The Real Estalker

N.Y. State of Mind Two: Thierry Mugler

2012-01-26T14:27:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Thierry Mugler
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $7,995,000
SIZE: 4,100 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In 2003, amid crushing financial losses and with much boo-hooing by the stiletto-clad fashion elite, gleefully unconventional French couturier Thierry Mugler closed his eponymous label and all but disappeared from the public eye. More accurately, the Clarins company, who owned the brand since 1994, shuttered the operation. Anyhoo, the French phoenix not only emerged four or five years later with a long list of new fashion world ventures but utterly and disarmingly transformed into 240 titanic pounds of pierced, tatted, plastic surgified and muscle bound (senior citizen) beefcake.

Despite the loss of control of his professional baby and his essential evaporation from the dernier cri fashion scene, Paris-based Monsieur Mugler had the inclination and dough-re-mi to acquire and maintain a penthouse pied-a-terre in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood that property records reveal he bought in July 2004 for $4,500,000. Monsieur Mugler recently if not very quietly listed his luxurious and sparely dressed Big Apple crash pad with an haute asking price of $7,995,000.

An April 2010 article in The Old Grey Lady revealed the vexatiously vainglorious Monsieur Mugler only makes use of the spacious, high maintenance New York City duplex penthouse about two months of the year. That's a colossally costly two months when one considers whatever mortgage payments Monsieur may (or may not) be responsible for and the $7,555 per month—$90,660 annual—in property taxes and common charges not to mention the must-be-considerable expense of maintaining the fully decked and landscaped roof terrace partially shaded, the children will note, by an impressively mature pine tree.

Listing information shows the duplex penthouse, "perched atop a prime Chelsea prewar building," was originally designed as two separate (but now fully integrated) apartments that together span around 4,100 square feet with two bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and open city views to the south and west.

An intimate vestibule—with well-placed if windowless powder pooper—acts as a welcomedbuffer between the front door that opens into the building's public hall and the lofty apartment'sentrance gallery done up in de rigueur impress-the-guests glam with a gold-leafed ceiling and a couple of rather forbidding sculptures of humpback javelinas, hoofed hyenas or some other phantasmagorical creature Your Mama decidedly does not much fancy coming across in the woozy dark of a boozy late night.

The 500-plus square foot corner living/dining room, minimally done up in grey, black, red and white, has espresso stained hardwood floors underfoot that anchor the ethereal space. Two long walls of over-sized windows do not appear to have any window treatments whatsoever and wide expanses of crisp white walls work well for artwork display and/or movie projection. Vintage red glass decanters and a floating staircase, fashioned Donald Judd-like with a rhythmic (if precarious looking) procession of cantilevered treads, breaks up the otherwise linear room with a few feminine forms and one electrifying diagonal. That's right, puppies, love it or hate it, we're talking contemporary architecture that mimics modern art.

The pearwood and limestone galley kitchen isn't very big by suburban mcmansion standards, but it's absolutely well equipped with fully integrated Euro-style appliances, is plenty sizable enough to cook a proper meal and un-pack the moo goo gai pan, and bends unapologetically towards the architecturally (melo)dramatic with a soaring ceiling topped by a gigantic shed-roof sky light. The sky light pokes up through the planted roof terrace which may have allowed Monsieur Mugler to peer down from the roof terrace and make sure his willow wisp thin house boy (or whomever) salted his lunchtime greens (or whatever) in just the right manner.

Cozier quarters can be found in the moody and manly mahogany-paneled library with wood-burning fireplace, glass-enclosed display and book shelves, and humongous windows fitted with a intricately geometric grid of black shutters. Mister Mugler—and/or his nice-gay or lady decorator—balanced the electrifying coral red sofa with a pair of earthy milk chocolate leather arm chairs, gleaming waterfall glass coffee tables, and a few cow skins tossed out on the rich wood floors.

Each of the two, 28-foot long master bedrooms has substantial closet space and plenty of room to maneuver. One bedroom offers a custom-fitted dressing room (with window) and a hotel-type bathroom with glass-enclosed, party-sized shower while the other claims an uncomfortably compact crapper, a 17-plus foot long separate office space with three windows on two walls and—conveniently—a separate entrance to the building's public hall, a set up perfect for secreting late night trysts in and out without having to reveal the true magnitude of the penthouse and, hence, the real depth of one's bank accounts.

The vulnerable-looking but no doubt powerfully engineered cantilevered stairs, which Your Mama could and would never attempt to negotiate without a nerve pill and at least two good sized gin & tonics, ascends with high impact minimalist style into a glass-roofed and glass-walled green house and adjoining conservatory/sitting room space that spills out through multiple steel-framed glass doors to an 800 square foot fully planted terrace made totally private with high hedges and tall fences.

The bi-level terrace features a trellised dining area, built-in barbecue area and, it may surprise some to learn, a hot tub. A properly private hot tub on the roof in the middle of Manhattan does offer intriguing and lascivious possibilities, to be sure, but what neither the terrace nor the greenhouse/conservatory do have, alas, is a facility. That means Your Mama, Monsieur Mugler and any one else up on the roof with an bulging bladder will have to make a Sophie's Choice, to navigate the theatrical staircase down to the penthouse's privately situated powder room off the entry vestibule or to more simply but far less privately scootch behind the pine tree for a quick whiz.

