court, several fenced pastures, 3 small ponds plus one 10 acre pond that has been stocked with fish and includes a three bay boat house and a white sand beach, a lake side barn with a 2 bedroom guest or staff apartment on the second floor and a large stone patio with an outdoor fireplace overlooking the lake where the Jackson's could host cook-outs and fish frys for 100 or more of their closest friends. And let's not forget the ATV/go cart track or the grass airplane runway which Mister Jackson (no longer maintained). At the far end of the property, as far from the main house as is possible sits a 2-bedroom log cabin that is perched along the gurgling river Harpath River.

It's quite possible the country music couple have already purchased their next, smaller and less lavish property. Property records show the Jackson's own all kinds of property around Nashville including a lake side property in Smithville where Mister Jackson will perhaps next hang his cowboy hat.

A Big Deal in the Big D

SELLER: Larry and Joyce Lacerte
BUYER: Kelcy Warren
LOCATION: Park Lane, Dallas, TX
PRICE: rumored to be $30,000,000-ish
SIZE: 26,620 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 10 full and 6 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: A big estate in Preston Holler

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In an era when foreclosures, falling home prices, and real estate doom and gloom is the order of the day, it's easy to forget that a lot of rich people are still filthy, stinking, vaingloriously rich and tossing big money around on palatial properties like it was 2005. One such Daddy Warbucks is Texas energy executive Kelcy Warren who recently forked over a spectacular amount of money for the undeniably lavish and architecturally dignified Dallas, TX estate of software tycoon Larry Lacerte and his wifey Joyce.

Your Mama first learned of the tremendous transaction from dee-voon Dallas real estate gossip Candy Evans who spilled the juicy beans about the purchase back on June 17. According to information provided to the enviably well informed Miss Candy, the 8.7 acre estate on posh Park Lane in the pricey Preston Holler* area of Dallas was first quietly shopped around last year with a hair raising asking price of $45,00,000. That rumored figure was reportedly reduced to a still hair raising $40,000,000. Then, according to Miss Candy, along comes Warbucks Warren who is believed to have dropped somewhere around $30,000,000 for the property. If true, and we have no reason to believe it is not because Miss Candy does not fool around with her facts, the sale would represent the largest amount of money ever paid for a pad in Old Preston Holler.

Texans proudly declare that, "Everything is Bigger in Texas" and children if y'all have ever been to Texas–and Your Mama most surely has–then you know them sun-kissed tawny Texans love them some big trucks, big churches, big hair, and big bank accounts. At a boo-teek hotel-sized 26,620 square feet, the Lacerte/Warren mansion certainly lives up to that beloved stereotype. Property records show the English-y, ivy covered and multi-winged monster-manse was built in 1992 and includes garaging for 12 cars, 6 bedrooms and 16 terlits** divided among 10 full and 6 half poopers. Have mercy. Your Mama hopes the Warrens get on the telephone to a reputable domestic employment agency right quick because they are going to be in serious need an army of minimum wage gurls to keep all those beds made and terlit bowls dinner plate clean. They will also, presumably, require a busload of well-coiffured and tight-panted nice gay decorators to be up in their new crib spending their money on the sort of swagged drapery, 18th century commodes, porcelain snuff boxes, Fabrege doodads and Louis the Something gewgaws that will make their new money look old.

Unfortunately we know precious few details about the interior spaces of the monster mansion, but there are reportedly loads of elaborate carved woodwork, cast hardware and hand-cut stone, natch. According to Miss Candy's report, the recreation facilities include a racquetball court, an exercise room, a wine cellar and tasting room, a bowling alley, tennis court, a children's play ground, a damn baseball diamond with a lighted scoreboard, a small lake, an orange conservatory next to the interlocking Koi ponds where it is rumored the Lacertes kept more than a million clams worth of Koi and, hold on to your britches kids, a near-Olympic-sized natatorium with adjacent locker rooms. A natatorium! Good grief.

After checking around with a couple of Your Mama's peeps in the Big D we learned that word on the real estate gossip grapevine down Dallas way is that Mister Warren is carrying a fourteen million dollar mortgage on the property. We can not confirm that figure but just thinking about a fourteen million dollar mortgage makes Your Mama need a damn nerve pill.

Preston Holler is one of Dallas' finer and most expensive neighborhoods where many of the swank streets are lined with mansions that make Beverly Hills look like the damn ghetto. The Holler is home to Texas bigwigs like H. Ross Perot, T. Boone Pickens, Mark Cuban, actor Luke Wilson and of course, our esteemed former president George W. Bush and his librarian ladee-mate Laura.

*Your Mama is well aware that the neighborhood is called Preston HollOW and not Preston HollER, but we like saying Holler.

**Since there was no official listing for the property, these figures are from public property records and may or may not reflect an accurate count of bedrooms and poopers.

A Little News About Neverland

According to a well-timed article in the Wall Street Journal, in the months preceding the untimely but not entirely shocking death of Michael Jackson–be honest people, he hadn't looked healthy 10 years–Neverland Ranch was being cleaned up, fixed up and readied for sale by Colony Capital, the real estate investment company that acquired the gigantic Los Olivos, CA estate last year in some sort of joint effort with Mister Jackson to save the property from foreclosure.

Mister Jackson purchased the 2,600 acre property with it's 13,000 square foot Tudor style main house back in 1987 and proceeded to build his own private wonderland that was really more State Fair than private residence.

Since vacating the property in the aftermath of his last child molestation trial in 2005, the zoo has been emptied out, the carnival rides removed and the contents of the house and his personal property catalogued for a highly publicized exhibition and auction that was cancelled at the last minute due to an agreement between the auction house and Mister Jackson's camp.

The status of the objects is in question but it has been reported (somewhere but we don't recall where) that they are (allegedly) in the possession of Mister Jackson's self-proclaimed spokesman and manager Dr. Tohme R. Tohme (who is not a doctor of any kind) and is not the actual physician who lived with Mister Jackson in his $100,000 per month leased mansion in the Holmby Hills. However, if Michael Jackson's history tells us anything, we should expect that (not a) Dr. Tohme will seek to turn a buck from Mister Jackson's belongings and claim it's for the children.

What will become of Neverland Ranch now is any one's guess but, crass as it may be to say out loud, money is money and Your Mama would bet everything we have the good people at Colony Capital, who reportedly think the property is worth in excess of $70,000,000, will make every effort to cash in on their investment in any way can.

Hold on to your boots children, because it's going to get ugly.

Hunky Jason Staham Lists Sexy Hollywood Condo

SELLER: Jason Statham
LOCATION: N. Vine Street, Hollywood, CA
PRICE: $1,395,000
SIZE: 2,140 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Simply the BEST & largest unit in one of the most architecturally significant buildings on W. coast. This *CELEBRITY OWNED* Uber chic loft featrs exquisite upgrades inc. Viking applncs & island, dsgnr bthrms, hrdwd floor, hand carpentered closet & pantry. ONLY the 8th floor features over sized windows to gaze directly at the sparkling lights at Sunset beneath the Hollywood sign nestled behind the iconic Capital records building from your living room, a loft and home that defines sophistication.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Yesterday, just before receiving word that Michael "The White Lady" Jackson passed to the other side, Your Mama heard from Mr. Smiley who directed our nosey eyeballs towards a "celebrity owned" condominium in at The Broadway Hollywood building listed for $1,395,000.

Not to toot our own horn or anything but it took Your Mama all of 47 seconds to figure out that the 8th floor loft-condo is owned by British born action flick actor Jason Statham who property records reveal bought the 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom unit in June of 2008 for $1,543,515 which means if our bejeweled abacus is correct, even if Mister Statham gets full price (and that is quite unlikely in today's market) he's take a loss of nearly $150,000.

Mister Statham, a former Olympic springboard diver and moe-dell, has appeared in a long list of films starting with ex-Mister Madonna's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the suggestively named Snatch and Revolver. He went on to make a slew of other cinematic gemstones that Your Mama confesses we've never seen nor heard of and, as per his IMDB reh-zoo-may, he is currently a hot property in Tinseltown with three films in production, another announced and two more in development. No wonder he's selling his starter condo...he's probably moving on up to something more worthy of his shooting star.

Let's leave alone the listing agent's loud declaration that the apartment is "CELBRITY OWNED" and move beyond the listing's high-larious hyperbole ("one of the most architecturally significant buildings on the W coast?" Really? It's a nice building, but really? On the entire wes coast?) and try to see the 2,140 square foot apartment for what it is.

The lofty corner unit centers around a large living room area with a wall of tall windows that looks down on gritty Hollywood Boulevard where if you look hard enough you can still find a street walker or two, over the cylindrical Capital Records buildings–which might actually be of the most architecturally significant buildings on the W coast–and towards the famed Hollywood sign. The living room is defined and anchored by colossal snow white sectional sofa wraps around a low, white coffee table both of which sit on a white shag rug. It all looks very "sexy" and lounge-like but, much as we can appreciate a white sofa, this is not a set up that would work well in Your Mama's house because we know deep in our snarky soul that our sassy house gurl Svetlana would rather light that shit on fire than try to keep it clean.

The kitchen has all the right appliances and a large (stainless steel?) island for slicing, dicing, chopping and mixing, but the dramatic mood lighting is really quite silly. Yes chickens, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter have indirect lighting in our cookery too, but this kitchen looks like it's trying way to hard to be some sort of velvet rope nightclub rather than a place to boil up some pasta and make a damn tuna sandwich.

At least one of the two "bedrooms" is nothing but a doorless cubby off the living room which means that every passed gas, deep breath or rustle of the sheets can be heard by any and everyone else in the apartment. This is fine if you live alone and bring a plastic titted bimbo or two home every now and then from the too trendy Philippe Starck designed sushi joint Katsuya on the ground floor, but what happens when your damn mother comes for a visit? Larhd have mercy it gives Your Mama the chills up and down our fat back just to think of that.

The master bathroom, a black and white and mirrored cliché of pooper glamour, includes two sinks, shiny black counter tops, a separate tub and shower and acts as passage to a fully customized and fitted walk in closet/dressing room. Custom kitted walk-in closets are always a nice feature but Your Mama is concerned that there is not a window in the bathroom because no matter how powerful that electric vent in the cieling is, the crap smell will still creep into the closet and attach itself to clothes and shooz. Not pretty.

While living up in a condo in the heart of Hollywood is not appealing to many Angelenos any more than that shacking up above Times Square is the residential dream of many New Yorkers, the 10 story Broadway Hollywood building, built in 1927 and used originally as the B.. Dyas Specialty Emporium, is a designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (#664) and does offer residents original architectural details and (for better or worse) Kelly Wearstler designed common areas as well as a number of desirable amenities such as valet parking, a fitness center and a swimming pool, spa, sun deck, outdoor fireplace and lounging cabanas up on the roof. It's unclear if the building has a 24/7 doorman, but it should if it don't, okay?

The Broadway Hollywood building opened its doors amid a thunderstorm hype and hoopla at the tail end of the real estate run up in Los Angeles and the frenzy (and some say marketing ploy) brought a lot of big name buyers to the building including Victoria Secret model Emma Henning, the nice gay decorator with the over-processed hair Kenneth Brown (who had been tyring to sell or lease his unit), Charlize Theron, Jack Osbourne, designer Sami Hayek (that would be Salma's brother), Danny Masterson and and that seemingly washed up ladees man Wilmer Valderama. It's unclear to Your Mama is any of these people actually occupy these apartments or if they were "purchased" as investments.

Property records show young Mister Statham also owns a house up on Rising Glen Road in Los Angeles that he bought in June of 2005 for $2,400,000 as well as on ocean front crib in the super celeb friendly and guard gated Malibu Colony that was purchased just a few days ago (in June of 2009) and which we'll discuss at greater length when we have a few minutes.

UPDATE: Lenny Kravitz

After receiving a covert communique from Billy Baldwin (not the actor Billy Baldwin, but another Billy Baldwin) that Shaquille O'Neal had finally sold his shaq on Miami's Star Island, Your Mama spent a little time digging around on the interweb to sort out the haps with dirty looking rock star Lenny Kravitz's recently rehabbed residence on Miami's guard gated Biscayne Point which had been listed for sale in late March of 2009 with an asking price of $2,850,000.

Well butter beans, believe it or not, without a single price reduction the 5,717 square foot house has been sold. According to listing information, the deal has yet to close but even in a slumping real estate market and despite many naysayers saying Mister Kravitz was real estate krazy a deal has been made.

Listing information reveals the house includes 3 bedrooms and 2 full and two half custom marble bathrooms, polished concrete floors and a custom wall of glass that slides open turning the living room into a giant covered porch. The back yard area has been completely tiled in some sort of expensive stone with a rectangular swimming pool and spa sunk between the house and the 1,100 square foot tiled dock.

Unfortunately, Lady Good Fortune is not smiling on Mister Kravitz up in New York City where he has been trying to unload his 6,000 square foot party penthouse on SoHo's cobble stoned Crosby Street. The 5 bedroom and 7 bathroom building topper has been for sale on and off for a good number of years with an asking price as high at $19,500,000 and as low as $12,000,000. Currently the asking price sits at $14,995,000.

UPDATE: Mister Kravitz got $2,450,000 for the property.

UPDATE: Shaquille O'Neal

Hold on to your britches children because according to (not the actor) Billy Baldwin, supah-tall basketball player Shaquille O'Neal's South Beach property saga is over. That's right, Mister Shaq has finally sold his house on Miami's pill-shaped and celebrity stuffed Star Island. For those 4 or 7 children who don't already know the story, see if y'all can follow along Mister Shaq's bumpy real estate road.

The professional dribbler purchased the 19,440 square foot water front beast in 2004 for $18,800,000 and less than one year later flipped it back on the market with an asking price of $32,000,000, a figure which eventually rose to a hair raising $35,000,000 and was later reduced back down to $32,000,000.

Sometime in late 2007, before baseballer Alex Rodriquez filed for dee-vorce and before he was catting around with the Kabbalah Kween Madonna and long before he starting getting bizzy with Hollywood hottie Kate Hudson, word slipped down the real estate gossip grapevine that Mister A-Rod was in contract to buy the lavish but decoratively banal 8 bedroom, 11 full and 3 half pooper pile for somewhere in the $25-27,000,000 range. But alas, like his marriage, Mister A-Rod's deal for the Shaq Shaq did not stick.

In late 2008 Mister and Missus Shaq dropped the asking price to $29,000,000 and after about three years on the market, the real estate weary O'Neals finally and reportedly accepted an offer of $19,000,000 from a wealthy bizness man we heard (but can not confirm) was property developer/Broadway producer Peter Fine. But again...alas...That deal was, too, a no go.

After that debacle, in January of 2009, Mister Shaq's monster manse returned to the market with an asking price of $25,000,000 which was chopped to $22,500,000 in March.

Today, drum roll please, word is getting around that Shaq has finally sold his Shack. In fact, the transaction has closed. Yes, closed. No word yet on who coughed up how much moolah, but the details will surely slip out like water down a slide soon enough. Given that the on again/off again/on again Mister and Missus Shaq (reportedly) accepted an offer of nineteen million in late 2008, Your Mama is hard pressed to believe anyone would pay a penny more than 18 for the place. But we shall see, we shall see.

