Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Is This The Gayest House in L.A.?

SELLER: Robert Gonzalez aka Robert Gant
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $999,000
SIZE: 1,324 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to an informant Your Mama will call Glenn Gleefullygabs we've learned that one of the–if not the–gayest houses in Los Angeles has recently been put up for sale. The Laurel Canyon casita, according to both G.G. and property records, belongs to actor Robert Gant who listed the petite, 1923 Spanish Revival residence with an asking price of $999,000.

Mister Gant, a former Georgetown Law School educated attorney and and one of the few out gay actors working in Hollywood, is best known for his role as Ben Bruckner, the hunky hiv-positive professor on the now defunct Queer As Folk program. He currently works his stuff on a BBC program called Personal Affairs and since Q.A.F. ended in 2006 has also appeared in one-off roles on boob-toob shows such as Castle, Tracey Ullman's State of the Union, Nip/Tuck, Pepper Dennis and a slew of those CSI shows.

Your Mama knows not a think about Mister Gant's current romantic life–and it's really none of our damn bees wax–however and although he denied it, rumor once had it that back in 2003 Mister Gant was getting bizzy with Kyan Douglas. For all the kiddies who don't recognize that name, Mister Douglas was the "grooming expert" on that horrid and thankfully canceled program Queer Eye For the Straight Guy that followed around a bunch of over-processed queens who darted around in a big SUV trying to save all the unfashionable and ill-groomed straight men from a sad life of the wrong jeans and even worse choices in hair care products and liquor. Maybe they were or maybe the gossip glossies saw two gay actors–friends–doing lunch in West Hollywood and jumped to the all too common conclusion that they were doing each other.

Anyhoo, property records show that Mister Gant–who was born Mister Gonzalez–purchased the property in August of 2003 for $805,000 from nice, gay decorator Ryan Brown. Miss Brown, who only owned the house long enough to sprinkle some fairy dust on the interiors, bought the house in May of 2003, paying $665,000 to out and proud choreographer/actor/director/producer Adam Shankman. Many of the children might best recognize Mister Shankman as that poor gay guy who has to sit next to that screaming mimi Mary Murphy on So You Think You Can Dance? Lo-ward have mercy, iffin Your Mama was Mister Shankman, we'd have to tape that woman's mouth shut after she shrieked into our ear just one time about a stoopid hot tamale train or some other damn nonsense.

Since selling to Mister Gant, Miss Brown has lived in about 49,000 houses including some that he bought and flipped with his former Bravolebrity BFF Jeff Lewis. Mister Shankman, who according to prop records owns a New York City penthouse located in a good building on lower Fifth Avenue that he bought in July 2006 for $1,995,000, moved to Los Feliz and settled into a 1960s contemporary in The Oaks section of Los Feliz where his nearby neighbors include Mister and Missus Angelina Jolie, Christina Ricci and the charming, volatile and complicated house flipper Jeff Lewis. Records also show that Mister Shankman purchased a house in Encino, CA in August of 2008 for $1,059,000. We suspect that this might be an investment property of some sort because what kind of gay moves from a 1960s modern in The Oaks to a suburban ranch in a perfectly nice but decidedly un-fabulous section of Encino?

Okay butter beans, although we have, we are really not here to discuss the real estate ways of Miss Brown or Mister Shankman so let's get back to the matter at hand which is the Laurel Canyon casita being sold by Robert Gant. Property records show the fully renovated house measures a modest 1,324 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms and 2 poopers. Your Mama thinks it's just about the perfect size. Contrary to popular opinion, we are not a real estate size queen by any measure. With a few tweaks here and there Your Mama could be perfectly comfortable in this cutey casita with The Dr. Cooter, or two long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly, and our mean ol' pussy Sugar. We'd have to put Svetlana up in a nearby apartment but she wouldn't mind since it would make her increasingly more frequent late night rendezvous with insanely hairy men all that much less difficult.

