Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Alicia Keys Buys Bubble Hill

BUYER: Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz
SELLER: Eddie Murphy
LOCATION: Englewood, NJ
SIZE: 25,000 square feet (approx.), 7 bedrooms, 9 full and 4 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: According to the ever-in-the-know property gossips at the New York Daily News, 15-time Grammy-winning superstar singer/songwriter Alicia Keys and her hip-hop producer/entrepreneur hubbySwizz Beatz have agreed to cough up "around $12,000,000" for Bubble Hill, the lavish Englewood, NJ estate of comedian Eddie Murphy.

Depending on how you see the sitch, that just might be a pretty good deal when you consider Mister Murphy first hoisted his Garden State real estate white elephant on the market seven or more years ago with an in-hindsight grossly optimistic asking price of $30,000,000.

The 25,000 square foot, Georgian mega-mansion sits on five gated and manicured acres and is approached from a long driveway that passes under, what Your Mama opines, is an architecturally unnecessary porte-cochère that only makes the place seem like someplace where you go for an upscale Bar or Bat Mitzvah, an upper management executive's retirement party or, maybe, a charity benefit hosted by one of those excessively spray-tanned drama mommas on The Real Housewives of New Jersey. We humbly but very strongly suggest a removal of said porte-cochère.

Anyhoo, the unapologetically grand—and quite possibly even grandiose—residence includes, according to listing information and previous discussions of the property, 7 bedrooms, 9 full and 4 half bathrooms and numerous formal and informal living rooms and dining areas. The gigantic red brick pile is also said to contain a recording studio, a two-lane bowling alley, a pub room, a wood-paneled billiards room and a spa area with—natch— multiple hair and make-up stations. There's also a detached structure with multiple automobile garage bays and, at the opposite end of the massive manse, an attached, glass-roofed indoor swimming pool pavilion.

Mister and Miz Keys-Beatz will, so the celebrity real estate gossip goes, will also purchase a contiguous two-acre lot, also owned by Mister Murphy, with additional living space, a children's playground and a tennis court.

In early 2010 Miz Keys and Mister Beatz paid design-minded rocker Lenny Kravitz $12,750,000 for his long-listed duplex penthouse loft in New York City's SoHo 'hood. In March of this year (2012) the procreating couple heaved the nearly 6,200 square foot, four-terrace spread on the market in March 2012 with a much higher $17,950,000 price tag.

Mister Murphy still owns another opulent mansion in the guard-gated Beverly Park community in Los Angeles that's almost as big as Bubble Hill as well as a 200-plus acre country spread in rural Poughquag, NY that he had on the open market back in mid-2007 with an asking price of $5,995,000, reduced from $8,995,000.

listing photos: Prominent Properties Sotheby's

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

The vulgar bar stools in two rooms and the billiard table. Sheesh! The outside looks half way decent but that all changes when you go in the front door.

Anonymous said...

Pardon me, but what, exactly, did you find so vulgar about the bar stools? I hope you were objecting to the general air of nouveau riche excess which they were part of rather than to the very specific ethnic design of the fabric on the stools themselves.

Anonymous said...

The Rabbi had her very own bas mitzvah in a place a lot like this - with a porte cochere. And studied classical piano in a music conservatory - with a porte cochere. And grew up in a now 100 plus year old Trentonian home - with a porte cochere. Of course English wasn't the Rabbi's childhood language, so everyone in our religious community called them - carports.

Perhaps nostalgia contributes to the Rabbi experiencing this alter heym neo-Georgian - with intact carport - as the least intolerable of all the mcmansions paraded past the poor Kinderlach's eyeballs these last few weeks. And to Anonymous 7:19 p.m. above, the Rabbi would prefer the barstools to be uphostered in a fabric featuring kosher chickens, lambs, and cows, reminding her of what she most enjoys for dinner, along with her Jameson on the rocks.

Rabbi Hedda LaTess
Trenton NJ

Anonymous said...

Hey, we're down with the billiards room and elephant bar stools, and hoping the front door opens to a double height foyer with twin curved stairways.

Studly and Rodney

Anonymous said...