The last we heard Mister and Missus Shaq were shacking up in a sprawling rented mansion in Paradise Valley, AZ but honestly chickens, we're not sure if they're still living there or if they've moved on to other more permanent digs. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

UPDATE (later same day): News is now leaking out that the Shaq's shaq sold for $16,000,000 which is not only nineteen million less than the thirty-five Mister and Missus Shaq once wanted, it's also according to our bejeweled abacus a bone crushing $2,800,000 less than they paid for the place back in 2004. Just because he's filthy rich, does not mean that don't sting more than just a little.

Who might the buyer be inquiring minds want to know? According to the South Beach Real Estate Blog the buyer is smooth and large chested Russian billionaire Vladislav Doronin, who happens to be the current man-friend of volatile supermodel and phone thrower Naomi Campbell. We hear the fetching–and reportedly married–property tycoon already owns a pied a terre at the swank Setai in South Beach but guess he figured it was time for something more substantial.

Also, Desert Donna heard our earlier cry and whispered in Your Mama's big ol' ear that Shaq and family have in fact vacated the Paradise Valley, AZ house they were leasing and which is back on the market (and being touted as a former residence of Mister Shaq) with an asking price of $3,600,000 after first being listed at $6,500,000. Looks like thinks are tough all over.

Mister Shaq was just this week traded to some team in Cleveland, OH where he will no doubt rake in a mountain of money so all you children living up around Cleveland way ought to be sure to snitch to Your Mama about where he ends up once he settles in.

Madge Wants Chickens in New York?

Your Mama's caveat: This story comes from a recent article in The Mirror, a naughty tabloid paper in the U.K., so make of it what you will children.

As part of her dee-vorce, the Kabbalah Kween (K.K.) was compelled to surrender Ashcombe House to the ex-Mister Madonna Guy Ritchie. Trouble is, the megalomaniac music icon loved Ashcombe House and apparently she misses her old 1,200 acre country estate in Wiltshire.

"Sources" told the people at The Mirror that the K.K. is so busted up over having to move all her cone bras and Pilates outfits out of Ashcombe House that she's documented the Georgian manor house room by room so that she can have her architect(s) and coterie of nice gay decorators re-create the look and feel of Ashcombe House in the triple wide townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan which she's rumored to have purchased for around forty million American clams. (Although the property is no longer available according to Street Easy, we've yet to locate any records of a completed transaction.)

The Mirror's "source" goes on to claim that not only has K.K. sent a crew of underlings out to all the Englishy boo-teeks in Manhattan looking for "candelabras, side tables, and period chaises," she's ripped up the vintage wood floors and replaced them with terracotta tiles similar to those at Ashcombe House and, here's the kicker kids, she reportedly told pals that she'd like to have some chickens...in New York.

We know that as far as real estate snobs are concerned this townhouse is located in the boonies of the Upper East Side, but it isn't really the boonies and if K.K. thinks she's going to have some kind of damn farm up on East 81st Street she is out of her ever loving mind. Roosters on the Lower East Side...sure. Uptown chickens? Hmm. Next thing you know she'll want to put a cow up on the roof for milk and rabbits down in the basement for stew. Pleeze woman, if this is true (and we're not sure it is) you better get a damn grip on yerself before you really stray out into the deep end of reality.

photo: Madonna feeding her chickens at Ashcombe House (Vogue Magazine)

Bob Weinstein Lists and Lowers

SELLER: Bob Weinstein
LOCATION: Central Park West, New York, NY
PRICE: $29,750,000
SIZE: 6,500 square feet (approximately), 6 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...A grand stairway leads to six large bedrooms, seven and one-half bathrooms, a paneled library, huge family room, formal dining room, superb kitchen, laundry room, two terraces, three fireplaces and four exposures. The numerous custom details include three zoned air conditioning and Crestron system for sound and lighting...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: After all the mishegoss yesterday afternoon about Shorty and Mousey Cruise snatching up a townhouse in the West Village, Your Mama is in a New York state of mind so we're going to piggy back on real estate gossip Max Abeleson's recent report regarding movie producer Bob Weinstein listing his big digs at the fabled, fabulous, tri-towered and tri-lobbied Beresford building that architect Emory Roth designed in 1929 to lord over the high-priced corner of Central Park West and West 81st Street.

Some of the children will recall that just a couple of short weeks ago young Mister Abelson snitched that Bob Weinstein quietly heaved his 14 room doo-plex on the market with an asking price of $34,000,000. Apparently there were no deep pocketed buyers at that figure because yesterday Mister Weintstein's Upper West Side sprawler hit the open market with a significantly lower but still blistering asking price of $29,750,000.

Records and reports reveal Mister Weinstein–whose company is much rumored be in a financial freefall–purchased the (approximately) 6,500 square foot doo-plex in September of 2004 for a flat $20,000,000. Although the bulk of the apartment (and both of the terraces) sits on the upper level, the main living areas are on the lower level. There are beautifully done herringbone wood floors throughout the main floor which includes a long foyer with a gently curving stair case, a "coat room" as large as some studio apartments, a living room with fireplace and an adjacent library where the guest pooper and wet bar are located. Behind the foyer is a large playroom and terlit for the kiddies and a barely decorated dining room sits between the foyer and the vaguely Euro-Parisian style eat in kitchen with white cabinets and what appears to be Delft tile crawling up all the walls. A back stair case tucked behind the stove leads to a large laundry room and staff bedroom which not only has its own pooper but will actually accommodate a full sized mattress.

Upstairs a second, book shelf lined library (that's right children, a second library) includes a fireplace and gives access to the smaller of the doo-plex's two terraces. Three large family bedrooms all feature private poopers and a fourth somewhat smaller bedroom/office appears to be lined with book shelves. A well positioned half bathroom in the hallway means not having to trek through a bedroom when nature makes its inevitable call while being psychically and dee-lishusly brutalized by re-runs of The Real Housewives of New Jersey in the upstairs library.

The master suite is entered through an entrance gallery that directs traffic into the vast bedroom or into the master bath. The bedroom stretches nearly 30 feet long with a third fireplace and provides access to the larger of the two terraces. It's a bit of a shame that the doo-plex's largest terrace is only accessible through the master bedroom because who wants to pay twenty or thirty million clams for an apartment only to have to drag guests through the master bedroom when they come over to sip gin and tonics and watch the sun set over New Jersey? The children will also not that the floor plan does not indicate a terlit (or bee-day) in the master bathroom, however we can all be assured that that important apparatus was only forgotten on the floor plan and not in real life. Between the bedroom and bathroom is a large dressing room with built in cabinetry and two happy marriage making walk in closets. One of Your Mama's many unrequested recommendations for a drama-free household is to not share closet space with your spouse. Everyone needs a little private space of their own.

Other notable features include the large pantry off the upstairs laundry room, the three zone air conditioning and the Crestron system that controls lighting and audio. The main drawback, and it's a biggie for an apartment of this cost, is that the unit faces primarily south...good for the light but not so good for views of Central Park which can only be seen obliquely and over the roof top of the Museum of Natural History. Don't misunderstand Your Mama, the view is still quite spectacular, but is it thirty million dollars magnificent? We'll let you and prospective buyers be the judge of that. A second bugaboo is the $10,076 per month maintenance charges which might be pocket change to Richie Rich types, but it's still a lot of dough to cough up each month in addition to whatever mortgage might be obtained.

Even after selling his doo-plex at the Beresford, Mister Weinstein will still be rich with residential real estate. Property records and previous reports indicate that in May of 2009 Mister and Missus Weinstein paid $15,000,000 for a 4-floor townhouse on West 70th Street, in April of 2008 he forked over $1,050,000 for a ground floor one bedroom hideaway on West 67th Street and in January of 2005 he plunked down three million clams for a 2,914 square foot downtown spread in the very same Astor Place building where Mister Max Abelson's baby-faced boss-manJared Kushner–who is, incidentally, afianced to Ivanka Trump–recently scooped up a $3,225,000 crib.

Other famous shareholders at the Beresford include the not so funny anymore Jerry Seinfeld and his baby factory wifey Jessica, former foot-in-her-mouth Cosmopolitan queen bee Helen Gurley Brown, volatile tennis ace John McEnroe, fancy furrier Dennis Basso, wildly rich Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, legendary film director Sidney Lumet, mustachioed exposé journalist John Stossel and Academy Award winning actress Glenn Close who in May of 2005 paid $6,025,000 for a two-bedroom, two-terraced penthouse apartment that once belonged to closeted movie stud Rock Hudson.

UPDATE: Tom Cruise

If the children will put on their thinking caps and go back to May 28, 2009, they will recall that Your Mama passed on a bit of rumor and gossip that we received from Famous Freddie about Tinseltown-based actor Tom Cruise and his baby maker Katie Holmes buying a six story townhouse on West 12th Street in Manhattan's West Village neighborhood (pictured above).

Well puppies, it seems Your Mama opened a can of worms because now, three weeks later, the rumors are piling up like cars at the junkyard with new reports on Curbed, Gawker, and in the Village Voice who actually sent a reporter around to dish with a few of the all-knowing doormen on the bizzy but beautiful block.

Although two Cruise family mouthpieces adamantly deny there is any correctness to the canard, one chatty doorman on the block told the nosey peeps at the Village Voice that the new owner–whom he refused to name and whom records reveal paid $15,075,000 for the 8,113 square foot townhouse in April of 2009–will not be around much because he'll be filming in Los Angeles and that the new owner bought the house for his wifey who was recently in a Broadway show. Sure sounds like Shorty and Mousey Cruise to Your Mama* but until Famous Freddie rings Your Mama hollering about how he just spied the first family of Scientology sitting on the stoop sweating out a hot summer night like real New Yorkers then it's just real estate scuttlebutt.

Since Shorty Cruise's crib in the American Felt building on East 13th Street is barely big enough to fit his over-sized ego, it makes sense that he the The Mouse would want and need bigger digs to accommodate them, their trio of Scientolochildren and their retinue of minders, handlers, family members, body guards and ass kissers.

*New York Magazine fairly (and rather cleverly) sussed out that other buyers could include Julia Roberts and Danny Moder, not yet married Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy and Neil Patrick Haris and David Burtka who are reportedly getting ready for a gaybee.

Joan Rivers Lists Connecticut Country House

SELLER: Joan Rivers
LOCATION: White Oaks Road, New Milford, CT
PRICE: $6,500,000
SIZE: 5,730 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Stone & clapboard sprawling country house. High standards. Incredible taste. Swimming pool. Pool house. Caretaker's cottage. Barn/garage. Pond. Amazing Views.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In late May of 2009, much nipped and tucked comedienne Joan Rivers hoisted her Manhattan penthouse apartment on the market with a toe curling asking price of $25,000,000. It was reported in the New York Times that Miz Rivers put the apartment on the market because she plans to spend more time on the West Coast where her also much nipped and tucked look-alike daughter Melissa lives in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles.

All the real estate gossips and celebrity watchers wondered if Miz Rivers, who bulldozed her way to winning the most recent season of The Celebrity Apprentice, would also list her country house in lovely Litchfield County, CT. And she has, with folks at Klemm Real Estate, for $6,500,000.

Property records and previous reports indicate Miz Rivers scooped up her multi-parcel estate in New Milford which totals more than 75 acres in December of 2000 for $1,438,400. The existing house on the property, according to Miz Rivers in a February 2003 article in Architectural Digest (requires registration) was, "the ugliest house [she'd] ever seen. It looked like a Denny's." So she hired a retail merchandising queen friend of hers named Joe to give the place a full face lift and turn into a "small and cozy" house where her beloved pooches could get up on the sofas with impunity.

The "squat" mid-century modern style house was razed except for the foundation, a few stone columns and the sizable stone fireplace in the living room. The result of the redo is, according to property records and listing information, a 5,760 square foot single story stone and clapboard sprawler with 4 bedrooms, 4.5 Carrara marble bathrooms, 22-foot ceilings, 100 year old chestnut wood beams, four fireplaces and a dozen or more French doors that open to a free-form stone terrace that stretches along the back the house and looks out over a bucolic vista of rolling lawns, old-growth trees and the mountains in the distance.

Although Miz Rivers posseses a mouth as foul as they come and she can shred a person as quickly and easily as she can slice through fresh bread with a sharp knife, she's actually a woman of discerning style and traditional decorative taste as is evidenced by the acres of fringed and mismatched Scalamandré fabrics, 18th century bird engravings, Hudson River School paintings, antique doo-hickeys, picture frames and dust collecting gew-gaws that clutter up almost every damn flat surface in the house.

Although we are not entirely convinced Miz Rivers even eats, there is none the less a large country kitchen with a soaring beamed ceiling, bacteria collecting butcher block counter tops, distressed wood floors, a lot of white cabinetry and a full complement stainless steel appliances. Sitting high above the stove top and hood is a large oil painting and shelves with pewter looking this and thats that Your Mama imagines are caked with cooking grease and hopes are stuck down with museum putty lest they fall off and crack Cook's head right open.

In the Architectural Digest article Mrs. Rivers says about her cotton candy pink and blush colored bedroom, "This is the bedroom every little girl wants." Do we even need to tell the children that it makes Your Mama queasy just to think of a senior citizen doing up her bedroom as a gurlish fantasy? The only thing worse is when a grown woman (or man) has stuffed animals on their beds which is just plain creepy, desperate and wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Far more upsetting than a grandma having a bedroom decorated for a pre-pubescent gurl, however, is the mirrored and marbled master pooper where a pair of female Blackamoors with with ferns on their damn heads flank the bath tub. We do not care that these statues are from the set of Babs Streisand's Hello, Dolly!, they still give Your Mama goose bumps but not in a good way.

Not pictured or mentioned in listing information, but lovingly lauded in the Architectural Digest article, is a decoratively whimsical (if sort of silly) hallway lined with antique mirrors and trompe l'oeil windows that depict the homes of some of Miz Rivers' hoity-toity friends and family including Prince Charles's Highgrove. Your Mama is dying to know if Miz Rivers hauls out her potty mouth when sitting around sipping Chardonnay with Prince Charles and his former mistress turned wifey Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

The extensive grounds include an (approximately) 1,200 foot long driveway ending in a large circular drive, a detached barn/garage (just try to imagine Miz River's driving a car without getting hysterical) and a vast expanse of grass that rolls down to a private pond. Away from the back of the house and tucked into a stand of trees is a swimming pool and pool house. If there is anything more comical than trying to imagine Joan Rivers piloting an automobile, it's Joan Rivers paddling around her pool in a demure swimsuit and flowered bathing cap.

Miz Rivers moving is without a doubt the East Coast's loss and the West Coast's gain and we imagine that Miz Rivers and her drum tight and increasingly Madame-esque face will soon be sitting in the back of a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce touring multi-million dollar homes in Los Angeles. We're on pins and needles waiting to hear from one of our informants what she buys and look forward to our invite to the house warming.

UPDATE: Jeana Keough

Looks to Your Mama like someone finally hit Real Housewife of Orange County Jeana Keough with the smart stick. The children will recall that just last week the OC Register was reporting on Miz Keough's financial pickle which resulted in Notices of Default being filed on at least one of her four Orange County properties.

After reportedly receiving a loan modification on the family manse in Coto de Caza (and perhaps getting loan mods on her other properties too) Miz Keough took to the newspapers and thanked her bankers, facialist, hair dressers, bikini waxers and butt wipers for keeping her looking good through the tough times and revealed that she was considering listing her "$6.5 million house [that] is now worth $5 million."