A handicap unfriendly flight of stairs leads from the concrete driveway and the single car garage up to the porch and front door that opens directly into the living room. It's well established that Your Mama prefers that a home have at least a small entrance hall. We believe, that best case scenario, a house should unfold like an onion and walking directly into the living room is like going to a nood beach. There's just no mystery or romance about seeing a person's twigs and berries straight away. None the less, entrance hall or no, Mister Gant's living room has ebony stained hardwood flooring, a plaster cove ceiling, a fireplace, and French doors that open to small covered terrace. With the living room Mister Gant has set the decorative palette and tone for the rest of the house–that would be neutral neutral neutral–with beige walls, a chunky latte colored sofa, tan sea grass runner under the iron and glass coffee table, and a Moroccan style chandelier for that soupcon of faux exoticism.

The dining room, situated a few steps higher than the living room, is all archways all around. A large archway looks down into the living room and two exterior walls have narrow, arched windows, two of which open onto a slim balcony. The children will note that above the itty-bitty round dining room table is another Moroccan style chandelier hanging from a hand carved wood beam. Beyond the dining room lies the fully rehabbed kitchen that has Miss Brown's decorative stamp all over it. We've got putty colored walls and white trim work, dark and distressed cabinetry, extra thick Carrara marble counter tops, stainless steel appliances and, for the daily dishes, horizontal open shelving instead of upper cabinets. Your Mama actually loves a kitchen without any upper cabinetry and, in fact, Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter's kitchen has no overhead cabinetry. However, doing away with the overheads means there better be a pantry tucked up into that kitchen somewhere for storing the big buckets of all the protein powders and muscle builders that the gays like so much.

As mentioned above, the house has three bedrooms but according to listing information one is currently being used as a home office with pea green walls and French doors that open to the loggia, another as a mini-media room with sisal carpeting and French doors that open to a deck, and the third as Mister Gant's boo-dwar, which also opens through French doors to a patio with a gurgling water feature.

There are multiple and many patios and terraces surrounding Mister Gant's appealing and neutral colored house. The primary outdoor space is a long, vine covered loggia that runs alone the side of the house with tile flooring–the same tile as in the kitchen, which is nice for decorative continuity, curtains that appear to be more for aesthetic purposes than privacy, and a very contemporary outdoor fireplace that has Your Mama swooning with envy even if it puts the panic of a wildfire started from stray embers in our throat.

Other amenities and delights, according to listing information, include updated systems, central heat and air conditioning, scads of recessed lighting–that is lovely but should never, ever replace others forms of more attractive and flattering lighting–an in-ceiling sound system and a video monitored security system.

Besides its deep homosexual pedigree and intimate relationship between the indoors and the outdoors, what Your Mama finds so interesting about this house is that Mister Gant and his real estate people clearly got the message that the days of a white hot real estate market in Los Angeles have long gone. Although priced at a million smackers, a figure that for many part of the U.S. would seem absurd and outrageous, for a well kept house in this particular part of Los Angeles, it's really not so far off the mark. Particularly when you consider that it's current asking price is about 20% higher than Mister Gant paid seven years ago. It wasn't so long ago that a seller would have slapped a price tag of one point two or even $1,400,000 on this house. Like it or not, 'tis true.

Now then, all you gay boys with a million bucks to spend on a nicely kept but modestly sized house in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles, get on the horn quick because it would seem almost a crime if this house didn't sell to a sister wife of Mister Gant, Mister Shankman and Miss Brown.

source: Architecture 8

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am loooving that soft pale grey on the kitchen walls... and am looking for something just like it for my own humble abode. Anyone have suggestions on paint brand/shade that is close?

SID DELUCA said...

Damn. I always liked to mess around with the boys but never considered myself "gay" until now because aside from the tiki-head towel holder I really dig this pad. Just don't make me listen to Babs, okay?

Babe Parish said...

the only thing that would make this house gayer is if janeane garofalo bought it. it's lovely and tastefully priced.

Little NY Lucy said...

Gay or straight, we love it Mama! Gonna get me a cup o' hot chocolate and imagine relaxin' by that darn fireplace.

Anonymous said...

Love it! It has great connection to the outdoors. Would love to have a dinner party in that outdoor space!