It should surprise no one that Your Mama doesn't run in the same gym-toned high fashion circles as Monsieur Mugler so we haven't any idea why he's opted to sell his Chelsea penthouse aerie. It could be the significant potential profit or maybe he's just decided it's much simpler (and so much less headache) to dump the high maintenance penthouse and book himself into a swank suite of rooms at any of the many high-priced boo-teek hotels that have popped up at an alarming rate all over downtown New York in the last 5 or 10 years.

listing photos and floor plan: Sotheby's International Realty

N.Y. State of Mind One: Naomi Watts and Liev Schriber Buy

2012-01-26T10:50:00.000-08:00

BUYER: Naomi Watts and Liev Schrieber
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $3,950,000
SIZE: 4,315 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: After several years kicking the real estate tires of a scads of six-and-a-half and fifteen million dollar downtown townhouses, much in demand Oscar-nominated actress Naomi Watts (21 Grams, J. Edgar, King Kong, I ♥ Huckabees) and always working movie actor/Tony Award winning thespian Liev Schreiber (Glengarry Glen Ross) are reported to have finally, at long last settled on a multi-million dollar parking lot-sized loft on a cobble stoned street in the celeb-friendly and trés trendy TriBeCa neighborhood.

The two-unit, semi-combined spread sprawls across an entire, low floor of a relatively unadorned 8-story, solid steel and concrete building put up in the 1920s. The pair of co-operative cribs were last listed at $4,500,000 but online documentation reveals the no-board-approval-necessary units were previously listed in late 2009 and early 2010 at just $4,000,000. The New York-based Hollywood hot shots are said to have paid $3,950,000 for the essentially raw units that together measure 4,315 square feet and feature key-lock elevator access, airy 14 foot ceilings, old school (and down market) painted linoleum tile floors, 13 windows of varying sizes on three walls, and "only 6 structural columns for optimal flexibility."

The current configuration (as seen on the floor plan included with listing information, above) shows the two units combined include three small but proper bedrooms—one marked as an office, all with windows, and none with built-in closet space, two basic (and/but window-free) bathrooms, and two kitchens tucked deep in to the (possibly darkish) rear of the loft(s). Each of the two units currently have vast, prairie-like living/dining/working spaces and one of them claims limited but protected Hudson River views from the southwestern corner or the building.

From the looks of things, the Watts-Schreibers will need a smart architect and nice-gay or lady decorator to smoothy combine the two adjoining but fully independent condos into one cohesive living space suitable for a high-profile but low key family of four. Or not.

These long time lovers and happily unmarried procreators both come from wildly eccentric and not entirely stable mothers who hauled them around to various hippy-dippy ashrams and cultish compounds so it's not such a stretch for Your Mama to imagine they might seek a more Old School sort of living situation in a massive downtown loft that retains more than just a whiff of the neighborhood's roots as a warehouse district where artists and other space seekers leased leviathan lofts for pennies on the dollar because, once upon a time, nobody even vaguely Uptown or Wall Streety wanted to live in TriBeCa. Today, of course, the neighborhood is beyond upscale, known for is well-regarded public school, upscale shopping and dining options, baby buggy choked sidewalks, and spacious "loft" residences affordable, generally speaking, only to financially fortunate folks like Wall Streeters and Uptown types.

So, despite the four million clam cost of their new TriBeCa crib(s), maybe Miz Watts and Mister Schreiber will go boho and simply add a few walls for bedrooms in one of the units and use the other for work and Showbiz things like, say, a state-of-the-art hair and make-up station and a willy nilly mess of rollings racks draped in Thom Browne suits and bedazzled red carpet gowns. Or not.

Anyhoo, we're not entirely sure where the comely couple and their two kids currently reside in New York City although we used to see them on a regular basis in the Cooper Square area in the East Village. What we do know is the artsy-fartsy and deep-pocketed couple maintain at least two additional residences, one in Los Angeles and the other in the Hamptons.

In October 2010 Miz Watts and Mister Schreiber very briefly listed their house of unwed bliss in the leafy Brentwood area of Los Angeles with an asking price of $5,995,000. The vine-covered house, long owned and sold to Miz Watts in June 2004 by sublime Tinseltown royal Sally Field, was purchased by the British-born actress just after she and now deceased actor Heath Ledger split up and at least a year before she hooked up with her handsome and articulate Baby Daddy.