Well my beautiful butter beans, Miz Keough did indeed list her (approximately) 8,000 square foot monster with an asking price of $5,500,000. Listing information reveals the house has 7 bedrooms including two master suites, one of which includes a "retreat," balcony, and dual bathrooms (one with a bee-day) and walk in closets. Listing information shows the house includes 6 full poopers, 2 three-quarter poopers and 1 one-quarter pooper which is enough to employ a part time terlit gurl 2 to 3 days a week.

Other interior amenities include formal living and dining rooms, a 2-person office with a view of the hillside, a gore-may kitchen that is open to the large family room with built in wet bar, second floor game room, library, exercise room and a separate guest casita. There are at least 4 fireplaces, a steam room, travertine floors, and a central vacuuming system the would make our dour house gurl Svetlana crack a rare smile.

Exterior features include a stamped concrete driveway, gated interior motor court with garaging for six automobiles, Gunite swimming pool and spa, covered patios, outdoor fireplace and fire pit, a bbq center, dog run, sport court and a triangular stretch of flat lawn area for naked croquet tournaments.

In addition to her big house in Coto de Caza, Miz Keough has also listed a condominium in Irvine, CA with an asking price of $725,000. Property records show Missus Keough and her soon to be ex-huzband Matt paid $767,000 for the 2,280 square foot condo on Secret Garden in October of 2004. A few flicks of the well worn beads on our bejeweled abacus reveals that even if Miz Keough gets full asking price for the 3 bedroom and 3 bathroom unit–which is highly unlikely–she's still going to take a $42,000+ loss on the property.

Miz Keough recently announced that she did not think she would not be returning to the fifth season of The Real Housewives of Orange County. There were reports of contract disputes and outrageous demands on the part of Miz Keough.

Tater Salad Selling in Montecito Too

SELLER: Ron White
LOCATION: E. Mountain Drive, Montecito, CA
PRICE: $3,595,000
SIZE: 2,290 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: This property is an A+ location in Montecito's Golden Quadrangle and is surrouned by major estates. Situated on a private meandering drive by the San Ysidro Ranch is this beautifully remodeled single level home with stunning ocean and island views on 3.25 acres. This home is comprised of three bedrooms all with views to the gardens and the ocean beyon

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Earlier today Your Mama discussed the over-moulded mansion of scotch sweating comedy man Ron White and his wifey Barbara in Soo-wah-nee, GA which they listed in late 2008 and currently carries an asking price of $3,495,000. As it turns out, one of Ronnie and Barb's other posh properties is also on the market, this one in the hoity toity hills above Montecito, CA.

Property records show that Barbara and Ron White–who the children now know goes by the nose scrunching and eye watering nickname of Tater Salad–snatched up his Santa Barbara hideaway in May of 2006 for $3,750,000 which means, according to our bejeweled abacus, that the 3.25 acre spread is listed for $255,000 less than Mister and Missus Salad paid for the place.

Located near the newly rehabbed and quietly famous San Ysidro Ranch and near the top of a winding private drive lined with much more impressive and far more expensive properties, the west coast White house sits on 3.25 hillside acres and measures a relatively modest 2,290 square feet according to property records and includes 2 ocean view bedrooms and 2 poopers in addition to the master bedroom that opens through three dark wood-framed sliding doors to a private terrace with long views over the tree tops and to the Pacific Ocean.

The living room features a Saltillo tile floor, a wood burning fireplace, glass doors that open to a Sunset view terrace, soft pea green walls that probably make everyone look like they're about the vomit and a number of brown leather sofas and glass and wrought iron tables that give the place a distinct generic quality. The walls in the garden view dining room and the ocean view gore-may kitchen are painted various shades of pea green, aqua and tur-quawze which we can only assume are meant to mimic the various shades of azure of the ocean.

The kitchen, while not to our taste style wide, does feature a huge window over the sink which we're certain Svetlana would appreciate and the appliances are all sufficiently high grade to justify the three plus million clam asking price. While we do acknowledge that the work island is a handy dandy piece of kitchen equipment and we are beside ourselves with glee not to see a dirty pot rack having above it, the carved corbels are way to country and way to faux-elegant for what is otherwise a wall distributed kitchen.

In addition to the covered terrace where Your Mama could happily whittle away the evening flipping through gossip glossies, sipping gin and tonics and watching the sun set while our nasty pussy Sugar purrs in our lap, a chain link fence surrounded flat lawn area makes for an excellent dog run for out long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly.

Your Mama is going to leave the children to speculate and gossip about why Mister and Missus Tater Salad would list two fancy houses (one at less than they paid) in a lackluster market such a short time after purchasing them.

Tater Salad Selling in Suwanee

SELLER: Ron White
LOCATION: Whitestone Way, Suwanee, GA
PRICE: $3,495,000
SIZE: 6,395 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6 full and 2 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Exquisite estate home with the finest attention to detail throughout. Overlooking 4th green, home features marble inlayed foyer, liv. rm/office w/ fp, opulent, great.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The children have prolific informant and friend Aerial Dave to thank for bringing Your Mama's oft distracted attentions to a big ol' over-processed mansion-house in suburban Atlanta, GA owned by scotch swilling, cigar puffing and pot smoking comedian Ron White that was listed for sale in December of 2008 with an asking price of $3,495,000. It's also listed for $2,995,000. We don't know why it's listed at two different prices, but we're guessing that the higher price includes all the flummoxing furnishings.

Mister White rose to the peak of the stand up comedy heap starting back in 2000 when he participated in the obscenely lucrative Blue Collar Comedy Tour with friends and fellow funny men Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and Larry the Cable guy who is, of course, the wildly rich redneck responsible for coining that ubiquitously moronic phrase "Git 'er done" that just about everyone but Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter thinks is high-lariously funny. Back in 2006, the two time Grammy nominated Mister White lit out on his own with a money-making tour cleverly called Ron White: You Can't Fix Stupid. Say what you will about Mister White and his particular brand of base and low brow observational comedy, but the man is right. You just can't fix stupid. You really can't.

Property records show that in February of 2005 Mister White–who goes by the unfortunate but funny and entirely unflattering nickname Tater Salad–and his wifey Barbara spent $2,697,300 of their funny man money on an uber-traditional house on the 4th green in a gated golf course community in Suwanee, GA called The River Club. Listing information and property records reveal the White house weighs in at 6,397 square feet and includes 6 bedrooms and 8 terlits spread across 6 full and 2 half bathrooms.

The White house on Whitestone Way was built in a kind of a mullet style with an over-articulated but unassuming 1.5 story front facade that becomes a full three floors of architectural extravaganza at the back. A paver stone circular drive leads to a wide set of stone steps that rise to the front porch. The front doors open to a meant to impress the guests style double height entrance hall with a couple of columns and wrought iron balconies, an inlaid marble floor, a truck load of oppressively heavy mouldings and, rather bizarrely, a couple Blackamoors with chandeliers for hats, an old-timey but questionable decorative choice at best.

According to listing information the home's main rooms include a formal living room/office/study with a fireplace, a dining room where for some unknown reason the curtain material matches the material on the dining room chairs, a "great room" with a forest's worth of carved paneling that spills into a paneled breakfast room which in turn opens to a commodious kitchen punished with all manner of carved corbels, unnecessary chingaderos and decorative wood treatments that all together make Your Mama dizzy with fright. We do, however, approve of the mac-daddy range that is bigger than a damn Mercedes. The master bedroom includes a church worthy ceiling, a massive chandelier, a big fireplace, bordello worthy drapery, a marble and carved wood bathroom, and a gigantic walk-in closet/dressing room with built in cabinetry.

The stone floored "terrace level," according to listing information, includes a media room/thee-ay-ter, a sitting room, a second sitting room with a built in bar and more leather wing back chairs than out to be in one room at one time, a third sitting room with a massive stone fireplace and French doors opening to the rear terraces, and a billiard room with carved paneling, another honeycomb style coiffured ceiling, and yet another fireplace. Because this is Mister White's house, there is at least one behemoth built in cigar humidor for all his see-gars. Listen kids, we think people should be allowed to smoke whatever they want to smoke even if it is a big stinky cigar. However, does anyone besides Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter see anything homoerotically suggestive about a man wrapping his lips around a fat cigar and, uh, sucking?

But we digress from the real estate matter at hand, Your Mama understands the exuberant day-core of the White house will be the height of taste and elegance for any number of people who aspire to living in a suburban mansion in a ritzy golf course community. However, all the heavy molding and carved paneling and elaborate fireplace screens and swagged drapery just makes Your Mama feel claustrophobic and like we need a damn nerve pill to settle our vibrating eye balls.

The grounds of the White house include a motor court with a three car attached garage, several covered outdoor living and dining areas including one with a built in bbq center and outdoor fireplace, a free-form lagoon style pool and spa with a rock waterfall and stone terracing. All that separates the back yard from the golf course is an iron fence that is not enough to keep the prying eyes of men in plaid pants who chase little white balls around manicured lawns from being able to peep in the windows of the White house and/or watch Mrs. White sunbathe nood by the pool.

Property records show that Mister and Missus White also own a handful of properties in Tennesee, a 2,180 square foot house in a gated development in San Antonio, TX that they bought in Sept. of 2004 and another multi-million dollar property high in the hills above swanky Santa Barbara, CA which spreads across 3.25 acres and that they bought in May of 2006 for $3,750,000 and which is also currently on the market with an asking price of $3,595,000.

We Apologize...

...But Your Mama has a technological snafu on Friday afternoon and was unable to get it fixed until Sunday afternoon as we were in a no interweb zone for the weekend.

Olivia Newton John's New Xanadu

BUYER: Olivia Newton John and John Easterling
LOCATION: Lighthouse Drive, Jupiter, FL
SIZE: 5,500 square feet (approx.), 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: On blue water, no fixed bridges, just a few doors from the Jupiter Inlet, dockage, on over an acre of property, magnificent views of the Jupiter Lighthouse.

YYOUR MAMAS NOTES: Sometime in 2005 Olivia Newton John's man-friend Patrick McDermott went missing under suspicious circumstances. The poor dear was like a rowboat without an oar until she met and got Physical with herbal supplement pusher John Easterling who swept the Aussie icon off her feet and right out of Malee-boo to the swampy state of Florida.

In late 2007, long before decamping for the other coast, Miz Newton John listed her Malee-boo estate with an asking price of $14,000,000. There were no takers and eventually the priced was sliced and diced to $11,495,000. In December of 2008 the property was finally sold to for an undisclosed amount of money that we heard (but can not confirm) was in the ten million smackers range.

Shortly thereafter, in February of 2009, there was all sorts of scuttlebutt on the gossip glossies on on the tabloid talk programs about Miz Newton John and Mister Easterling backing out of a deal to purchase a $2,250,000 house in Tequesta, FL. There was talk of lawsuits and all sides claimed innocence, blah blah blah. That bit of legal brouhaha is, apparently, pending.

Then we started getting all sorts of email from fans of the newly married Miz Newton John wanting to know where she was and what she was buying and what kind of damn terlit paper she uses. Well children, as is often the case, we knew not a thing. That is, until today when we received a covert communique from a Flawreeduh Fannie who hooked us up with a recent article in something called the TC Palm (no link to the article that we could locate) which reported that Mizz Newton John and Mister Easterling finally found a house to buy after many months of searching high and low.

The house, according to the article and also according to the listing we managed to scare up on the interweb, sits on a 1-plus acre water front lot in the Jupiter Inlet Colony community. The light blue house measures approximately 5,500 square feet according to property records (and 7,000 square feet according to the TC Palm) and includes 4 bedroom and 4 bathrooms.

The house was last listed at $4,200,000 and the TC Palm people reported they couple are paying somewhere in the $4.1 million range. Information on the property is somewhat slim but we were able to glean from the listing and report that there is dockage for a boat or two, garaging for three automobiles, has a tin roof and is dog friendly. There are split bedrooms (whatever that means) including a master with a Roman tub (lahrd help us all) and at least one walk in closet. The living room is large with a vaulted wood beamed ceilings that rise a parapet like space with windows which we imagine help to suck out the hot sticky air in the summertime. The kitchen looks country with green cabinets, plate racks and granite counter tops.

Records show the seller is John Zuccarelli, the third term mayor of Tequesta or Jupiter or some other town around there, bought the property in June of 1995 for just $730,000, rebuilt it to be his Barbie dream house and sold it on at a large profit to Olivia Newton John for her new Xanadu.

Now that all you Olivia fans and super fans know that she's settling into Tequesta for the long haul, stop emailing Your Mama wanting to know about her whereabouts. And stay away from her new house too because I can promise you this ladee does not want some ignoramus standing outside her gates, ringing her bell, waving a frayed and glossy photo of her from Grease in the air and hoping for an damn autograph.

Now then. We're through. Through with talking about Miz Newton Johns real estate doings and through with the day because it's time to load up the big BMW and head out to Your Mama's daddy's ranch in the middle of Nowhere, CA for a weekend of gin and tonic drinking by the pool.

Hold on to your britches children...

...turns out Your Mama made a mistake and that house in Palos Verdes Estates that we shredded this morning belongs to some other Deepak Chopra and not the New Age Guru Deepak Chopra. So we took the stuff down. Interesting though because we found a number of sources the fingered the guru Chopra as being connected to the property, but alas...Shit happens.

Stay tuned for something new.

Your Mama...

...has a trio of afternoon tidbits we thought might be inneresting to the children. Remember pumpkins, these are just rumor and gossip. Got that? Rumor and gossip.

1.
According to the always helpful Babbling Babette, touring pop tartlet Britney Spears is (or recently was) negotiating an offer for her real estate white elephant located behind the guarded gates of the Summit community in Beverly Hills. Poor Miss Spears, who by court order no longer controls the strings to her own purse, bought the house in back January of 2007 when she was hanging around with some nefarious characters and acting all kinds of erratic and unstable.

Miss Britney must have had a bout of buyer's remorse because the property was hurled on to the market in September of 2008 at $7,900,00. After disappearing from and reappearing on the open market several times, it's now back on and priced at $6,499,000, far below what she paid. As far as we know, when Miss Britney is in LaLa Land, she and the Federtots shack up in a sprawling rented house in a double gated community in Calabasas.

Listen chickens, many offers for properties come to naught, so this one may not work out for the Miss Brit. But we sure hope so because the wee lamb needs to dump this scene of some of her more sordid and scandalicious moments, get on with her life and raise up them babies of hers.

2.
Put on your thinking caps kids and go back into the dark recesses of your minds to early September of 2008 when Your Mama passed along the real estate rumor that Cher, a senior citizen who has not entirely successfully attempted to Turn Back Time with plastic surgery, had gone into escrow on her lavish $45,000,000 Malee-boo beach house?

Back then every property purveyor up and down the Pacific Coast Highway was chattering about the big deal. But then, poof! the gossip grapevine went silent as a funeral. That is until the other day when it was snitched to Your Mama by someone in the position to know that La Cher did have an offer on the property in the $40,000,000 range but, for some reason, beehawtcha balked and the buyer walked.

In early May of 2009, after two-thirds of a year on the market, La Cher took the 6 bedroom and 7 terlit Italian Renaissance style villa off the open market.

