Monday, November 8, 2010

Renée Zelwegger Lists Pair of Manhattan Cribs

SELLER: Renée Zelwegger
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $8,925,000
SIZE: 2 units that combined measure 5,000-ish square feet and include 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The list of unlucky in love leading ladees in Tinseltown who repeatedly ride and get tossed off the cruel merry-go-round of romance stretches for miles. The wee lassies, who all too frequently land hard (and publicly) on black top of fantasy and fairy tales include (but are far from limited to) Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Simpson and, of course, the disturbingly sinewy former cheerleader and Oscar winning actress Renée Zellweger.

Among Miss Zellweger's dizzyingly long list of high profile and erstwhile paramours (and hook ups) we have actor Rory Cochrane, face-contorting comedian Jim Carrey to whom she was engaged, Matthew Perry, White Stripe Jack White, itty-bitty ten gallon hat wearing Kenny Chesney to whom she was married for about as long as it takes Your Mama to suck down half a pitcher of gin & tonics, former Beverly Hills 90210 stud Luke Perry, John Krasinki, music legend Paul McCartney, hotelier Andre Balazs, newsman Dan Abrams and, since sometime in June of 2009, scruffy-chinned easy-on-the-eyes actor Bradley Cooper, currently one of Hollywood's hotsiest totsies.

Squinty-eyed Miss Zellweger has long maintained a residence in New York City but recent reports reveal she's fixin' to put The Big Apple in her rear view mirror and heaved her pair of pretty apartments in a beautiful pre-war boo-teek townhouse building on East 82nd Street at the corner of Madison Avenue in New York City on the market with a combined asking price of $8,925,000. According to Miss Zellweger's paid spokesperson, she's opted to let go of her New York City digs because she plans to spend more time on the west coast, presumably with her man-friend Mister Cooper.
The larger of Miss Zellweger's Upper East Side cribs (above), currently listed at $6,975,000 with monthly maintenance and common charge of $2,611, was purchased in April of 2007. Property records show the apartment, a somewhat awkward combination of 3 smaller apartments, was purchased in two separate transactions that totaled $5,400,000. According to current listing information the larger unit measures around 3,750 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 windowless poopers.

The richly ornamented but oddly configured 2nd floor spread has 13-foot ceilings, original hardwood floors, two entrances, and an enfilade of rooms that front to back include a large living room with fireplace, a smaller library, another large living room that's likely to be be used as a dining room, and a 23+ foot long solarium that looks out and down on bizzy and loud Madison Avenue. A rabbit warren-like hallway weaves and winds from the secondary foyer, which opens into the second living room/dining room, past the master bedroom, through a corner of the windowless walk-in closet sized kitchen with its adjacent laundry room, and down and around to the two guest bedrooms, one of which is quite small and both of which have private poopers.

Just over a year after picking up the larger unit, Miss Zellweger dropped another hefty $2,800,000 to purchase the 1200-ish square foot one bedroom and one pooper apartment next door. It's not clear if Miss Zellweger planned to combine the apartments into one 5,000 square foot sprawler or if she just preferred having guest quarters completely separate from her private suite of rooms.
The elegantly proportioned and elaborately ornamented smaller apartment (above), listed at $1,950,000 with monthly maintenance and common charges of $1,100, includes a proper and generous foyer, a small but adequate city-sized kitchen with window, a hallway with closet and windowed pooper that properly separates the fireplaced boo-dwar from the more public spaces.

While listing information shows the larger apartment devoid of any furniture or day-core, the magnificently commodious 25+ foot by 24+ foot living room of the smaller unit with its fireplace flanked by built-in bookshelves and graceful bow-fronted bay window, is shown all done up and did over with putty colored walls, dazzling white dentil moldings and window frames, a hulking red tufted sofa with dainty turned feet, a pair of matching tufted armchairs, black and white framed photographs, an old victrola, a black baby grand piano–does Miss Thing actually play the damn pie-anna or is it just day-core designed to impress the guests?–and a pool table. That's right, a damn pool table.

A few quick flicks of the well worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that if Miss Zellweger's crack real estate agent manages to get full price offers on both apartments, she stands to lose a not inconsiderable $850,000+ on the sale of the smaller apartment and gain a substantial $1,575,000 on the larger. A few more bead flicks shows that Miss Z. stands to earn $725,000 (less the fat real estate fees) iffin she can get full price sales. But let's be honest chickens, that seems unlikely don't it?

It seems unlikely that Miss Zellweger will quit the East Coast entirely given that she owns a vintage farmhouse compound in Pomfret, CT she bought in 2004 for $1,320,000 as well as another vintage farmhouse in East Hampton, NY she picked up in April of 2003 for $2,300,000.

On the Left Coast, Miss Zellweger used to own a house in the Hollywood Hills she bought in March of 2000 for $1,875,000 from from Wallflowers lead singer Jakob Dylan, the son music icon Bob Dylan. She sold that a couple of years later and high-tailed it to a big house in Bel Air. She didn't care for the big house and the fat mortgage in Bel Air and less than a year after buying the celebrity-style estate, she flipped it back on the market and sold it in July of 2003 for $7,000,000 to Will & Grace alum Debra Messing.