In September 2007 the couple did what so many wealthy New Yorkers do, they snatched up a swanky house in the Hamptons that's a five (or so) minute stroll from the beach and and even shorter amble in to miniscule downtown Amagansett (NY). Property records reveal the high-hedged and shingled house, on nearly three-quarters of an acre with a swimming pool and separate guest cottage/pool house, cost the comely couple $4,300,000.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Jorge Posada Retires and Shakes Up Real Estate Portfolio

2012-01-25T15:28:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Jorge Posada
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $11,500,000
SIZE: 5,400 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Much to our own chagrin, Your Mama woke up much later than usual this morning, hung over like a wet blanket from all the gin, candy and late night Australian Open watching. When we finally managed to pour ourselves a cup of coffee and check out the incoming emails and news feeds we quickly found all the international property gossips squawking like wild hogs about how lauded and applauded New York Yankee Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez has done sold a New York City condo he snatched up in March (2011) for $5,500,000 then brazenly flipped back on the market a few months later with an audacious but apparently not unrealistic eight million dollar price tag. No word on the agreed upon sale price but it was sufficiently high enough for Mister A-Rod to "lock in a significant profit" New York City real estate sources "familiar with the sale" told The Wall Street Journal.

Fascinating as Mister A-Rod's professional accomplishments, eternal parade of usually blond, typically hard-bodied and often high-profile gal pals, and fickle-seeming real estate doings may be, he ain't the only Yankee with an itch to unload a high-priced and art-filled New York City condo crib. Rather than talk trash about Mister A-Rod's almost entirely white, Warhol print filled full-floor bachelor pad on the 35 floor of the Rushmore, a towering Upper West Side condo complex that looms over the Westside Highway with sweeping Hudson River views, we've opted instead to head over to the Upper East Side where Mister A-Rod's long-time teammate Jorge Posada and his va-va-voom wife Laura have had their full floor condominium residence listed since early December 2011with a major league asking price of $11,500,000.

It was only yesterday, we learned on the interweb just this afternoon, that Mister Posada officially announced his retirement from professional baseball, a turn of events that may or may not have something to do with him and the missus listing their deluxe and decidedly contemporary Manhattan homestead.

Believe it or not puppies, Your Mama had never even heard of Mister Posada before this morning so we did what we always do when it comes time to discuss a professional athlete: We picked up our bedraggled Princess phone and warily dialed our moody, boozy, sleep deprived and ball-obsessed b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau who when asked what she knew of Mister Posada moaned feverishly with an obvious lust in her loins and described the six-foot-two slugger in her typically lewd manner as a "Hot, uncut Cuban by way of Puerto Rico with big ears!"When we warily queried how she knew such inappropriately personal things, Fiona haughtily replied, "I just know. I can see it in his eyes." Ugh. Anyoo, Miss Trambeau eventually went on elucidate that during his 17 year career catching and batting for the Yankees Mister Posada was a god damn superstar, a five-time All-Star player who possesses a handful of chunky, diamond-encrusted World Series championship rings.

Property records suggest Mister and Missus Posada purchased and subsequently combined two adjacent mid-floor condo residences in to one mansion-sized sprawler at The Seville, a 31-story, full-service white glove condo tower that lords over a busy but fairly ordinary corner of East 77th Street and 2nd Avenue. The glassy tower offers residents round-the-clock door people, direct access to a private garage, and a state of the art fitness center complete with the requisite body torture devices, an outdoor terrace, swimming pool, spa, and sauna. We're not entirely sure when they snatched up the first piece of their hoity-toity New York City real estate puzzle but we do find clear evidence Mister and Missus Posada paid $3,600,000—or $3,500,000 depending on where one peeps—for the nearly 2,300 square foot condo next door in August 2007.

Listing information and marketing materials for the Posada's now- and rather smartly-combined 10-plus room urban oasis show it spans approximately 5,600 square feet of interior space—and 0 square feet of exterior space, offers four highly desirable exposures—those would be north, south, east and west, of course—and is currently configured with 4 bedrooms and 5 full and 2 half bathrooms.

A pre-war sized foyer serves as the gateway to the amply proportioned living and dining rooms hat anchor the outside central corner of the residence. The dining room seats 10 or more at a very glossy wood table and the rather casual "formal" living room, sheathed in a shimmering silver wall covering, has a built in entertainment center along the back wall that contains a giant flat screen tee-vee surrounded by open shelves with various multi-colored objet on display. The cluster of ancient looking statuettes on the side table next to that kooky but comfortable-looking leather Euro-recliner would have to go since we'd probably make a panicked call to the security people and/or wake up our violent tendencied (and occasionally armed) housekeeper Svetlana every time we passed by that room in the hoochy haze of a dark early morning and imagined we saw an intruder out of the corner of our eye.

The apartment makes an unusually long and powerful 80-plus sweep from the dining room in the northwestern corner of the condo clear past the suburbs-scaled kitchen, beyond the breakfast area—used by Mister and Missus Posada as a sitting room—and clear through the home office/den area tucked cozily in to the condo's sunny southwest corner. Whatever one may think of this apartment and it's lackluster location too far east to be really posh, that 80-foot long stretch is a rare and jaw-dropping thing to behold in a city where a $4,000-a-month two-bedroom apartment with 900 square feet is considered spacious.

A sybaritic, Poggenpohl kitchen has, as per listing information, a Chevy-sized center work island with long snack counter, miles of teak cabinetry, several over-sized windows with city views, and a boat load of high-grade and high-cost appliances that include twin Sub-Zero fridge-freezers. A service hall with laundry room and two separate powder poopers runs behind the kitchen and connects the front foyer to the service entrance and breakfast room that includes a wet bar (with full-height wine fridge) and opens into a convertible bedroom space used by Mister and Missus Posada as a casual home office/den built out with full wall of custom-designed open and closed shelving perfect for bong stashing and displaying knickknacks, photographs and various other paddy whacks.