3.
Although Your Mama has not been able to verify this with any of our more informed informants, we recently heard from an editor at a big gossip glossy that Jessica Simpson, whose career continues in a downward spiral, was fixin' to list her Beverly Hills (Post Office) property which she picked up in December of 2005 for $5,275,000.

Yes puppies, this is indeed the house that sits right up next door to bling queen Kimora Lee Simmons' real estate white elephant that she bought in August of 2007 for $5,900,000 and flipped back on the market nine months later with a much higher asking price of $7,750,000 and which has subsequently been sliced and diced to it's current asking price of $5,900,000.

We're not sure where Mister Editor got his 411, but it sorta makes sense that Miss Wannabe Mrs. Romo would sell of her pretty house in Bev Hlls since she seems to spend most of her time wherever her pigskin passing boy-beau Tony Romo is. We shall see puppies, we shall see.

Now then, Your Mama is going to say this one more time for any of those people who do not bother to read our words...these items are just rumor and gossip. Got it?

Jackass Johnny Knoxville Lists Dell Adjacent Digs

SELLER: Johnny Knoxville
LOCATION: Primrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,295,000
SIZE: 3,744 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Classic Med Villa in Beachwood Cyn w/panoramic city views. This walled & gated estate has been totally renovated w/exceptional elegance. The main house features 3 bd, 4.5 ba, living rm w/dramatic circular stairs, fp, gourmet kit w/custom cabinets, granite & ss appliances opening to media rm/fam rm + attached FULL guest apart w/1 bd, 1 ba, kit & liv rm. Terraced grounds offering 3 levels of entertaining, including infinity pl, pl house w/bar, outdoor fp & grass.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In August of 2008 Johnny "Jackass" Knoxville sold his house on Hollyridge Drive above Beachwood Canyon for $1,816,000. Of course, Your Mama don't know nuthin' from nuthin' but we presume that sale had something to do with Mister Jackass getting the dee-vorce from his long time Mrs. Jackass, fashion dee-ziner Melanie Cates.

Property records show that much prior to that sale, in March of 2005, Mister Jackass purchased another house, this one on Primrose Avenue in the Hollywood Dell area of Los Angeles, for $2,060,000.

Now then, firstly, we know some of you deranged neighborhood name police types are going to get all cross-eyed and red-faced and start hollering about how this house on Primrose Avenue is not in The Dell. We know. Your Mama is well aware that technically this house is not in The Dell. However, according to Hollywood Dell Civic Association, the eastern edge of this property is in fact the dividing line between The Dell and Beachwood Canyon. So it's practically in The Dell. It's Dell adjacent. Okaaay?

Secondly, property records would indicate that this house on Primrose Avenue, which has just arrived on the market with an asking price of $2,295,000, is actually owned not by Mister Jackass but by the ex-Mrs. Jackass.

Whatever the case, the three story Spanish casa measures 3,744 square feet and according to listing information includes 3 bedrooms and 4.5 poopers in the main section of the house and another bedroom and terlit in the separate guest unit which also has a living room and kitchen which is nice if you want to encourage your guests and in-laws to move in on your ass.

The children will note the generic quality of the interiors which consist of a truckload of upholstered white furniture and a few dozen lap blankets tossed willy-nilly around the house, both sure signs the place is staged. So let's not even get into how uncomfortable that horned llama statuette sitting on the living room floor behind the sofa makes Your Mama or how badly we want to squeeze that little orchid on the dining room table with our fat fist until it's pulp.

According to property records, the 3,744 square foot house was built in 1929 and includes a large living room with a high beamed ceiling, fireplace and a wall of windows that drags the eye out towards the panoramic view. Up a handicapped unfriendly steps is the dining room which is open to the large but somewhat awkwardly laid out kitchen with its dark wood cabinets and black bull-nosed granite counter tops.

Your Mama rather likes the master bedroom with the high ceilings and twin orb pendant chandeliers made of capiz shells. Also appealing is the row of sliding doors that open to a small terrace which is, thankfully shaded by an awning which helps with the blistering late afternoon southern California sunshine. We do like all that grey-veined marble in the master bathroom but we're not so pleased with the view of the roof from the bath tub and we absolutely loathe this bathroom trend of bowl like sinks.

For a steep hillside lot, the outdoor areas are both many and generously sized. A courtyard at the front leads to the ivy covered front facade. At the rear, several rooms open to awning shaded balconies and at the main level living room opens to a large terrace with glittery views of Tinseltown. At the lowest level a narrow Moroccan themed sitting room includes a pool bath and wet bar and opens to the flagstone pool deck where an outdoor fireplace makes for an perfect spot for making Smores. A circular spa hovers over the infinity edged swimming pool which cascades down to a large lower level entertainment terrace which in turn tumbles down to a long and narrow flat grass pad where a gurgling fountain is flanked by two shaded trellis areas. Listen chickens, all this outdoor space is truly delicious, partick in a hillside property, but Your Mama would have a damn heart attack getting up the 4 or 5 flights of stairs from the lawn area on the lowest terrace all the way up to the front door.

None the less and despite the high-grade Home Despot interior dee-zine, this is a good house and Your Mama predicts it will sell quickly. We would not bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly on it, but still, we predict.

It has been reported that after selling his house on Hollyridge Mister Jacksass and his then new gurly-pal moved just a couple doors down from the ex-Mrs. Jackass. Since we seldom know anything about ice water, Your Mama does not know if that is true or not. However, we have it on very good authority that ex-Mrs. Knoxville has fixed that proximity problem by decamping to a contemporary crib so high above Laurel Canyon it's practically in Studio City.

A Model House on the Market in Bev Hills

SELLER: Estella Warren
LOCATION: Cielo Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $1,950,000
SIZE: 2,247 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.75 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Secluded Regency style contemporary tucked away on a cul de sac. 3 bedrooms, 2.75 baths plus office/maids. Dark wood floors, French doors, updated kitchen and baths, sun drenched pool and wrap around garden.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: One day not too long ago Your Mama was yakking with gal pal Glinda the Good Witch who let it slip that celebrated synchronized swimmer turned scantily clad cat walker turned wannabe ack-tress Estella Warren is selling her Beverly Hills hideaway.

Well children, having been three sheets to the wind at the time Your Mama forgot all about it until last night when we were sipping on a pre-bedtime gin and tonic through a straw, perusing the newest Los Angeles listings and trying to settle our frayed and frazzled nerves from the psychically destabilizing experience of watching the dee-voonly trashy dramatics on the season finale of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Oh lawhd have mercy children, the astoundingly bad behavior of those plastic-bubbied beehawtchas manage to make ALL the other Housewives look downright dignified. And that, lambs, ain't easy to do.

Anyhoo, as she always is, Glinda was correct and large lipped Estella Warren (Planet of the Apes, Pucked and small spots on a slew of tee-vee shows) has indeed listed her her house high in the hills above Beverly with an asking price of $1,950,000.

Property records reveal that Miss Warren forked over $1,780,000 for the 2,247 square foot residence on Cielo Drive which is, of course, the very same street where the infamous Manson murders occurred. The blood soaked Polanski/Tate house has since been razed and replaced with Villa Bella, a gigantic faux-Flemish/quasi Mediterranean style mansion owned by Jeff Franklin who, among other boob-toob endeavors, made a mountain of moo-lah producing and writing the sitcom Full House. But we digress...

Miss Warren's single story "Regency style" residence sits at the tail end of a winding private drive, was built in 1959 and according to listing information includes three bedrooms plus a staff room which we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly is smaller than our damn walk-in closet. Listing information also indicates there are two and three-quarter poopers. Although we've gone over this about 14 million and two times before, Your Mama will once again school the children who do not already know that a three-quarter bathroom is one with a sink, terlit and stall shower...no bathtub.

Before y'all start tearing up Miss Warren's sense of decorative style, please note that his house has been staged for selling so it's quite unlikely that Miss Warren's house looked like this Pottery Barn catalog before Staging Ladee got her hands on it. The first clue that tipped Your Mama off that this house is staged to within an inch of its life is the white paint....white paint everywhere there can be paint. The second clue is all that snow white upholstered furniture with dark wood accents which we see in 80 or 90 percent of all the staged homes in LaLa Land. And the third clue, of course, is that stoopid lap blanket on the back of the sofa in the living room. Your Mama's decorating rule number 31 clearly states that real people do not, nor should they ever, sling a damn lap blanket over the back of sofa like that. Seriously, resist that urge.

The wood floors throughout the house have been stained a nice chocolate color and the open plan living area includes a step down living room with a bank of paned sliding doors that open to the rear terrace. It appears to Your mama that Staging Ladee intended for the dining area to be doing double duty as an office. Oh hell no. Unless you are so important that you can not be away from your damn email to take in a meal with your friends or family, you should keep the computers out of the dining room. The staff room or one of the secondary bedrooms would be a much better location for that contraption.

Listing information indicates the kitchen has been "updated" and if you call adding a brick red tile back splash, a few stainless steel appliances and a grey stain treatment to the cabinets updated, it is. We appreciate that some kitchen designer thought to add a work island to the small kitchen but it's a rather wacky location right up next to the paned sliding door and is visually awkward at best.

The Master suite includes a large bedroom with a wonky and ill-placed diamond shaped window and a paned slider that leads to the garden. The master bath appears to have been all did up with a new party sized shower with black glass tiles and one of those impractical and too-trendy rain shower heads. While no one loves a party sized shower more than Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter, we're a little disappointed that the glass enclosure does not reach the ceiling which means this is, unfortunately, not a steam shower.

The outdoor areas include some secluded gardens and a brick patio surrounds the swimming pool where Staging Ladee has used an batallian of white-cushioned chaise lounges that makes the back yard feel like a Marriott Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. The hillside property looks out at the scrubby hillside on the other side of Benedict Canyon and towards the treeline that surround the smashing house sold by Red Hot Chile Pepper Anthony Kiedis sold in April of 2007 to producer/screenwriter Akiva Goldsman who won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind and subsequently wrote the Pope provoking film The Da Vinci Code and its sequel Angels & Demons.

Your Mama has not a clue why Miss Warren has chosen to sell her house in this lackluster real estate market but maybe, just maybe, she's making a mint as Belle in an upcoming film version of Beauty and the Beast and will be moving up to bigger and better digs. We shall see.

Barry Manilow Unloading Malee-boo Beach House

SELLER: Barry Manilow
LOCATION: Malibu Road, Malibu, CA
PRICE: $10,600,000
SIZE: 3,546 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Prime Malibu Rd location on dry, sandy beach. Stunning Contemporary compound with large courtyard garden entry. Expansive coastline views north and south. Two-story living room with fireplace, floor to ceiling ocean view glass. Media/family room, master wing with fireplace and terrace. Separate guest house with kitchen.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A week or two ago we received a covert communique from Malee-boo Barbee who tattled to Your Mama that music legend Barry Manilow listed his ocean front house in Malee-boo with an asking price of $10,900,000. A bit of research shows that the Malibu Road property has actually been on the market for more than four months already and was first listed at $12,600,000.

After getting the 411 from Malee-boo Barbee, Your Mama's big ears pricked right up because even though we can hardly bear to look at Mister Manilow with his frosted and spikey hair-don'ts, we have a soft spot in our cold and dark heart for the singer/songwriter/arranger/producer/conductor/American Idol guest artist.

See puppies, back when Your Mama was just an innocent (and thin) little lamb we would visit our high-lariously foul-mouthed Auntie Jennie who had this colossal console stereo in her living room that sat between two orange faux-velveteen swivel chairs. Come early evening, our Auntie Jennie and Your Mama's Momma would pile their hair up on their heads, strap on their high heels and head out to the Fern Bar leaving Your Mama, Sister Woman, Toddaroohoo and Cuzzin Lois with Teena the Teenage Baby-Sitter who would more often than not leave us home alone so that she could go out on a date with some muscle car driving stud with feathered hair and an impressive looking package in his painted on jeans. After all us scrappy kids gobbled up some Frosted Flakes for dinner, we'd fire up that console stereo, slide in an 8-track tape and do us some fierce karaoke performances to songs by 1970s icons like Wayne Newton, Helen Reddy and, natch, Mister Barry Manilow.

Whether y'all care for his music or not, Mister Manilow is a song singing superstar who howled out a string of hit songs like Mandy, I Write the Songs and Copacabana, all of which are on regular rotation on our iPod.

Anyhoo, we confess we weren't sure whether to believe Malee-boo Barbee's information, not because he has ever steered us in the wrong celebrity real estate direction but because while property records all point towards Mister Manilow and his long time manager (and oft alleged man-mate) Garry Kief, they do not actually show his name. We quickly got on the horn with a couple of Your Mama's impossibly well connected informants who both swore up and down that the property in question is indeed owned by Mister Barry Manilow.

Property records show the glassy, three-story contemporary crib was bought in August of 2002 for an undisclosed amount of money. However, with a leg up by Babbling Babette Your Mama was able to suss out that Mister Manilow paid $3,850,000 for the ocean front property which includes 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in the ocean side main house and another bedroom in the street side guest house where we have to assume there is another terlit because we simply do not believe Mister Manilow would force his over-night guests to dash across the courtyard and into the main house just to take a late night dump.

The front facade of the walled, gated and secured property includes a stainless steel garage door and entry gate both which look very impressive and expensive but would surely drive our entirely too volatile house gurl Svetlana to hysterics trying to keep that shit shiny and finger print free.

The 3,546 square foot house is separated from the road by a quiet courtyard between the main and guest houses. A courtyard like this is crucial in a seaside house because when the wind gets a-blowin' it's murder on wig wearers and soft talkers. A glass and stainless steel front door that looks like the entrance to a damn Saks Fifth Avenue opens to a two-story, step-down living room with polished stone floors, a fireplace, a tall wall of windows looking out over the Pacific Ocean and French doors that open to ocean side terraces with undeniably spectacular sunset views. The house also includes, according to listing information, a media/family room, office, a kitchen with high-grade appliances and upstairs the master suite includes two-walk in closets, a fireplace, a big bathroom with spa tub and steam shower and a private glass paneled terrace hanging over rugged coastline.

Listing information does not currently include any photos of the interior but Nameless Nancy, who claims to have been up in Mister Manilow's Malee-boo pad, hissed to Your Mama that it's, "gold records everywhere like some tired queen's Palm Springs hideaway." Now kittens, we don't really know if Nancy's assessment of the day-core is accurate but since Mister Manilow is indeed a tired queen with highlighted hair and a slew of gold records who lives primarily in a sprawling hillside house in Palm Springs it is a believable, if dee-lishusly catty, description.

Now then, hold on to yer britches children because we're quite sure we're about to receive a mountain of hate mail from a well organized cabal of Miz Manilow's over-fervent fans who will read Your Mama the riot act and scream like banshees about how we should leave Mister Manilow alone because he is a great artist and loving man. However, before you freaky Fanilow people start sending us angry email and clogging up our comment box with your righteous indignation, please keep in mind that Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter both love us some Mister Barry Manilow. We just think he needs a new beautician.

A Little Floor Plan Porn to Get The Children Through the Afternoon

There are few of the children who do not crave a little floor plan porn to help them whittle away the early evening cocktail hours or the late afternoon office doldrums when no one is really working but everyone is sort of pretending to work so their boss does not blow a gasket or make snide remarks. Therefore, Your Mama aims to please with a juicy nugget from New York City.