She did not, as far as Your Mama knows, own another an abode in Los Angeles until early 2010 when real estate rumors ran rampant that Miss Zellweger and her man-friend actor Bradley Cooper scooped up a contemporary house in the Rustic Canyon area in Pacific Palisades for $4,700,000. It seems unlikely the pair would have purchased the pad together and it's unclear to Your Mama if Miss Zellweger bought the residence on her own or if perhaps Mister Cooper bought it all on his own. Maybe they're all entangled up in each other's financial bizness even though they've barely been dating a year and did buy it together. Stranger things have happened.

For his part, Mister Cooper (All About Steve, He's Just Not That Into You, New York, I Love You, The Hangover) owns of a wee bachelor pad in Venice, CA as well as a triplex townhouse in the Dogtown Station condo complex, also in Venice.

listing photos and floor plans: Corcoran

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you sure she gets "tossed out" of her relationships, or is she simply impossible to relate to or fickle and unstable? I didn't count the number of relationships you mentioned, but they are enough to make me think there is something "odd" about her rather than her partners.

Anonymous said...

I would love to see mama take a stab at reconfiguring the larger apartment. The laundry room clearly needs to be blown out to increase the size of the kitchen and moved, well, only the second hallway seems to be a good area. The mouldings are beautiful, but they may interfere with any wall movement needed to accomodate a more practical layout.

Lilithcat said...

The listing has a proposed floor plan combining the two apartments.

Interesting that she bought a house from Bob Dylan's kid. According to the New York Times, she bought the smaller NYC apartment from a ex- of Bob's.

StPaulSnowman said...

The plaster work is very beautiful but the aesthetic of those hideous new, no doubt very energy efficient windows, is a superb example of how to remuddle a period property. Just go ahead and gut it if you can't respect the interior.

Anonymous said...

Both apartments constitute the full secind floor of the building. If they were combined, the space would open up and be quite spectacular. Location is a block from the Metropolitan Museum and Central Park.

There was a forclosure here the year before last and the 1bed on the floor below sold for $950k in April - half what the ask is on this.

Carla Ridge said...

And not to quibble, but shouldn't there be a door between the Foyer and Bedroom hall in the smaller plan? Now, someone may have just bricked up whatever's in the bedroom as a hoot and this is the way it is. Kinda like "Let's see if she even notices" pixie-ness.

But all kidding aside, this is pretty fantastic looking. And a BIG YES to Anon 11:03 -- I, too, would LOVE to see Mama fire up the old PhotoShop on the proverbial combined plan.

Anonymous said...

Love the curved window wall in the smaller apt but can't figure out where a bed would go in the bedroom unless it was next to or directly in front of the door. It needs to be centered across from the fireplace but the closet doors are in the way. Oh well. I agree with the previous poster about reconfiguring the larger apt. Maybe it could be done without too much destruction of beautiful mouldings.

Sylvia Fowler said...

poor dear....she has as much trouble picking a good home as she does a husband!

Malcolm Collins said...

I have loved all our your great discoveries and your wonderful (and sometimes wonderfully funny) descriptions every since I discovered your site. I share your love (and sometime obsession) with "floor plan porn". As a piano player, just a minor criticism: a baby grand is a horizontal piano 5' long or less. Everything else is a grand piano. The piano in the picture is a grand piano, not a baby grand.

Jumpin Jejosephat in LA said...

I think the 1 bedroom abode is quite lovely. The larger apartment..... Well, meh... There's a June Bug for every duck, so someone will eventually find it to be the place they've always been looking for.
And as far as her relationships go, my Momma had some sage advice and that was "Ask yourself what the one common denominator in all you're failed relationships. Mmm hmmm... Yep, that would be YOURSELF. So work on being the man of someone's dreams instead of looking for the woman of your dreams". Of course she was clueless at the time, and for quite a while, so was I, but it should have been the same gender. : p

micanichi said...

I love the four rooms aligned to the right of the larger plan but the maze does need to be redesigned.
btw, the break-ups usually occur when her mens find out she's a robot.

Anonymous said...

Nix the fussy furniture. This place could be quite bare and really fabulous without the usual "gooped up faux designer nonsense". Sometimes you have to let the light and architectural details speak for themselves. I live in such a place in a historic penthouse and it is infinitely serene and timeless.

Jeannified said...

Love the place. LOVE the entryway with all of that beautiful beveled glass!

Anonymous said...

What in the world was she thinking of here? Getting any good advice from her bevy of advisors? Don't think so. This was a terrible purchase in the first place, then compounded by the second buy. You can almost imagine the sellers chuckling to themselves over their good luck as they signed the appropriate documents.
The big apartment is worth no where near what she paid for it, or what she is asking. I have no idea what she was thinking about when she bought here. The building makes no sense for her. The choice of neighborhood is bizarre.

Anonymous said...

To anonymous #14. Money is relative. Who is to know that she wouldn't overpay to be away from all the self appointed fabulous folks. Sounds like she just might be an individual.

Miss Cookie Divine said...

i read that Ms. z twitted that the east 80's was for "old folks"....

Anonymous said...

This plan problem could be easily solved. The existing kitchen, laundry, corridor and bedroom / bathroom could all be combined into a single large kitchen with laundry incorporated. Who needs the extra bedroom with the guest apartment adjacent? Not sure about the 2 entries...As for the current apartment furniture - complete amateur hour. Just terrible. This could be a great apartment, regardless of all the location queens comments....