Three family/guest bedrooms, each with generous closet space, huge windows and an attached private bathroom, along with a half dozen additional closets make up the eastern flank of the multi-winged apartment and the celebrity-style and clothes horse-accommodating master bedroom stretches back to form the west wing behind the family quarters and encompasses a private entry vestibule with closet and over-sized bedroom with additional closet space plus a built-in entertainment center with wall-mounted flat screen boob-toob. There are custom-fitted his and her dressing rooms—his dark and manly with frost glass fronted wardrobes and hers gleaming white lacquer with a glammy crystal chandelier—as well as his and her bathrooms, hers all in white with decked out hair and make-up center and his outfitted with a steam shower, wall-mounted tee-vee and walls sheathed in over-scaled chocolate brown crocodile that is more likely embossed leather than actual crocodile hide. Either way it's a hidebound pooper that could easily give an animal activist involuntary and uncontrollable fits of hysteria and peristaltic paroxysms.

With Mister Posada now retired, the Florida-based pair, who have three children, including one who grapples with craniosynotosis, no longer have a professional need to be in New York City for long periods of time. Of course we don't know a Snookie from a snooker table but we can imagine Mister and Missus Posasda no longer feel the need to pay for and maintain a substantial apartment in the Big Apple that listing information shows carries common charges and taxes that total $10,545 per month. Your Mama's bejeweled abacus calculates that comes to a pocketbook draining $126,540 per year not counting the costly repairs that always creep up, unnecessary but much desired improvements and, if there is one to maintain, mortgage payments, not to mention the thousands spent each year on tipping the building staff during the holidays.

That may be entirely financially manageable for man like Mister Posada who in his last years as a Yankee earned well upwards of $13,000,000 a year (as well as some wordy jeers from articulate places) but as a retiree whose income will likely drop precipitiously—but no doubt remain substantial compared Average Joe and Middle Class Mindy—the downsizing of his real estate load is a prudent and savvy maneuver.

Like many Yankees, Mister and Missus Posada have long maintained a mansion in Florida, in Tampa where the Yankees do their pre-season spring training. Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter both have been to Flah-rih-duh gajillions of times but have never set a toe in Tampa. In fact the only factoids we know about Tampa is that it embraces the Gulf of Mexico with a giant and busy harbor, that actress Butterfly McQueen was born there, and it has long been the home base of the Home Shopping Network.

Records indicate the couple acquired two acres in the upscale guard-gated enclave that winds through and around the Avila Golf and Country Club in Tampa, FL over the summer of 2001. It's not clear if Mister and Missus Posada custom-built their huge house in Tampa but the Hillsborough County Tax Man shows the existing residence wasn't built until 2003.

Mister and Missus Posada put their electronically gated Tampa estate on the market in early 2010 with an asking price of $7,250,000. Listing information we managed to cajole up out of the interweb shows the 2-story mock-Med mansion (shown above) measures 9,788 square feet and includes a total of 6 bedrooms, and 6 full and 2 half bathrooms.

The interior spaces include one of those ubiquitous impress-the-guests type foyers so often found in suburban mcmansions all across America, all the usual high ceiling formal entertaining spaces one expects in a near 10,000 square foot house plus vast informal family quarters that include a "state-of-the-art gourmet kitchen." The sprawling house also includes, as per listing information, a library, home theater, paneled game room with custom bar and wine cellar, a separate playroom for the kiddies and, natch, a fitness room attached to the expansive master suite.

The estate looks over the golf course—an maniacally manicured vista that does nothing for Your Mama but is quite desirable for many—and include a gated motor court, garage space for five cars, and a resort-style swimming pool and spa complex with deep sunbathing and dining terraces, a lagoon-style pool with shallow shelf entry, a pair of water slides and a Playboy-like grotto with with water fall and secluded spa designed, we imagine, with—ahem—privacy in mind.

The price for Mister and Missus Posada's Tampa digs eventually plummeted to $5,950,000 and property records show they finally unloaded their white elephant in early November (2011), after more than 600 days on the market, with a drastically lower sale price of $4,500,000.

Long before the Posadas sold their Tampa mansion property records reveal they'd already shelled out $6,250,000 to buy a significantly larger waterfront mansion on a much smaller .51 acre lot almost 300 miles away behind the guarded gates of the Old Cutler Bay community in the Miami bedroom community of Coral Gables. The recently completed mock-Med pile was once listed as high as $10,450,000 and measures, according to information we found on the interweb, more than 13,000 square feet with 8 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms and includes a water side negative edge swimming pool and private 70-foot dock for parking the family watercraft.

exterior photo (New York City): Property Shark
interior listing photos (New York City): The Modlin Group
listing photos (Tampa): Smith & Associates Real Estate via Trulia and Dream Realty

Jennifer Aniston Buys Big Digs in Bel Air

2012-01-24T14:29:00.000-08:00

BUYER: Jennifer Aniston
LOCATION: Los Angeles (Bel Air), CA
PRICE: we hear around $22,000,000
SIZE: 8,500 square feet (approx.), 4 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It seems sit com queen and rom com royal Jennifer Aniston is moving on up to a twenty-some million dollar mid-century modern in the hoity toity Los Angeles, CA community of Bel Air. Before we address the newest real estate rumors swirling around Miz Aniston's latest (and alleged) acquisition let's quickly recap some of the notoriously real estate fickle celeb's most recent real estate activities.