Last week the fine folks at CityFile fished out the listing for the Park Avenue doo-plex that filthy rich Goldman Sachs CEO and Chairman Lloyd Blankfein and his wifey Laura recently hoisted on to the market with an asking price of $15,000,000.

All the children with eyeballs can plainly see the 5 bedroom and 6 pooper apartment (plus two staff bedrooms and a shared pooper) includes 14 rooms, 19 closets, 2 fireplaces, and a 30+ foot long living room. In addition to the well separated four bedrooms and three terlits on the second floor, the first floor master suite is comprised of a private study, two walk-in and four smaller closets, a corner bedroom with a view of tree-lined Park Avenue, and two petite but adequate bathrooms, one for him and one for her we pree-zoom.

Other than the generous but wonky shaped living room, the apartment is marvelously laid out for a family and includes a well equipped eat in kitchen, large family room, laundry room, separate family room, and and two sinfully small staff rooms that share a bathroom where, the eagle eyed will note, the closets are unfortunately located. Listen chickens, we got nothing against rich people hiring people to do things they don't care to do, like raise up their kids, but it just isn't right to make the hired help live up in rooms smaller than the damn closets in the master bedroom. And don't even get Your Mama started on the long list of problems we have with the staff room closest being in the same room as the terlit. Honestly.

Mister Blankfein, who took home a staggering $53+ million bucks in 2006 and another $68.5 in 2007, has decamped for the other side of Central Park where he and the wifey forked over $26,000,000 for a 6,136 square foot dee-luxe doo-plex at the limestone clad Robert A.M. Stern designed building at 15 Central Park West.

Property records also show that the Blankfeins still own their 7 bedroom and 6.5 bathroom Hamptons hideaway on Parsonage Road in Sagaponack, NY which they had on the market back in the summer of 2007 with an asking price of $13,995,000.

Sienna Miller Takes a Hit on Her London House

SELLER: Sienna Miller
LOCATION: Hatton Row, London, NW8
PRICE: £995,000
SIZE: 2,095 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: A fabulous and most unusual house, discreetly positioned in a quiet lane between Edgeware Road and Lisson Grove, being conveniently located for numerous local shops, restaurants and transport facilities. The house features a striking ground floor studio reception room with a galleried study area as well as a stunning lower ground floor entertaining area with a Turkish bath and sauna.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Relentlessly pap hounded British ack-tress turned "fashion designer" Sienna Miller has put her quirky London pad on the market with an asking price of £995,000, a figure that our bejeweled abacus reveals converts to $1,636,889 U.S.

Twenty-something year old blond Miss Miller–who works her boho-chic look every bit as hard as Kates Hudson and Moss–started up her ladder of fame as a model. She appeared in ad campaigns, magazine and topless in the innocently naughty 2003 Pirelli calendar. Next came tee-vee and movie roles in films like Alfie, Factory Girl and The Edge of Love. However, poor Miss Miller has become, perhaps and sadly, less known for her acting prowess and best known for her long string of romantic relationships and interludes with high profile men including Jude Law, Rhys Ifans, Puff Daddy and Josh Hartnett. Then there was, of course, that nasty bizness with the very married father of four Balthazar Getty which ruined a marriage and, quite frankly, did neither of their reputations or careers any favors.

Not only is Miss Miller unlucky in love, she's not so lucky in the real estate department either. Previous reports indicate Miss Miller purchased the 2,095 square foot Victorian house in 2007 for £1,200,000. That's $1,973,916 at today's rates which means that iffin Miss Miller gets her full asking price, the little lams will still lose more than £200,000. While all reports say that Miss Miller's house is in upscale Marylebone (where the Kabbalah Kween lives when in London), Our Man in London says that it's sort of in super swank St. Johns Wood (where Kate Moss resides) but that it's really located in the much less glammy Paddington where it's surrounded by council flats, otherwise known as public housing.

Miss Miller's much photographed front door opens directly into a main living space on the ground floor which perfectly matches her extremely expensive and eclectic hippie chic style of dress. It's unclear to Your Mama if Miss Miller's ex-step-mommy, the much ballyhooed interior designer Kelly Hoppen, had anything to do with the white walled Manhattan loft meets Moroccan bazaar interior day-core. The white-walled high-ceiling living room area includes a smattering of mis-matched casual furniture, a gas fireplace, a flat screen boob-toob stuck up on the wall and a couple of Moroccan lanterns hung from the ceiling. The living room gives way to the petite dining area and the well organized sky lit kitchen.


A floating and curving staircase climb to the maze-like mezzanine level which wraps around the the living room below and includes a small study with a large closet and a bathroom so narrow that only pin thin chicks like Miss Miller can squeeze past the terlit to the stand up shower.

Up a few more steps from the study is one of the two bedrooms which is open to the mezzanine level and also provides access to a small private terrace. The glass and chrome bannistered mezzanine level circles around to another flight of floating stairs that rise to the second bedroom on the top floor which appears to include a bit of closet space, a wee window that opens to interior space, a large sky light and another small pooper.

Down in the basement, or the much less dank sounding "lower ground floor" according to listing information is a somewhat impractical Turkish bath folly which was reportedly installed by the previous interior decorator owner. Surrounding the deep and intricately tiled tub that Miss Miller, ever the water conservationist, does not fill are several deep seating areas over flowing with more pillows that can be found in a Moroccan marketplace. Also down below is a sauna and the home's third bathroom.

Miss Miller also owns a country cottage in Gloucestershire and some reports indicate that Miss Miller has already moved on to newer, better and more private accommodations. Wherever she goes Your Mama imagines she'll be inclined to live in a house with a tall wall out front to keep the paps' cameras from peeping in her windows.

Malee-boo Gets the Royal Treatment

It's far too early in the a.m. for Your Mama to make heads or tales of this but there are people saying and others whispering that Britain's Prince William and his gurly-pal Kate where house hunting along the sparkling shores of Malee-boo. The reports all indicate His Highness and Not Quite Her Highness Yet took a spin around a house with 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathroom, a winding drive way leading to a 4 car garage, and a close to 8 million dollar asking price.

Does this sound to anyone besides Your Mama exactly like the Pacific Coast Highway house that Tinseltown aristocrat Leo DiCaprio bought from t-shirt purveyor James Perse in January 2007 for $6,350,000 and flipped back onto the market in November of 2008 with a wildly increased $8,999,000 asking price? Some of the children may recall that with no buyers swooping in to snatch up the bluff top spread right away, Mister DiCaprio also put the house out for long term lease at $25,000 per month.

It appears that lucky Mister DiCaprio is in escrow on that property (last priced at $7,999,000) but all reports say the princely pair are not the buyers. Sorry kids, but that's all we got on that one.

More Celebrity Real Estate Foreclosure News

Yesterday Your Mama prattled on about Real Housewife of Orange County Jeana Keough who was reported to be in default on at least one of her four properties and seeking a loan modification from her lender on the $1,300,000 mortgage she carried on her primary residence in Coto de Caza. Not long after our little discussion we heard from Miss Kitty Glitter who kindly linked Your Mama over to the latest OC Register article about the beleaguered real estate broker's real estate woes.

Well puppies, not only did the reality tee-vee starring property purveyor rather bizarrely thank OC Register writer Mark Eades for making her aware of the Notice of Default(s), but she also thanked a bunch of other men for helping her to successfully complete a loan modification.

She went on to give updates about her trio of spoiled children and then mentioned at the very tail end of her letter that she will "probably sell the house." According to Miz Keough, the house (shown above) measures "8,500 square feet with a guest house on a 1.2 acre with 6 garages." She also claims "her $6.5 million house is now worth $5 million."

Now puppies, we freely confess that we do not know the banking bizness from a hole in the ground but can someone please explain to Your Mama how a ladee with a house (allegedly) worth five million dollars, a mortgage of only $1.3 million and three additional income properties qualifies for a damn loan modification? Pleeze. Iffin anyone asked Your Mama, and of course no one did, we think bee-hawtcha should have been selling off her properties when she saw this real estate storm brewing a long time ago.

The second celebrity foreclosure situation we would like to share and discuss with the children is that of ack-tor Stephen Baldwin. Stephen is the bible beating Baldwin not to be confused with his more successful and talented but no less troubled brothers Alec, Daniel and William. The last we heard Mister Stephen Baldwin was hanging around with that shameless publicity seeking father of Lindsay Lohan and currently appears as a contestant on the reality program I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here which is truly where b- through d-list celebrity careers go to die.

Anyhoo, according to recent article, back in 1997 Mister Baldwin and his graphic designer wife Kennya–that's right children, she has got two damn "N"s in her name–bought an 1850s era house on a 1.4 acre property on Old Mountain Road in Upper Grandview, NY (shown above). In 2006, according to the report, Mister and Missus Baldwin listed their 3 story, 4 bedroom and 4 bathroom house with an eye popping asking price of $3,400,000, a breathtaking increase over the reported $515,000 they paid for the place. But alas and perhaps not surprisingly, there were no takers.

Over the years, according to the report, the devoutly Christian couple ran up their mortgage and eventually defaulted on an $824,486.36 loan from the Bankers Trust Company who has foreclosed and intends to auction the property to the highest bidder on June 24.

Like Your Mama has said a thousand and one times before, we do not care to dance on the real estate graves of eh-nee-one, but Your Mama is not going to waste one minute worrying about Mister Stephen Baldwin and his wife Kennnnnnnya because we're just sure Jesus has their backs and best interests in mind.

Baldwin photo: Vincent DiSalvo/The Journal News

A Pricey Super Producers Pad in Pacific Palisades

SELLER: Brad Grey
LOCATION: Monaco Drive, Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE: $29,990,000
SIZE: 13,143 square feet, 7 bedrooms 12 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: On 2 flat acres of serene & park-like grounds w/ a unique pond rests this gated & private Pacific Palisades 6 bedroom/10.5 bth, custom built estate. 3 levels, superior finishes & world class architecture create a warm & inviting atmosphere, perfect for entertaining or raising a family. 2-story living rm, 2 offices, theater, gym, billiard/game room. Master suite w/ sitting area & fpl, wet bar, his & her baths & closets, plus a deck overlooking the gardens, tennis court, outdoor kitchen & pool/spa.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Yesterday Your Mama floated a tidbit about a real estate rumor we'd been hearing that a major multi-parcel property in Pacific Palisades.

As it turns out, the 2-ish acre estate–owned by super producer Brad Grey and his soon to be ex-wifey Jill–hit the open market yesterday with an eye-popping asking price of $29,990,000.

The diminutive, powerful, Bronx born and not always well-liked Mister Grey is currently the CEO of Paramount and has had his wildly successful, two Emmy winning and 15 additional Emmy nominated hands on such tee-vee programs and films as The Sopranos, Real Time with Bill Maher, Running With Scissors, The Departed, Just Shoot Me, Politically Incorrect, News Radio, The Larry Sanders Show, The Wedding Singer, The Cable Guy, and It's Garry Shandling's Show, just to name a few.

As best as Your Mama can figure and based on property records, Mister Grey picked up the first of the property's four lots in in May of 1997 when he paid $2,000,000 for a bare piece of land on Monaco Drive in the ritzy Riviera area of Pacific Palisades. In December of 1997, records show he spent an undisclosed amount of money for the two adjacent parcels on which the house, the swimming pool and the tennis court sit. Then, in October of 2001, he dumped $2,300,000 for the lavishly landscaped corner property given almost entirely over to a large pond filled with lily pads and couple of mean ol' swans. Word to the wise, don't mess with swans, they look elegant, but they can be as violent as a badger in a hen house.

Listing information and prop records show the meant to be Arts and Crafts style residence was built in the late 1990s and measures 13,143 square feet. Listing information states there are 6 bedrooms and 10.5 bathrooms while prop records indicate there are 7 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms. Either way, there are enough poopers to keep at least one minimum wage gurl employed full time. Your Mama hopes the gurl has benefits because she will most surely get the Carpal Tunnel from shaking the Comet can and swirling the terlit brush all damn day every damn day in this house of too many terlits.

The Grey estate is surrounded by a towering hedge and the motorized gates open to a wide tree-shaded driveway that leads to a Porte-cochere. Porte-cochere's are nice for stepping out of the Maybach during inclement weather, but let's be honest chickens, there is rarely anything but sunshine in the south of California so this Porte-cochere is really just an unnecessary architectural folly. Anyhoo, from the P.C., a very long wisteria covered pergola leads to the Arts and Crafts style front doors which open to an expansive entrance hall with some of the lowest looking ceilings and glossiest wood floors Your Mama has ever seen in the foy-yay of a house with an eight-figure asking price.

The highly polished floors–which surely keep another gurl busy day in and day out with a swiffer and a can of Pledge–continue into the double height, window wrapped formal living room as well as the formal dining room which both overlook the gardens and the backyard recreation areas. The children will note this house has been staged so there's really no point in discussing those white dining room chairs or the suite of white upholstered sofas and chairs in the living room that pop up in just about every staged home in Los Angeles with an asking price over three million dollars.

The less formal quarters include an expansive family room (with more of the shiny floors) and a breakfast area with pastoral views of the rolling lawn that costs more to maintain each year than most of the children earn in a single year. The kitchen has been updated and upgraded and includes sleek white Euro style cabinets and some sleek brown Euro style cabinets too. At first glance, the kitchen appears a bit small for a house of this magnitude but upon reflection it's probably the right size. Anything smaller would have you up the chef's butt when you were looking for an ice cream sandwich but anything larger might more like a banquet hall kitchen than a private home.

Other rooms, according to listing information include a den (with what appears to be two built in stainless steel humidors), paneled library/study warmed by one of the homes four fireplaces, a media room, lanai (whatever that is), mirrored gym, billiard/game room accessed by a stunning spiral staircase, 2 offices, large home theater with a perplexingly complicated coffered ceiling and a wine cellar that will make the boozehounds sweat with anticipation.

The master suite, as one would expect in a house of this price and size, includes a sitting room with a fireplace, access to a second floor terrace, a wet bar, dual walk in closets and dual bathrooms,one done up for a female and one did over for in a more masculine style.

The sprawling park like grounds, watched by a camera security system, includes a modest but adequately sized swimming pool, spa, large stone terraces for sunbathing, an outdoor kitchen for grillin and chillin, a sunken tennis court ringed by wisteria laden pergolas, at least two football field sized lawn areas, a motor court with an attached 3-car garage and, of course, the capacious pond, a landscaping luxury only the rich can afford.

If the children will put on their thinking caps they will recall that Jennleck or Benagar (or whatever the gossip glossies call Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner) recently spent $17,550,000 on the Pacific Palisades compound of producer Brian Grazer on N. San Remo Drive, Mister Grey's asking price of $29,900,000 seems just a wee bit optimistic, don't it? But then again, what do we know? Nuthin', that's what.

It was only in late April of 2009 that Your Mama revealed that Mister Grey spent a rumored twenty plus million clams for a newly built 0ff-market mansion in Bel Air that happens to sit right up next door to poor Nic Cage's real estate White Elephant on Copa de Oro Road. It's unclear to Your Mama whether Mister Grey or the ex-Mrs Grey will reside here. Prop records also reveal that Mister Grey owns an ocean front hideaway on Broad Beach Road in Malee-boo.