Being family-oriented lesbians, we like what appears to be a wholesome two-lane bowling alley. And being family-oriented lesbians, we'd repurpose what appears to be a beauty parlor into a children's creative play space.

Verandah and Patti

Jesse said...

Did MegaUpload pay for this house?

Anonymous said...

Eddie Murphy wore the barstools in "Coming to America "

Anonymous said...

This is so bland it makes me want to fall asleep.

Splenderosa said...

Mama, just keep on posting for all of us normal folks to enjoy. Forget about the sarcastic snits who leave ridiculous comments only to amuse themselves. The rest of the world loves what you do!!

Anonymous said...

Hideously over the top! Alicia better get those thighs back on the road cause she's got about $25 million in property to maintain!

Anonymous said...

7:19 So if you dont like the bar stools that makes you racist?? Is that what I am hearing?

Anonymous said...

If the Sopranoes moved to their dream home, here it is. I would have said funeral home Mama.

Anonymous said...

Hi Splenderosa, I've read Mama's blog for a few years, and I enjoy and learn from most of the comments almost as much as I enjoy and learn from Mama. I don't like when the readers attack Mama or one another, but I don't mind if the readers are longwinded and sarcastic regarding the properties, and I suspect even Mama chuckles.

Anonymous said...

7:19 bar stools belong in bars not in homes. Not even it the kitchens of homes.

Anonymous said...

Anon 6:49 I'm with you. Spendorosa what do you think? Who's offensive? Name names!

l'il gay boy said...

The barstools give new meaning to the expression "the elephant in the living room..."

Heinous.

As for the porte cochere, I don't believe a successful one has been built in the US since the first decade of the last century, when it was distinctly for a coach, not a car (as in carport, as the Rebbe so graciously pointed out).

Anonymous said...

The house has a beautiful exterior refinement about it (minus for porte cochere). Some minor tweaking on the exterior and some MAJOR overhall to the interiors will result in a beautiful restrained elegant abode... one could only hope!

As is trying for old money merges with no taste trash interiors oh my yes I said it

Anonymous said...

"a long driveway that passes under, what Your Mama opines, is an architecturally unnecessary porte-cochère .... We humbly but very strongly suggest a removal of said porte-cochère."

Yea, and ditto for the White House.

Petra's said...

Well, it's certainly very Jersey.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Beverly Park, tell us who bought the frankenmaloof place! I can't take the teasing anymore momma :'(

Anonymous said...

I know some juicey details about Maloofs new home!!!

Anonymous said...

Where or where is Ms Maloof moving her highness?

Anonymous said...

Nice looking exterior architecture. However, the home is nowhere near a mega-mansion. Perhaps Alicia will add the sophistication it deserves. Wishing her all the best.

l'il gay boy said...

"However, the home is nowhere near a mega-mansion."

Looks are deceiving -- it is 25,000 sq. ft. after all.

Wikimapia shows it sprawling across 5 acres:

http://wikimapia.org/#lat=40.8939868&lon=-73.9608032&z=19&l=0&m=b&show=/5438331/Bubble-Hill

Neither good nor bad bones, nor a teardown or gut remodel -- but like Theresa Giudice, she needs work...

Anonymous said...

Verandah and Patti should leave the beauty parlor just as it is for the boy children to creatively play hairdressers.

Candy Spelling said...

Verandah and Patti, don't you think the beauty parlor would be put to better use as storage space for your clog and sweater-vest collections?

I don't think you'd have much use for a gift-wrapping room.

Anonymous said...

Of course, the bar stools would be significantly more vulgar if they actually WERE in the living room, LGB. However, they're in the bar. The bar of an African-American entertainer. So perhaps an African fabric isn't especially inappropriate, given the context. I happen to find the Ionic columns vulgar, myself. Squat proportions always give me the shivers, and millwork is generally more tiresome to rip out & replace than fabric.

Anonymous said...

12:57, spill or I'll beat you senseless w the wooden spoon.

Anonymous said...

Lovely on the outside. I'm sure she will redo the interior to her liking. Lots of potential here!