In 2006 Miz Aniston dropped $13,500,000 for a Hal Leavitt-designed mansion in Beverly Hills then spent five years and many more millions on an extensive overhaul spearheaded by talented star-friendly architect and designer Stephen Shadley. Just as soon as the paint was dry Miz Aniston had a real estate change of heart and flipped the house on the market in early 2011with an oh-no-she-di'int asking price of $42,000,000.

Earlier in the year she'd told the people at People that she'd been on the hunt for a little place in New York so she could spend more time on the east coast. She also explained to the People peeps that she'd woke up in a London hotel room one night in the not so distant past and just at that moment came to the realization her life "felt really cluttered" and decided she needed to "simplify" her life, a process that included selling her big house in Beverly Hills which was "just too much" for the then single actress.

Of course, celebrities sometimes have a funny way of simplifying their lives.

The Bev Hills house quickly sold the house to an Orange County-based mutual fund magnate in June (2011) for $35,000,000 but not before Miz Aniston had already dropped more than seven million clams on two apartments in a low key but swankety-swank pre-war building in the West Village, one a puny 1-bedroom penthouse wrapped in planted terraces she bought from hairstyling honcho Sally Hershberger and the other a 1-bedroom apartment directly below. If the work has not already been done (or begun) the two adjacent but unconnected apartments will require extensive work to cohesively combine. That doesn't really sound very simple but then again who are we to know from simple?

Anyoo, it looked then like the long-time L.A. resident did indeed plan to high tail it back to New York City where she grew up and lived until she landed her defining (and exceedingly lucrative) role on Friends. But, not so fast said the little green man in the purple pants. It wasn't long after Miz Aniston sold her house in Beverly Hills that she and her new New York-based man-beau Justin Theroux—who left his live-in gal pal of 14 years to get with Miz Aniston—settled into unmarried (and leased) bliss in a high-priced love nest in the Bird Street neighborhood high above Los Angeles' Sunset Strip and it wasn't long after that bit of bizness hit the property gossip blogs Your Mama began to get wind of Miz Aniston house hunting in the Platinum Triangle, interested primarily we were told in architecturally significant homes with lots of privacy and seven figure asking prices.

Next up came all the hoo-ha and hullabaloo about Miz Aniston ditching her plans to combine her newly acquired West Village apartments in favor of a much morecontemporary condo crib listed at $8,700,000 and located in same high-brow boo-teek building in Gramercy Park where Chanel's exceptionally prolific German-born fashion goddess Karl Lagerfeld owns a pied a terre he's had on and off the market in the last year. Miz Aniston quickly shot down the rumor, admitting she did tour the place but had not made an effort to purchase.

Back on the west coast the rumors of Miz Aniston's desire for a permanent residence began to heat up and about two weeks ago we heard from Hermione Hightower, a trusted informant who sometimes has very accurate intel on Miz Aniston's real estate doings, who passed along the scuttlebutt that Miz Aniston was in the process of acquiring a clean-lined A. Quincey Jones contemporary in Bel Air on and off the market since 2008 an last listed with an asking price of $24,900,000.

We (stoopidly) sat on the tip. Naturally we asked around and received some "I hear that too" responses but nothing concrete enough we felt we wanted to move forward with the information. Alas. We snoozed and we losed. Today gossip juggernaut TMZ reported Miz Aniston has indeed snatched up the very same A. Quincey Jones-designed mansion in Bel Air that Hermione Hightower told us the superstar was buying weeks ago.

Another valued source told us earlier today that word on the Platinum Triangle real estate street is that Miz Aniston will pay around $22,000,000 for the approximately 8,500 square foot residence perched on a 3.25(ish) acre promontory high above the Bel Air Country Club.

A uniform grid of trees shade the gated, plaza-like gravel motor court and directly reference the rigorous geometry A. Quincey Jones applied to the architectural elements of the property that include a U-shaped main house with 4 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms plus a separate guest house tucked into a quiet corner of the estate and a brightly colored poolside pavilion with outdoor dining and lounging area with fireplace.

Interior spaces have gleaming honey-colored hardwood floors, vast planes of gallery white walls, long banks of full-height windows and sliding doors, and purposeful pops of bright colors that include a cobalt blue wall that surrounds a courtyard outside the formal dining room, lipstick red fireplace column that separates the front entry from the formal living room, and cobalt blue chimney breast in the master bedroom.