Mister and Mrs. Grey's nearby neighbors include the wildly rich (but not particularly funny) comedian Adam Sander, who bought his a 7 bedroom and 14 terlit crib in November of 2004 from the dee-voon Goldie Hawn and her hunky man-mate Kurt Russell. Apparently Mister Sandler did not feel his 12,860 square foot beast was quite large enough because in September of 2008, he forked over $3,350,000 for the 3 bedroom and 3 bathroom house next door.

UPDATE: Tate Donovan

Remember a last week when Your Mama discussed the very modest Hollywood Hills home of actor Tate Donovan–listed at $789,000–and we posited and predicted that the cute cottage would be in escrow, "in just a few weeks, if not a mater of days?"

Well my little butter beans, it's in escrow. Told you so.

Mish Mash Thursday

The bits and pieces stories win the morning:

1.
It seems that wildly rich rapper 50 Cent has his panties in a bunch and is suing mad over his Farmington, CT real estate white elephant that he bought in September of 2003 for $4,100,000 from the ex-wife of squeaky voiced boxer Mike Tyson.

According to recent reports, sometime prior to Mister Cent purchasing the 52-room monster manse he hired engineering firm BVH Integrated Services to give the sprawling 48,000+ square foot house the once over and provide an estimate of costs for repairs to the roof, decks and other things. BVH estimated the property needed about $500,000 in repairs, which is really just pin money to a man like Mister Cent who reportedly pocketed around $400,000,000 from a well timed investment in Glaceau, the beverage company in which he owned (or owns, we don't know) a 10% share.

However, in addition to about $3,000,000 in voluntary upgrades and renovations, Mister Cent claims the house required another $3,000,000 (or so) in repairs, repairs that he thinks should have been included in BVH's estimate. So, in 2006, three years after buying the property, Mister Cent was so pissed about having to spend so much moo-lah bringing the 19 bedroom beast up to par that he filed a lawsuit against BVH. The parties have been testifying this week and will continue to do so into next.

If the children will put on their thinking caps they will recall that Mister Cent hoisted his 17.6-acre estate onto the market in 2007 with a ridiculous asking price of $18,500,000 which was later whittled down to $12,000,000. Not surprisingly, there were no takers for this architecturally troubled hotel sized house with its 3,500 square foot disco, six kitchens, 37 terlits, Gucci themed billiard room, swimming pool with a Playboy style grotto and indoor shooting range.

Here's the real problem for Mister Cent as Your Mama sees it. No matter how the law suit turns out, he paid 4.1 million clams for the place and spent a reported six million more on repairs and renovations which means he's into the property for more than 10 million smackers. But puppies, who is going to pay ten million bucks for an over-sized mansion about which the BVH inspector testified is "not a high-quality, mansion-quality house. It was not built that way. It was relatively inexpensive construction." Oh. Ouch.

Mister Cent revealed on Tuesday that the property is no longer for sale and if Your Mama looked into our crystal ball we'd guess that Mister Cent will be staying put in his big house or selling the place off at loss once the suit is settled. But then again, what do we know and do we even care?

2.
Uh oh. Another Housewife is biting the real estate dust and this time it's Real Housewives of Orange County's resident real estate agent Jeana Keough who has reportedly had a Notice of Default filed on her casa in Coto de Caza, CA.

Apparently Miz Keough carries a hefty $1,300,000 mortgage on her primary residence and recently had two claims filed against the property, one for $37,538 in unpaid mortgage payments and another for $3,732 by the Coto de Caza homeowners association, presumably for unpaid community fees.

Miz Keough, who owns three additional properties in addition to her large home, is reportedly trying to do a loan modification and to qualify for a loan modification the mortgage and taxes must be in arrears. She went on to say, "The realty business is so bad." Yes, well, she's right. It is, partick down in that part of Orange County. However, while Your Mama never likes to see anyone tossed out on their reality tee-vee keister, it might have been a good idea for Miz Keough to save some damn money rather than buy her spoiled teenage children Audis and BMWs. Hindsight is 20/20 ain't it?

In other Housewife real estate news, the NY Post reported today that dee-vorcing Countess LuAnn de Lesseps has made her annual pilgrimage from the family's rented townhouse on Manhattan's East 62nd Street to her Bridgehampton beach house where she will reside for the summer. Where Miz Manners will go after Labor Day is unknown but at least she'll be on the boob-toob making her own money so she can afford her own apartment and not be living up under the same roof as her cheating spouse. Or, maybe, she and the unnaturally thin Bethenny Frankel can get a place together, share expenses, swap clothes and do a whole Sex In The City single gal roommate sort of thing.

3.
Back in July of 2008 Your Mama discussed the London house of former cat walker Elle Macpherson which she had listed for sale with an asking price of £9,500,000, a figure that at the time converted to a blistering $18,993,540 US.

After first shaving the asking price to £8,950,000, the Aussie born model turned bizzy bizness ladee again reduced the asking to £7,500,000, a figure that our bejeweled abacus indicates converts to $12,260,250 US at today's rates. That children, is a sere-ee-uhs mark down in real estate troubled London.

As an aside, the children might get a kick out of knowing that Miz Macpherson was once married to photographer Gilles Bensimon who is the same famous fashion photographer to whom New York City Housewife and (alleged) boyfriend beater Kelly Killoran Bensimon was married.

4.
London based former models aren't the only famous folks having to slash asking prices on their lavish and luxe properties. Oh no. Not by a long shot. The soon to be dee-vorced Oscar winning ack-tor Mel Gibson–who recently knocked up his new ladee friend out of wedlock which we're pretty sure is frowned upon by the Pope–has slashed the asking price of his Greenwich, CT estate from $39,500,000 to a still staggering $29,750,000.

The property includes 15 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, formal gardens, a swimming pool, stable, staff houses, a log cabin, tennis court and private pond. Unfortunately for Mister Gibson, he listed his meticulously maintained Tudor style pile just at the very time all the hedge fund money that propped up Greenwich's real estate market dried up.

5.
Back in Los Angeles, Your Mama hears a may-jer, multiple parcel property in Pacific Palisades is about to be put up for sale with an asking price in excess of $30,000,000. We'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly it will be shopped around off-market for a while before it arrives on the open market. We'd also bet those same long bodied bitches that the property details will be leaked to the Wall Street Journal before it's put on the open market for the rest of us plebes and real estate gossips to fawn over. This is how these things get done chickens.

Meet the Janklow Townhouse

SELLERS: Luke Jankow and Julie Daniels
LOCATION: West 12th Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $24,975,000
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms (plus 2 staff rooms and 1 staff bathroom)
DESCRIPTION: Often regarded as a showcase of Greenwich Village's finest architectural achievements, the renowned block of 12th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues contains superior examples of Beaux-Arts, Modernist, Art Deco and Greek Revival architecture. While this block has been home to such notables as Malcolm Forbes, Jimi Hendrix, and Edan St. Vincent Millay, this outstandding renovation of a 25-foot wide townhouse with elevator surpasses the reputation of the block...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Rather than discuss another poorly decorated celebrity owned home in Los Angeles, Your Mama thought the children might like to start the morning with a little New York City townhouse deliciousness that due to the impending dee-vorce of it's glammy owners Luke and Julie Janklow is on the market with a hair raising asking price of $24,975,000.

Luke Jankow, for those not schooled in the minutia of Manhattan's who's who among the pretty and rich down town denizens, is one of those impossibly pedigreed New Yorkers that make some people goose pimpled with envy and others sulky and resentful because of the comparative ordinariness of their own lives. See my puppies, good looking Mister Janklow's great grandfather was Harry Warner, co-founder of the Warner Brothers film studio and his grandfather, Mervyn LeRoy, produced The Wizard of Oz. His uncle on his mother's side–the late restaurateur Warner LeRoy–owned Tavern on the Green and the Russian Tea Room, two of New York City's most famous (and touristy) eateries.

His lucky familial connections do not end there. Oh no. Mister Janklow's father Mort founded the notable New York City literary agency Janklow & Nesbit who represents authors like Al Gore, Michael Moore, Malcom Gladwell and Barbara Walters. The younger Mister Janklow once dreamed of being a rock star but eventually, after ten years of making music and roaming the world, joined the family bizness and became a literary agent himself. In addition to representing the exuberanty prickly Simon Cowell, Mister Janklow famousy negotiated a million clam deal for the well bred CNN talking head Anderson Cooper's memoir and recently sold some sort of a lifestyle book by wanabe jill of many trades Gynnie Paltrow who seems to think the world wants to know all about what books she reads, foods she cooks and shoes she wears. For better or worse, she's probably right.

Anyhoo, somewhere along the glittery path of the toweringly tall Mister Janklow's charmed life he met a pulchritudinous broo-nette from Beverly Hills named Julie Daniels. They married and made a baby who will no doubt grow up to be obscenely attractive. In April of 2004, the well connected couple forked over $4,500,000 for a 15-foot wide and five floor (plus basement) West 12th Street townhouse which they purchased from high-style hotelier Andre Balazs and his now ex-wife and major mannequin manager Katie Ford who previously bought the house from Jonathan Newhouse of the Condé Nast Newhouses.

The happy and well-heeled couple soon set about renovating their new townhouse and from the looks of things they did things up and over like two people with a never ending pot of paper to pull from. We are thrilled to see an elevator installed but are disappointed it serves only four the six floors in the house. Four is better than none, but six would save Your Mama from having to schlep our art supplies up a flight of stairs to the 5th floor studio.

A large foyer on the garden level successfully forms a barrier between the street and the interior spaces and effectively keeps the Chinese food delivery man from having to feel so bad about how rich the Janklows are and how impoverished he is. In addition to the foyer, the garden floor is comprised of a small service kitchen adjacent to the 28-foot long dining room with its exquisite mercury-mirrored walls, a large laundry room, powder room and two shamefully small staff rooms that share a bathroom and are only accessible by going through the coat room which is just a fancy term for a walk in closet. Nothing like making the nanny feel like part of the family. The basement, according to listing information and the floor plan, is mostly given over to some sort of windowless recreation room and heaps of storage.

The parlour floor has been opened to include a roller skate friendly marble floored living room that stretches 44-feet long and is anchored by two fireplaces with monumental 16th century stone mantels. The couple have filled the space with a silly white grand piano and a melange of mis-matched furniture from various eras which are united by the mostly monochromatic beighe and dark beige upholstery work. A little color and a few pieces of art would have gone a long way in here, but even still the room is undeniably striking and well conceived if not chilly and hotel lobby like. Also, we are not feeling that fur rug which would have our imperious house gurl Svetlana in a conniption over how to vacuum the damn thing and will have PETA throwing cow blood at the front of the house faster than a hummingbirds wings flutter. The southern end of the living room, which actually looks like the less comfortable end of the room, converts to a screening room with a rear projector and a screen that descends from the ceiling. It's unclear to Your Mama where one would actually sit and be comfortable in this area for as long as it takes to watch a film. At the rear of the townhouse's parlour floor is the eat in kitchen which is warmed by a fireplace and opens through several sets of French doors to a small terrace and stair that leads to the Portuguese cobblestoned garden.

The third floor is entirely devoted to a master suite. A sleeping chamber at the front features a fireplace and there are his and her bathrooms and dressing rooms. Hers, according to listing information, is all did up in Perspex and pink silk carpeting and his includes a small window wrapped study with a fireplace. A second bedroom on the fourth floor includes private study, walk in closet and a gigantic bathroom with a circular bathtub sitting in the middle of the damn room. This seems silly and extravagant but it's probably good for when the nanny is bathing the children and the house gurl is washing the pooches. At the rear of the fourth floor, according to listing information, is an office/bedroom with custom Chinoiserie wallpaper and a high drama double height ceiling that is open to the full floor studio space on the fifth floor which is all very theatrical but not very practical if the owner wants to paint (or whatever) while an over night guest is trying to get some sleep. Then again, if you're rich enough to pay 25 million bucks for a townhouse in the West Village, you're rich enough to put your guests up at 60 Thompson or The Mercer and provide them with a car and driver to get back and forth to your house, right?

As we mentioned earlier, the Janklows are headed for the court of dee-vorce. However, even though they will eventually sell their former family digs, they still have the matter of their recent bizness venture with super chef Mario Batali. Last summer the couple opened Sweetiepie Restaurant, the fantastically decorated restaurant and dessert parlor in the West Village where a hamburger runs twelve bucks, and ice cream cone six bucks and a dessert called the Sweetiepig will set the children back a shocking $75.

Cape Cod Crib Of Bobby Farrelly For Sale

SELLER: Bobby Farrelly
LOCATION: Starboard Lane, Mashpee MA
PRICE: $3,400,000
SIZE: 2,701 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Newer construction (2000) in Popponesset! Beautiful panoramic views of Nantucket Sound. Three decks provide Cape Cod Sun throughout the day. Wide plank walnut floors throughout the home. You will love the upstairs family room with custom stone fireplace, window seat and plenty of room for entertaining! Large fireplaced master suite with waterfront deck. Finished ceramic tiled basement with great storage and separate game room and full bath...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The other day Your Mama received a covert communique from Vlad the Revealer indicating that filmmaker Bobby Farrelly–one half of the famous film making Farrelly Brothers–recently listed his Cape Cod crib with an asking price of $3,400,000.

The Misters Farrelly have carved out a lucrative if not particularly dignified niche for themselves on the silver screen using slapstick terlit humor and depicting decidedly inappropriate uses for bodily fluids. The children will recall the brothers Farrelly wrote, directed and produced comedic treasures such as There's Something About Mary, Kingpin and Dumb and Dumber. They are, according to recent reports, currently hard at work on a revival of The Three Stooges starring Jim Carrey, Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro, a sure to be cinematic tour de force Your Mama can assure the children we will not see despite our own somewhat embarrassing appreciation of terlit humor.

Property records show that Mister Farrelly and his wife Nancy purchased the .29-acre waterfront lot in Mashpee, Mass in January of 1999 for $792,500. Listing information reveals the house was built in 2000, so Your Mama thinks it is safe to assume the Farrellys are the folks responsible for the architecturally wonky wood shingled Cape Cod style house that sits atop a rock revetment and offers panoramic views of the perfectly picturesque Nantucket Sound.

Listing information indicates the two story house measures 2,701 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a ceramic tiled basement where there is a game room and a full bathroom. No offense to the Farrellys, but a ceramic tiled basement sounds horrid, more like the sort of place one might do an autopsy rather than push balls around on a felted table with skinny sticks.

Immediately upon entering the front door, which opens directly into the window wrapped living/dining room, one is confronted with the unpleasantly cliche nautical day-core that has been perpetrated on every inch of this house. If it is not white, a shade of blue or made of wood, it simply does not belong in the self-consciously casual decorative scheme of the Farrelly's seaside getaway. Listen puppies, we love a seaside house as much as the next person, and we're certainly no opposed to referencing geographic location with color, but surely it's possible to do up a house at the beach without conforming to this narrow notion of what constitutes beach house day-core.