Madam Pince said...

I love this house. Not a single negative thing to be said about it. Mr. Gant has impeccable taste to match his impeccable looks.

Anonymous said...

Oh how I miss Mr. Gant and Mr. Harold shakin' their groove thangs on the Babylon dance floor...
This is a beautiful home from a beautiful-lookin' man!

Anonymous said...

Isn't this the gayest house in LA???

http://www.losanjealous.com/2007/01/02/house-of-davids-to-up-reality-tv-foolfactor-in-07/

Candi Speling said...

I l.o.v.e. the outdoor fireplace. I liked his character on QAF and I was definitely into his body (the face, not so much.) Mama, what do you know about the gays (wink, wink)? I thought you led a pristine and sheltered life all cloistered up with The Dr. Cooter.

Anonymous said...

Great house. Just love it. Thanks Mama, after the past couple of horrors you've thrust upon us, your adoring public.

StPaulSnowman said...

I don't know if it's (its) the gayest house but compared to many of the five million plus LA houses Mama posts, it is one of the sharpest with appeal in every element of design inside and out. The only negative is the thought of Ms. Streisand's bellowing which WC Mess was kind enough to suggest. What is a QAF?

Mrs. Cho said...

you think Mama don't know about the gay..Mama knows many things about the gay! She has k d lang album!

Anonymous said...

I don't find this house "gay" I find this house tastefully done!

Carla Ridge said...

..and a nicer guy than Bobby Gant you'll never meet in this bizness.

@St Paul Snowman: my mind is like a marshmallow in a blizzard (dizzy)that any reader of Mama's isn't only TOO aware that QAF = "Queer As Folk", the late, lamented, landmark, long-running Showtime serial.

Coreigh said...

I thought you already labeled Duke Randolphs house the gayest? How can there be two gayest houses? Hmmm...

StPaulSnowman said...

Carla Ridge........thanks for the info. I would have recognized the title but not the texting abbreviation. That's what happens when you don't get Showtime! Thanks again.

Cookie Annenberg Ford Newirth Del Nunzio said...

I smell a reality show, with Mama as judge. The Gayest House!

Anonymous said...

Love the house and love Mr. Gant. I could live here in an instant.

Anonymous said...

Gayest house in LA. I don't know but Gayhooker probably does!

Anonymous said...

What a beauty. If gay means tasteful, elegant and warm then gay it is!

tom said...

I don't think Mama is talking about the "day-core" being gay. I think it's the house itself because of all the gay owners.

Anonymous said...

I saw this and thought it super small with no yard at all. If you are gonna sell a house even in this market please paint and touch up. A bigger "fixer" house on the same street with a yard just sold for 600,000. The pictures are much nicer than the real deal.

Anonymous said...

If he paid $805,000 in 2003 - he way, way overpaid - are u kidding?

The Shitty Astrologer said...

Stylish digs...gay or not!

lil' gay boy said...

Anon 1:58, hon, I think you have "gay" confused with "vulgar".

;-)

Snowman, leave the texting to the tweeners; I'll go halfsies on this little casita with you as long as you don't mind this stretch of Woodland off Olympus; after all, it is just 'round the corner from Miss Duke's contender on Fareholm; perhaps we could contrast & compare gayities?

Anonymous said...

When mama said gayest, she meant who's owned it, not the day kor...

StPaulSnowman said...

LGB; Help me out. It that magnificent modern masterpiece Miss "Doris" Duke's house in Palm Springs? I didn't know there was one. It would be tough to beat Roughpoint if we are going to buy in this market. Of course we would be up against all the bluehairs who want to keep it open to the public. Snowman

Anonymous said...

Those dreadful orchids are staged in every room!

Aside: word verification is hestr. I guess they saw me and mah big ole scarlet letter comin'!

Virgtastic said...

Anon 2:57 - you beat me to it. I couldn't wait to post my comment about the orchids. This home is so damn fabulous that Mama made no mention of the orchids ;)

Gorgeous home! I'm dying here because I MUST have it.