The back of the house opens up balconies and terraces with canyon and city views. A wide lawn stretches back the swimming pool (with spa and poolside pavilion) that sits on a lower terrace between the house and the small hillside vineyard that undulates along the lowest slope of the terraces estate. Certainly she'll pay someone to grow her grapes, mow the lawns, trim the trees, and skim the pool, but employing a small army of horticulturalists and botanists, a shirtless pool man, and a part time viticulturist doesn't sound like the simple life to Your Mama but then again....

listing photos: Everett Fenton Gidley for Westside Estate Agency

Brigitte Nielsen Buys Hollywood Hills Fixer Upper

2012-01-24T10:38:00.000-08:00

BUYER: Brigitte Nielsen
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $600,000
SIZE: 1,539 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Several months ago we received an unexpected communique from long-time informant Babbling Babette who tattled to Your Mama that platinum-haired model/hacktress/reality star Brigitte Nielsen and her much younger fifth husband Mattia Dessi were house hunting in Sherman Oaks, CA, the spiritual if not geographical heart of Los Angeles' ur-suburban San Fernando Valley.

We promptly forgot about the matter until a couple weeks ago when Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter went to visit a couple of effervescent (and hard partying) spinsters with whom we're acquainted. Out of the blue, over multiple shots of Russian vodka at noon, one of our always entertaining hostesses let it slip the six foot tall Danish-born d-list celebrity had recently completed the purchase of a very modest ranch style fixer upper in a little known and not particularly glittery pocket of the Hollywood Hills known as the Hollywood Manor.

Your Mama well realizes many of the children under the age of 35 may not have a clue who Miz Nielsen is but, once upon a time, back in the mid-1980s, she was a punishingly stunning and somewhat androgynous Amazonian model turned budding action flick bad ass (Red Sonja, Rocky IV) who briefly hitched her marriage wagon to Sylvester Stallone (with whom she had dinner at the White House in 1985), had a much-publicized romance with hairy-chested New York Jet Mark Gastineau (which resulted in the production of the second of her four children), and who several times bared her taut and bulbous naughty bits in the glossy pages of Playboy. She was, for a hot minute, the shit. Alas, Miz Nielsen's showbiz career hit the skids almost as quickly as it began but not before she managed to eek out a sporadic if not entirely unsuccessful music career, mostly in Germany, Austria and Spain.

Alas, the the fickle interests of Hollywood turn on a dime and the intoxicating glamor of fame subsequently evaporates. Like so many washed up entertainment industry types the last 5 or 10 years Miz Nielsen eventually turned to reality television. She's appeared in a frightfully long list of tawdry reality programs in both the U.S. and Europe, most notably on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (2008) and The Surreal Life (2004) where she met and embarked on a bizarre (and, one hopes, faux) romance with insanely annoying rapper Flavor Flav. In 2008 she had a slew of plastic surgeries taped for and aired on German television and she currently stars on sixth season of Ich bin ein Star—Hold mich hier raus!, the German version of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! It all seems a little depressing to Your Mama but, let's get real, who are we to judge? We spend out days writing about celebrity real estate for Christ damn sakes.

Anyhoo, after we sobered up from our mid-day hooch-fest with the spinsters we had a poke around the property records which do indeed reveal Miz Nielsen paid an even-steven $600,000 for a rather motley looking two-story house in the Hollywood Hills not so far from Universal Studios. Listing information we dug up off the internets shows the 1,539 square foot house was originally built in 1939 and has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and peek-a-boo mountain views.

A fenced and tree-shaded courtyard with fountain on the street side of the house ensures Miz Nielsen's neighbors can't peep in her front windows and leads to wood-floored interiors spaces that include a small "formal" living room with green marble fireplace surround, dining room, sun porch, and a green and white-tiled galley-style kitchen that listing information energetically and generously describes as a "COOKS KITCHEN!"

Many of the house's rooms open through French doors to the various courtyards, terraces and patios that surround the house. The various and multitudinous outdoor spaces include a narrow, awning-shaded strips of lawn with small pond, tended to but still somewhat unruly looking shrubbery clumps, a wide deck with lattice-screened pergola-shaded lounge area, and terraces beds planted with apple, pear, avocado and peach trees.

Additional amenities (and "amenities') include an attached 2-car garage with direct access to the house, sky lights and stained glass windows, two fireplaces, central heat and air, and solar panels on the roof that listing information surprisingly specifically indicates will save Miz Nielson "APPROX 25% OFF" her utility bill.

Your Mama has it on very good authority that Miz Nielsen, who reportedly maintains a house in her husband's native Italy and is sometimes reported to live in Palm Springs, has long leased a house in the Hollywood Manor 'hood that happens to be all but across the street from the one she just purchased.

Other resident celebrities—or "celebrities" depending on your point of view—of the Hollywood Manor enclave include inestimable helmet haired actress Morgan Fairchild, bespectacled tee-vee carpenter Paul DiMeo (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) who owns a Spanish casa once owned by Tinseltown cowboy Tom Mix, and pretty brunette actress Erin Daniels from The L Word who is not, as it turns out, a lesbian.

listing photos: Realty Source

Brandon Boyd Double Whammy: Two

2012-01-23T15:03:00.000-08:00

BUYER: Brandon Boyd
LOCATION: Venice, CA
PRICE: $2,750,000
SIZE: 2,909 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Earlier today Your Mama discussed the somewhat unconventional Venice, CA residence that Brandon Boyd, much-inked visual artist and comely lead singer of the radio-friendly rock bank Incubus, currently has up for sale with an asking price of $3,195,000. Mister Boyd listed his long-time abode back in August 2011 at a notably higher price ($3,495,000) and although the situation was much covered by many of our celebrity property gossip compatriots Your Mama did not, for reasons we don't recall, delve in to the matter at that point and time.