None the less, any buyer is not buying the cohesive but bo-rring day-core and despite the nerve-wracking front facade with that upsetting pair of out of scale oval windows flanking the French doors on the second level, there are plenty of features about the house that can be appreciated such as the beauteous walnut wood floors that have been laid down throughout the house, the three fireplaces which take the misty chill off early summer mornings, the manner in which the main living spaces open up to the water side of the house and the second floor family room which features a stone fireplace, a small water view balcony just large enough for a couple of people to stand and smoke a late night doobie, and a lavishly long window seat built in below a long wall of paned windows looking out over what we're positive is a mesmerizing vista.

The grounds include off street parking for 6 cars, three decks, a professionally landscaped yard with decorative lighting and a good sized patch of lawn and access to a path that leads to a sandy beach.

Property records indicate the Farrellys also own a 4 bedroom and 3 bathroom home at nearby Duxbury, Mass as well as property in Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard which they purchased in November of 2003 $2,014,706. Clearly the Farrelly family does not like to stray too far from home.

Your Mama...

...had a few minutes before the Dr. Cooter came home from the hospital and between our second and third gin and tonics of the afternoon so we perused the pages of the delightfully naughty Defamer website where we came across a juicy little nugget posted by their resident genius Richard Lawson.

In the June 15 edition of gossip glossy In Touch ran an article about actor Patrick Dempsey's new digs in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Accompanying the article was a wee map of the stars sort of thing indicating where several other celebs set up camp in the tony and famous folk filled Brentwood neighborhood. Their list included Reese Witherspoon, Governator Schwarzenegger and footballer Tom Brady and his ladee-pal cat walker Gisele Bündchen who own a bare piece of land up the street from Arnie and Maria where they reportedly plan to build their west coast dream house. This would all be very interesting to someone like Your Mama who makes a career of sorts knowing who lives where except, as Mister Lawson so astutely observed, In Touch's silly little map is not of the Brentwood in Los Angeles but rather of another Brentwood, CA town which happens to be up in Northern California.

We imagine some poorly paid fact checker is at this very moment locked inside a dark and dirty broom closet at the In Touch offices after being given forty lashes with a wet noodle by Editor In Chief Richard Spencer.

We'll drink to that.

UPDATE: The Jolie-Pitts

In late January it was widely reported that Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and their half dozen children were temporarily settling into a massive mansion on the North Shore of Long Island while Miz Jolie made her next cinematic venture that Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter will not see.

We, along with just about every other real estate gossip, reported that the perpetually globetrotting do gooders and their pack of multi-culti kids were shacking up swank Lloyd Neck, NY in a sprawling Tudor style house called Sassafras.

Well, they may or may not have holed up at Sassafras for a period of time but new reports indicate the UN-style family is now leasing media mogul Rupert Murdoch's Centre Island estate to the tune of one hundred thousand clams per month.

The estate, called Rosehearty, spreads across five manicured waterfront acres that includes a blue-shuttered Federal style main house with approximately 10,000 square feet, 11 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms, and at least 3 fireplaces. The gated and heavily secured grounds also include garaging for 5 mini-vans and SUVs, a heated and air conditioned guest pool house/cottage, a beach cabana on the 260-foot stretch of private beach facing the lapping shore of Oyster Bay Harbor, swimming pool, tennis court, extensive gardens and rolling lawns that probably cost more to water and maintain each year than the average school teacher brings home.

The Murdoch manse was hoisted on the market in the summer of 2007 with an asking price of $14,800,00 but with no takers it was later taken off the market and was recently re-listed with a new and improved asking price of $12,800,000. The property is listed with über-agent Dolly Lenz who told the folks at New York magazine that the property was only available to be toured when the tenants were out of town so Your Mama recommends having a run through the gossip glossies to check on the whereabouts of the Jolie-Pitts are before ringing up one of bizzy Miz Lenz's 49,000 Blackberries.

Your Mama Hears...

...from a little birdie named Motormouth Moe that even though lily white Oscar winning Aussie actress Nicole Kidman and her country crooning Aussie huzband Keith Urban already own a contemporary crib a couple of blocks away on Lime Orchard Road, they recently made an offer on L.A. based entrepreneur Cody Leibel's flip house on Hidden Valley Road. As far as we can tell from our myriad of sources, an agreement for purchase between the two parties was not made.

Young Mister Leibel, who is just 20-something damn years old, is an investor in a music company called C-Note Records (which we've never heard of before) and is bizness partners with nightlife and restaurant entrepreneur Sam Nazarian who owns such Hollywood hot spots as Hyde Lounge, Katsuya, XIV, Foxtail, The Abbey and is, perhaps not coincidentally, also selling his house high above the Sunset Strip on Oriole Way.
Property records show Mister Leibel paid $9,205,000 for the Bev Hills Post Office property (above) in October of 2007. According to listing information, the recently expanded and rehabbed residence sits on 5 acres and includes 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, a double edge infinity pool, a motor court for 20 cars (which is a good thing since Mister Leibel likes fancy cars) and a celebrity style quarter mile long driveway that ensures a peaceful and paparazzi free existence. Given its extremely private siting, not to mention its $16,500,000 asking price, Your Mama would bet our long bodied bitches this house will be sold to a privacy seeking high profile person. We shall see.

The guarded but not gated community is home to a plethora of big names and famous folks like tee-vee titan Tom Freston, Beverly Hills jeweler Martin Katz, music mogul Guy Oseary, Oscar nominated actress Candice Bergen and bling kween Kimora Lee Simmons who is having a real bitch of a time getting someone to buy Lime Orchard Road residence which sits right next door to pop tartlet turned reality teevee star turned mom jeans wearing chili cook-off country singer Jessica Simpson. Listen chickens, we just can't get on the call Miss Simpson fat bandwagon even if some of her unbelievably horrific outfits make her look that way, not when she's still half the size of most of the track suited big gurls wobbling through the malls in this country. Oh. Ouch. Did we say that outloud?
Anyhoo, young Mister Leibel also has a second Los Angeles house on the market (above). Owned in the name of his Canadian property developer father Lorne, Mister Leibel recently listed the 6,143 square foot house on Savona Road with an asking price of $4,750,000. According to listing information, the 6 bedroom and 8 bathroom house includes a resort style pool and spa and was recently renovated by a top designer. Listing information shows the Savona Road property, which someone rather blandly dubbed Villa Savona, entered escrow just weeks after being listed, which means one high priced property down and one to go for Mister Leibel.

UPDATE: Patrick Dempsey

In early March of 2009, Your Mama discussed the Bel Air house of boob-toob doctor Patrick Dempsey (Grey's Anatomy). At that time Mister Dempsey's New England style Chantilly Road residence was on the market with an asking price of $3,595,000. Six weeks later the asking price was given a substantial hair cut to $3,295,000.

Then, in mid-May, with a helping hand from a lovely gal we call Lucy Spillerguts, we learned that Mister Dempsey had already bought a new, bigger and much more expensive McDreamy House on N. Bundy Drive in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.

Shortly thereafter, Mister Big Time announced that the property had been put into escrow. Well children, we regret to inform, but for whatever reason(s), the house is back on the market with a new asking price of $2,995,000. A few flicks of he well worn beads of our bejeweled abacus reveals that's just 83% of the original asking price, and, even more punishing for Mister Dempsey's pocketbook, a bit more than one hundred thousand clams less than the $3,100,000 property records show he paid for the place in July of 2006.

We're sure many of the children will gloat and foam at the mouth with delight over Mister Dempsey's real estate misfortune as it relates to his former home on Chantilly Road. However, something to keep in mind while mocking and wagging fingers with financial self righteousness is that while Mister Dempsey may lose a bushel of shekels on the sale of this house, he can still afford to buy a new six and something million dollar house without having sold his previous property.

So my dear Chicken Littles, who's really getting the last laugh on this one?

Nicole Richie Settling Down in Laurel Canyon

BUYER: Nicole Richie and Joel Madden
LOCATION: Lookout Mountain Road, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,999,000 (asking)
SIZE: 5,380 square feet, 4 bedrooms 5.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Privately hidden behind gates, this walled compound is one of Laurel Canyon's largest! Extensively renovated with contemporary design focus, the ambiance is Aspen Lodge meets Tropical Paradise. Soaring ceilings w/ huge sky dome adds dramatic sunlight. Full guesthouse becomes screening theatre. Marvelous eat-in kitchen. Lagoon pool features Key West cantina. Motor court & garage parking...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While that naughty Paris Hilton curses Cannes with her dirty dancing, wanton ways and vulgar public displays of sexual affection with her reality tee-vee star boyfriend Doug Reinhardt, her old paper thin BFF Nicole Richie is out making babies and buying houses in Los Angeles' traditionally bohemian enclave of Laurel Canyon.

Last summer it was widely reported that Miss Richie and her baby daddy–rocker Joel Madden from Good Charlotte–were out hunting for a new house. Not finding anything to their immediate liking they temporarily settled into a lovely Spanish style casa on Outpost Drive even though Mister Madden owns a big house in hot as Hades Glendale, CA where they surely could have shacked up and saved some money until finding their dream house. But money is not an object for Miss Richie whose father is, of course, the wildly rich crooner Lionel Richie who has enough moolah to keep all the children in over-priced rental properties. Anyhoo, with Miss Richie preggers with bottle nipper number two, having a house they could call home became a priority and after searching far and wide the tattooed twosome finally settled on a 5,380 square foot house on Lookout Mountain Road that carried an asking price of $1,999,000.

Property records and previous reports show that the 4 bedroom and 5.5 bathroom house was purchased from retired professional footballer Mike Croel for $1,912,000. Given that Mister Croel, who now works as a graphic designer, paid just $875,000 for the house in 2003, it would seem he and the wifey made off nicely in the deal.

Listing information indicates the walled and gated property is an unexpected (and not particularly successful) combination of "Aspen Lodge" and "Tropical Paradise." Now children, Your Mama is all for eclectic architecture and day-core, but there are some styles that are simply not meant to go together, and Aspen ski chalet and Key West Conch are two of them. No. No. No.

The woodsy interiors are full of towering ceilings, heavy beams, large sky lights (or sky domes according to listing information), 4 fireplaces, wood floors and large windows and sliding glass doors that open to the lush (tropical) landscaping in the back yard that includes a lagoon style swimming pool and spa, flag stone terracing and something called a "Key West cantina." Somewhere is a separate guest house that converts to a screening room which is a good thing because, let's be honest chickens, unlike regular people, Tinseltown types are seldom satisfied with just a big boob-toob in the family room.

If Your Mama is being truthful, and we always are, we'd whisper to the children that this house is a hot mess of wacky roof lines and counter-intuitive landscaping, but we'd also have to admit that in that this is a lot of damn house for the money (in Los Angeles) and in that sense Miss Richie and Mister Madden did quite well for themselves.

Your Mama wishes the Richie/Maddens well in their new home and ask they remember to invite Your Mama to the big house warming because we have a few words of wisdom we'd like to offer that Hilton girl.

UPDATE: Randolph Duke

Last December, Randolph Duke–dress designer to celebrity ladees and other rich females–listed his Xten Architecture designed dernier cri-ish domicile on Los Angeles' Fareholm Drive with a muscular asking price of $8,250,000.

The listing quickly vanished and we heard (but can not confirm) that the exuberantly decorated 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom residence was being leased out for big bucks. Well children, the crisp and pointy pad which Your Mama thinks must be one of the queerest cribs in all of LaLa Land is back on the market and with a major mark down to $6,500,000.

Even though Miz Duke slashed an astronomical million and three quarter clams off the asking price, we're quite sure some of the children will say it is still a remarkably optimistic number for the neighborhood...which happens to be the same neck of the hills where that annoying Kanye West lives in a minimal and art filled paean to his own over-sized ego.

We shall see.

UPDATE: Victoria Gotti

Looks like ol' Victoria Gotti just might have pulled a real estate rabbit out of a hat having reportedly come to a tentative agreement to save her mawkish mansion in Old Westbury, NY from the jaws of foreclosure.

Back in mid-May of 2009 it was widely reported that the lavishly be-weaved blond was days away from losing her long time Long Island home because she was arrears to her lender to the tune of $650,000. As a result of the default a court of law ruled that JP Morgan Chase could foreclose on the 4+ acre estate where Miz Gotti and her three grunting and virtually inarticulate sons filmed their depressing and difficult to watch reality program Growing Up Gotti.

At the time, Miz Gotti gave the rather bizarre and far-fetched sounding explanation that her ex-huzband Carmine Agnello–who, incidentally, was fined $10,000,000 after pleading guilty to racketeering charges in 2001–was to blame because he took out a secret mortgage on her manse after fooling the bank into believing that Miz Gotti had granted him power of attorney to do so. Turns out her explanation was true...or at least true enough that the bank decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and work out some sort of agreement that would allow Miz Gotti and her Rapunzel worthy wig to stay in the mansion.

Sounds to me like someone at the bank has some splainin' to do. Either that or Mister Agnello may be looking at addition appearances in front of a judge who may not look kindly on his fraudulent mortgage activities as they relate to Miz Gotti's house of architectural horrors.

The children will recall that Miz Gotti has been trying to sell her real estate white for years with asking prices as high as $4,800,000 and as low as its latest asking price of $2,300,000. Your Mama isn't sure if the Miz Gotti's big house is still on the market, but we did find a possibly outdated listing that shows a wonky asking price of $2,959,000.

Ladees and Gents: Meet Mister Modesty, Tate Donovan

SELLER: Tate Donovan
LOCATION: Crest Way, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $789,000
SIZE: 1,279 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...This 2bd/2ba Spanish home has everything you want and more. Spacious & inviting living room w/ hdwd flrs and original tiled fireplace. Eat-in galley kitchen has been updated in keeping w/ classic nature of the home. Large formal dining room w/ coved ceiling. Newly-remodeled bathrooms with Master bath featuring Waterworks tile, Carrara marble & steam shower. Master suite features dual walk-in closets & opens to tranquil outdoor living space overlooking spa.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Every now and again Your Mama comes across a famous figure with a certain kind of real estate modesty and we are, well, yes, we are impressed. Even more so when it's a celebrity like successful, unassuming and likable actor Tate Donovan (Damages, The O.C., Hercules and etc.) who recently listed his Los Angeles house for $789,000.

Mister Donovan may be a low-key, bike riding and marathon running fiddler with almost no real estate pretensions, but he's also managed to bag and and snag some of Hollywood's leadingest ladees like Lauren Graham, Sandra Bullock, that poor, high maintenance and unlucky in love Jennifer Aniston not to mention a British born New York based socialite/writer named Plum Sykes.

Records reveal the recently dee-vorced Mister Donovan picked up his itty bitty Spanish style casa on Crest Way in September of 1999 for just $378,000. Records and listing information also show that the 1,279 square foot house, located on a quiet cul de sac in the Hills of Hollywood in a neighborhood called the Hollywood Dell, has just two bedrooms and two bathrooms.

The front of the house is shielded by a tall (and tatty) privet hedge that hides the front façade comprised of a wide see-ment patio with a dozen or more potted plants of various varieties and a carved wood front door flanked by paned cottage style windows and inoperable shutters painted an unfortunate pinkish coral color. It looks like a slightly tidier sort of place Your Mama would have gone to buy weed back when we were at university.

Anyhoo, the front door opens to a living room with thin stripped and golden colored wood floors and listing information indicates the fireplace surround is original and which Your Mama thinks may (or may not) be made of Batchelder tiles. Mister Donovan, or perhaps his ex-wife, has filled the room with a sandy beige linen sofa opposite a wall mounted flat screen boob-toob, a light brown leather chair and hassock, a milk chocolate brown wicker rocker with ecru colored cushions, a taupe colored, vine patterned and circular rug and a wacky but visually enjoyable amoebic shaped wood coffee table. It's all very beige–and wicker is a forbidden material in Your Mama big book of acceptable decorative materials–but it also looks very cozy and comfortable and like someone not enamoured of their own fame and fortune actually lives here.

Beyond the living room is the dining room with a seriously ill-chosen chandelier (that is hung too high), a bunch of wood furniture that looks like it might have been picked up on travels to the Far East and a set of French doors opening to an intimate and covered patio that overlooks the backyard. The galley style kitchen and sky lit eating nook have a certain sort of cottage charm even if we don't understand or approve of the choice of checkerboard linoleum floor and the mint green faux-vintage refrigerator.

A guest room / office at the front of the house is well separated from the master at the back of the house with two renovated poopers in between. The master bedroom, according to listing information includes two walk in closets, French doors that open to the covered patio, and a bathroom with Carrara marble, fancy Waterworks fixtures and a steam shower. Your Mama loves us a steam shower. It's unclear why Mister Donovan would leave those depressing Pottery Barn curtain rods over the windows when there are no curtains hung from them.

The rear patio is tiled and trellised and includes a perplexedly low table at which one would have to squat or sit on the ground to use. A few steps down a stone terrace hosts sun beds for nood sunbathing and all sorts of drought friendly plantings and potted things. A short wall separates the patio from a spa which is surrounded by vegetation.

It's unclear to Your Mama why Mister Donovan would choose to sell his cozy casita now, after so many years...10 years in one house is a lifetime for most celebrities...but he is. And given that houses not in needs a full scale gut job in the Hollywood Dell rarely come to the market for under $800,000 we suspect this property will be in escrow in just a few weeks, if not a matter days. Trust Your Mama on this one. The market in L.A. may be weak, but this isn't a bad starting price for this house in this location. We're sure some of Your Mama's resident Chicken Little's are gonna rake us over the coals for saying that, but it's true.

Now then, it's back to the over-sized and insanely expensive properties we've become accustomed to seeing celebrities buy and sell.

UPDATE: Britney Spears

Looks like on the mental mend pop tart Britney Spears is finally getting serious about unloading her real estate white elephant up in the guard gated Summit community in the Hills Above Beverly.

At the risk of beating a real estate dead horse let's go over Miss Spears' history with the house. Records provided to Your Mama by Babbling Babette show that back in January of 2007, when poor Miss Spears was still wearing pink wigs, driving around aimlessly with questionable characters and acting all kinds of erratic, she impulsively dumped $7,150,000 (some reports, including some of Your Mama's say $6,750,000) on an "Italian Renaissance inspired Villa" with 6 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms. Less than 1 month later, the ferociously fickle Brit flipped the Summit Circle property back on the market with an asking price of $7,495,000.

After nearly six months languishing with no serious takers, the property was removed from the open market until September of 2008 when it reappeared with a surprisingly higher and gutsy asking price of $7,900,000. After six months, the price had been whittled down to $7,195,000 and with no serious buyers the house was again taken off the open market.

Next came the news that Miss Spears, whose father Jamie holds Miss Spears' purse strings through to a court ordered conservatorship granted due to her bizarre behaviors, packed up her short shorts and tube tops and headed west where she reportedly leased a newly built 10,300+ square foot faux French Provincial/Tuscan Farmhouse/Spanish Hacienda style manse in a double gated community in the scorching suburbs of Calabasas. Soon after moving in, Missy Spears went on tour.

As far as we know, Miss Spears is still on tour but her former digs, the scene of much of her crazy days, has come back on the market with a new real estate agent and a new and significantly lower asking price of $6,499,000. A few flicks of the beads on our bejeweled abacus reveals that Missy Spears (and her Big Daddy) are now looking at losing at least $650,000 on this residential folly...and that's if some white knight comes along and pays full price for the Spears spread. But let's be honest chickens, what's the likelihood of that happening?

Your Mama has also heard, but can not confirm which means it's just rumor and gossip, that Miss Spears' people are out looking for suitable digs for her ex-huzband Kevin Federline who is the primary caretaker of their two children and has been leasing a house in a gated community in Tarzana, CA. Why Daddy Spears doesn't just move the ex-Mister Spears into the house on Summit Circle until the real estate market stabilizes is a question we can not answer.

Ian Schrager Lists Posh SoHo Penthouse

SELLER: Ian Schrager
LOCATION: Lafayette Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $12,500,000
SIZE: 3,990 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...This loft comprises approximately 3,990 square feet interior, three private terraces totaling 530 square feet, and direct access to the common roof deck. Key lock elevator opens directly into large entry foyer. Perfect for entertaining, the grandly scaled living area features soaring 23' ceilings, 30-degree views from double-hung windows, wood-burning fireplace, open Boffi kitchen with appliances by Viking and Sub-Zero, media room/fourth bedroom, and two private terraces. Two Bedrooms with en-suite baths complete the lower level. The upper level comprises the master suite with private terrace, skylit private gym outfitted with Cybex equipment, and two walk-in closets...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama is a little late to the real estate rodeo on this one having been first discussed a week or two ago in the New York Post. But we're going to speak on Ian Schrager anyways who recently hoisted his downtown doo-plex digs on the market with an asking price of $12,500,000.

Mister Schrager is, of course, a former nightlife impressario and co-owner of the original (and dee-voonly debauched) Studio 54. He went on to become well known and much loved by fashaneestas, hipsters and design queens of all persuasions for his slick and in some cases vexatiously over-worked Philippe Starck designed boo-teek hotels with dark hallways and swinging lobbies that include the Delano in Miami, the Mondrian in Los Angeles, The Clift in San Francisco, the Sanderson and St. Martins Lane hotels in London and the Hudson and Paramount hotels Noo York City. The Paramount, in midtown Manhattan, happens to be the very first New York City hotel in which Your Mama ever stayed where we had a room we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly was smaller than the closet ol' Paris Hilton stores all her size 11 shoes. Mister Schrager no longer participates in the day to day operations of his hotel babies and has moved on to developing new hotels (like the Julian Schnabel re-designed Gramercy Park Hotel) and high end condo projects in Manhattan where he's already erected 40 Bond and the John Pawson designed 50 Gramercy Park North to much hullabaloo and fanfare.

Anyhoo, records reveal that Mister Schrager picked up his duplex penthouse on Lafayette Street in June of 2002 for an undisclosed amount of money. Listing information and public records show the heavily mortgaged, three terrace aerie measures 3,990 square feet (prop records show 3,360 square feet) and includes 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms spread over two floors of clean lines, big windows framing big views, art friendly white walls and dark wood floors.

A key-lock elevator opens directly into the large square-ish entrance hall which acts as a traffic hub for the entire apartment and leads to the open plan living space which includes a Euro-slick Boffi brand kitchen with glacier white counter tops, a window-wrapped dining room, and a double height living room with a wood burning fireplace flanked by French doors that open to largest of lucky Mister Schrager's three terraces.

On the other side of the entrance hall are two family bedrooms each with a private pooper, a windowed laundry room that would make our imperious house gurl Svetlana weep with envy, a powder pooper and a third bedroom currently used as a media room that opens up to a second terrace.

Upstairs, the master suite hangs over the living room and opens to yet another terrace for hide tanning. There are also two walk in closets, a large bathroom with a party sized shower and an even larger private, sky lit gym with all sorts of fancy contraptions for torturing the body into physical submission. Strangely, according to the floor plan, a large bath tub is tucked into a windowed corner of the gym-nauseam which isn't exactly where Your Mama would like a bath tub even if we liked to sit in a puddle of our own filth, which we don't.

A couple of the more notable residents of Mister Schrager's 30-unit building include former gender bending rock star legend David Bowie and his long necked model wife Iman who shack up in a 5,180 square foot two-unit spread they bought in late 1999 and US magazine editrix in chief Janice Min (who would hire Your Mama to write a column for her if she had any damn sense). Other building residents include a noted dealer of photographs, a sculptress whose work we adore, a textile tycoon, a tony award winning thespian and her former professional tennis player huzband, an Israeli producer and an heir to the the Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid fortune.

According to the good people at City File, Mister Schrager and his new dancing doll ladee-wife Tania Wahlstedt have decamped a few blocks uptown for an 8,500 square foot triplex penthouse pad at 40 Bond, the glass and green steel building he developed with the much lauded architecture firm Herzog de Meuron and where Your Mama understands Rrreeky Martin maintains a Manhattan pied a terre.

In addition to his Manhattan crib, according to property records, Mister Schrager also owns a large oceanfront house in Southampton, NY that happens to sit right next door to the architectural abortion clothing queen Calvin Klein bought in 2003 for $28,900,000 and recently knocked down to make way for a sleek and glassy minimalist mansion designed by architect Michael Haverland. It has been reported that Mister Schrager also owns a house in Miami. We don't disbelieve the reports, but honestly children, Your Mama could find no record of that.

UPDATE: Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner

By now, all the children surely know that ack-tor Ben Affleck and ack-tress Jennifer Garner recently spent the big bucks buying the Pacific Palisades estate of super-producer Brian Grazer and his ex-wifey, screenwriter Gigi Levangie Grazer. To be more exact, records and reports show the Jenufleck's paid $17,550,000 for the sprawling, private and worked over Cliff May ranch house.

But what about their former love nest Brentwood? Soon after word leaked out that the couple settled on the Grazer spread, it was whispered to Your Mama by Donna Tellaitall (and then transmitted to the children) that the baby-making couple were quietly shopping their former digs on N. Tigertail Road around with an optimistic asking price of 8.5 million clams. Miz Tellaitall also whispered to Your Mama that she heard a deal was being made at a much lower price in the 6.8 million dollar range.

As it turns out, the actual sales price was even lower than Miz Tellaitall thought. According to property records, the new owners of the Jenufleck's old house–a money man and his wife–paid $6,250,000 for the 4 bedroom and 4 bathroom residence that records show measures 3,843 square feet.

Given that Missus Affleck purchased the property for $5,500,000 in June of 2004 when she was still Miss Garner, not much (if any) profit was realized on the sale of the hacienda style house, an economic situation about which we imagine there are only crocodile tears.

Flea Selling Another House in the Malee-boo

SELLER: Michael Balzary, aka Flea
LOCATION: Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA
PRICE: $13,676,000
SIZE: 2,731 square feet (as per assessor), 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Out of this world celebrity retreat on an unbelievable 2 flat acres sited on the Encinal Bluffs. Staircase & private road beach access. Expansive rolling lawns, exceptionally unique architectural w/ soaring ceilings, open floor plan & walls of glass, gallery walls, tree trunk floors positioned as an indoor/outdoor natural setting. 2 large separate guest homes, long drive, 2 garages, private spa terrace. Unimaginable ocean & beach views from every angle.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in in the spring of 2006, Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player Michael Balzary, aka Flea, put his Malee-boo manse on the market with an asking price of $5,000,000. In March of 2007, when Your Mama discussed the Sycamore Meadows Drive domicile, the asking price had been sliced to $4,800,000 and several subsequent slashes brought the asking price down to $2,800,000. Then, we regret to inform, disaster struck. Although records indicate the property remains in Mister Flea's real estate portfolio, multiple reports state the house burned to the ground in the fires that raged through the mountains above Malee-boo in the fall of 2007 and, indeed, the property did (and does) appear on the official list of homes consumed by the colossal conflagration.

In January of 2007, just a few months before he listed his Sycamore Meadows Drive residence, property records and previous reports reveal that Mister Flea (and his supermodel baby momma Frankie Rayder) forked over $9,980,000 for a 2.01 acre ocean front estate on the Encinal Bluffs, which is up in the northern reaches of Malibu near where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's contemporary crib clings to the cliff. Now, just over two years later and after a giving the Pacific Coast Highway property a full and finely tuned face lift, Mister Flea has listed his low-key cliff top compound with an asking price of $13,676,000.

According to listing information, the property includes a main house and two separate guest houses, one of which appears to be currently used by Mister Flea for making music. Listing information shows there are 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms but to be honest children, we're not sure if those four bedrooms and bathrooms are all located in the main house or if they're spread throughout the property.

The front door of the main house opens to a narrow, wood beamed and sky lit hallway with gallery white walls and a dee-lishus wood floor made of end-up tree trunks that create a loose grid of light and dark that sort of resembles a varnished giraffe skin. The main living space, down a handful of steps down from the entrance hall, is comprised of an open plan living room, dining room and kitchen. There is a high sloped ceiling, a fireplace in the living room area, several large sections of windows that open to a narrow waterside terrace and more of that tree trunk wood floor. Now children that wood floor could easily be a decorating dee-zas-ter in the wrong hands and we fully realize some of y'all will think it's heinous, but Your Mama thinks the pattern makes a nice counter point to all white walls and white furniture.

The somewhat small but fully functional kitchen includes a long row of windows over the sink that look out towards the ocean, a nice feature when scrubbing pots and pans. There is a noticeable absence of over-head cabinetry which we imagine some of the children will gripe about also. However, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's new kitchen has no overhead cabinetry, just a simple shelf for daily dishes and glassware, and we love it. Fortunately there is a large pantry and heaps of under counter storage for all the food stuffs and kitchen ware that normally goes in overhead cabinets.

Anyhoo, in addition to the master suite with more of that dee-voon tree trunk flooring, high wood beamed ceiling, sky lit bathroom and view of the ocean, the main house includes three other family bedrooms, one of which appears to be a loft space that overlooks the living room area. This is all well and good for taking a nap, but not so good for over night guests. Then again, over night guests are likely put up in one of the two separate guest houses that dot the property. At the front of the compound, closest to the Pacific Coast Highway is the larger guest unit which as far as we can tell includes 2 bedrooms, a fireplace and (we assume) at least one terlit. The other guest unit is of undetermined size but we're certain includes sleeping quarters at the least and (presumably) a private pooper.

The property slopes gently from the gated entrance on the Pacific Coast Highway down towards the bluff. A large lawn area perfect for rousing games of Bocce, Croquet or horseshoes sits between the guest house and the main house and a wide lawn stretches from the rear of the main house to steep and perilous bluff. Off to one side is a circular deck with a built in spa and seating area which looks like the perfect spot to re-create a cocaine and blush wine fueled orgy from the 1970s. We're not saying Flea does that, we're just saying that if he wanted to, this would be a magnificent spot to do so. The grounds include several other outdoor patios and seating areas including a sunken and tree shaded outdoor living room and another with a built in bbq center.

Listing information indicates that in addition the the long private stair case that leads to the beach, there is also access by private road, which is a good damn thing because Your Mama would much prefer to have our totalitarian house gurl Svetlana pop down in a golf cart to pick up our sunburned butt than to huff and puff our way back up and risk a heart attack or fit of the asthma.

No word on why Mister Flea would want to sell this pretty piece of ocean front property. Quite frankly, if you like solitude and living along the rugged and dramatic California coastline, this seems like a keeper to Your Mama. Lord knows we'd live here in a heartbeat iffin we had 13 and some million smacker for a beach house, which of course we do not.