Mister Boyd may have yet to sell his quirky (and deluxely done) crib near the beach but it was recently tattled to Your Mama by an informant we'll call A. Nonny-Mouse that the slim-hipped (and apparently long-haired) singer-artist has already purchased another property, also in Venice.

Making use of very specific information provided by Missus Nonny-Mouse Your Mama was able to confirm the same trust and trustee Mister Boyd used to acquire his house in Venice—purchased from actress Maria Bello in November 2005—now shows up as the new owner of a fully fenced, gated and secured property just a momentary stroll off busy Abbot Kinney Boulevard, the primary arty-farty/hippy-dipy and increasingly upscale commercial heart of the still rough around the edges, left leaning Los Angeles beach community of Venice, a geographical and historic magnet for (among others) political radicals, hippies and hipsters, successful creative types, assorted freaks and geeks, arty-farty showbizzers, and a sizable and very visible homeless population. Resources and documentation available online indicate the lofty-residence in question, somewhat smaller that Mister Boyd's commercial conversion just over a mile to the north and west, went for $2,750,000.

Listing information Your Mama teased up out of the interweb shows the 3 bedroom and 3 bathroom residence measures 2,909 square feet, a figure that may or may not include an office space above the detached 2-car garage. The house was custom designed and built in 2007 "by a prominent interior designer." Said designer turns out to also be the seller who property records reveal as Amy (Devault) Acuna and her fashion designer/wardrobe stylist huzband René Acuna who acquired the property in the final days of 2002 for $573,000.

A gated walkway shoots up the side of the property and house to a brick-lined inset entryway where a black steel-framed commercial-style glass door swings open to a proper and intimately-scaled entrance hall with radiant heated polished concrete floor and full wall bathed in a high-glam, white silhouetted silvery wallpaper that we like because it's shiny and we like shiny things but also worry its well past its Warholian 15 minutes. The cozy-compact foyer explodes into the voluminous main living space with staggering 30-foot high exposed wood bow truss ceiling, bleached wide-plank wood floors (unnecessarily) laid at a 45-degree angle, a wood-burning fireplace, vast expanses of white walls for bouncing light and displaying artwork, and a pair of french doors with custom hand-forged hardware that open to a decked, fenced and high-hedged courtyard where a cushioned built-in bench hugs a tire-shaped concrete fire pit.

The kitchen, tucked under the stairs and open to the dining area of the main living space, seems a wee bit wee maybe for a 3,000 square foot loft-style residence but is generously equipped with a chunky white marble-topped center work island with snack counter, ebony flat-fronted cabinets with thickly veined black marble counter top, high-grade stainless steel appliances, and an awkward built-in buffet with plenty of space for cook books as if anyone actually uses cook books anymore. We tease. A butler's pantry with under-counter wine fridge connects the kitchen to the foyer and a bathroom facility that may be uncomfortably close to where food is prepared and served for Your Mama's preference but does offer dinner and drinks guests a relatively private place to do their dirty business.

An open stair leads up to a loft/den with grey-brown hardwood floors underfoot—notably different that the bleached stuff on the floor in the living room below—a built-in entertainment/storage cabinet at one end and a built-in desk and book shelves on the other.

A double-wide wood door in the loft/den slides back on sleek barn-inspired hardware to a wide corridor and master suite. A bedroom-sized walk-in closet with custom built ins and spa-like earth tone bathroom with separate soaking tub and over-sized shower flank the broad corridor that connects to the wide (if somewhat narrow looking) bedroom outfitted with wood beamed ceiling, gigantic concrete wood burning fireplace, and an extra wide sliding glass door that join to a small private balcony.

A grassy patch runs up the side of the house to a professionally landscaped postage stamp-scaled courtyard that separates the main house from the aforementioned alley-facing detached 2-car garage with office space above. A small deck between the two buildings marks the outdoor shower area that is, as best as we can surmise, totally open to the rest of the small but usable backyard area. Now listen, hunties, no one loves an outdoor shower in the cool evening of summer time more than Your Mama but, have mercy puppies, there does not seem to be a shred of privacy for the showeree here, just a too visible corner of the yard where people can just stand and around gape and guffaw while you inelegantly try to wash beach sand out the crack of yer damn ass.

Anyhoo, in addition to the 2-car garage there are four more off-street parking spaces (one of which doubles as a fenced dog run). Now children, we realize some of y'all are gonna gripe about the gangs in Venice and how it's little more than an expensive and glorified ghetto but regardless of what one may think of the admittedly sometimes less than savory shenanigans that go on in Venice it's impossible not to take not of the rare and valuable luxury six off-street parking spaces is in a tightly packed and parking challenged community where some of the otherwise often liberally-minded homeowners and residents literally fight with the essentially homeless (and not always respectfully hygienic) occupants of the scads of campers and RVs that sometimes dot and line the narrow streets of Venice.

Your Mama, who does not know a balloon from an artificial hip about Mister Boyd's actual plans as regards to his new digs, would bet both our long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly the office space above the garage will wind up converted into a music/art studio where thirty-something year old Mister Boyd can brandish his paint brushes, blow his didgeridoo and sing his pretty heart out.

Whatever Mister Boyd does to customize his new house and whatever real estate and home day-core traditionalists might think of his idiosyncratic (but hardly avant garde) decorative ways, Your Mama fully expects the end result will be thoroughly infused with his well-honed personal style that exudes an authentic-seeming (if inescapably curated) modern day bohemian point of view.

listing photos: Abbot Kinney Real Estate

Brandon Boyd Double Whammy: One

2012-01-23T12:04:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Brandon Boyd
LOCATION: Venice, CA
PRICE: $3,195,000
SIZE: 3,500 square feet (approx.), 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Brandon Boyd—writer, artist and plaintively-voiced front man for mainstream rock band Incubus—may hail from the archetypal-suburban streets of Calabasas, CA but he's long made his home in the nitty gritty beach community of Venice (CA) where in August 2011 he put his arty-farty if prohibitively pricey for most artists residence on the market with an optimistic $3,495,000 price tag. In early December, a few months after he dropped almost three million bucks to snatch up another house in Venice—more on that later—the rather becoming, sinewy slender and fearlessly tattooed Mister Boyd dropped the asking price of his boho beach side bedsit to it's current figure of $3,195,000.

Listing information indicates the once-commercial two-story structure was built in 1905 and used as a hotel "sometime in the 1940s." Your Mama was told or read somewhere—we can't recall which—the building once operated as a bordello but we aren't able to verify the veracity of such so we don't recommend the children spread that bit about without a caveat. Anyhoo, property records and previous reports on the matter reveal Mister Boyd's abode—situated a short block from the beach and, by Your Mama's assessment, desirably unconventional—was briefly owned by two-time Golden Globe nominated actress Maria Bello (Prime Suspect, ER, A History of Violence, The Cooler) who owned the unorthodox domicile for only 13 months (or so) and sold it in November 2005 at a near quarter-million dollar profit to Mister Boyd for $2,715,000.

The exterior of the mint green structure belies little of the bohemian luxury inside the fully-renovated and upgraded concrete- and cork-floored crib that feature 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, airy 12-foot high pressed tin ceilings with articulated moldings, earthquake-retrofitted exposed brick walls and low-key but high-brow kitchen and bathrooms that resonate of a quasi-industrial upscale Parisian garret, if there is such a thing as a quasi-industrial upscale Parisian garret.

The residence sits hard up on the street with nary an inch of buffer between the sidewalk and the front door opens that directly into the spacious main living space. Mister Boyd (or his nice, gay or lady decorator) wisely installed some sort of curved screen between the front door and the base of the staircase. Not only does the ancient art of Feng Shui require such an interjection to keep the money from flowing right down the stairs and out the front door, it adds a much needed smidgen of visual concealment from anyone who may be walking along the street when the front door is opened.

The "formal" living room, not surprising littered with musical instruments and chock-a-block with art and other objects that ooze with Mister Boyd's personal interests and fascinations, may suffer from a lack of clear glass windows—glass block was used on the exterior wall to maintain privacy but still bring natural light in to the room—but does benefits from a full wall of built in bookshelves filled with actual books and other ephemera that may or may not include some avian taxidermy. A clean-lined, custom-built floating steel staircase with chunky wood treads provides the necessary tension between the vintage nature of the original architecture and the kick-up your feet casual (if costly) and animal skin-draped day-core.

A towering pair of solid wood raised panel doors connect the living room to the ample, open plan combination dining room and kitchen kitted out in High Urban Loft style with simple, white Shaker-style cabinetry and commercial stainless steel appliances that include a restaurant-grade sink, super-size range with separate griddle, and a $10,000 glass-fronted Sub-Zero fridge/freezer that makes Your Mama sweat and swoon with unrequited appliance lust. Several sets of French doors connect to a narrow ground level courtyard tiled with Mexican pavers, hung with a myriad of cheap capiz shell chandeliers and furnished with a variety of wired things that include a vibrant, sunshine yellow cafe table and chairs.

Reclaimed warehouse-type windows line portions the upper level landing where the cork floors extend into the street-facing master suite complete with oddly off-center fireplace, exposed brick walls and pressed tin ceiling. Mister Boyd's boo-dwar offers the style maven a boo-teek sized and naturally-lit closet/dressing room and a beauteous bathroom designed by "a famous local architect" according to listing information and finished with well-worn antique herringbone wood floors—like one might find in a quasi-industrial upscale Parisian garret—white subway tiles smartly grouted in a contrasting grey, twin sinks atop a Jean Prouvé-inspired base, and a fireplace with tile surround adjacent to a free-standing soaking tub set into a greenhouse-like nook with steel-framed frosted glass wall and ceiling.

Listing photographs show Mister Boyd used a large, sky-lit space at the upper rear of the residence as a den/office area and a separate detached addition at the back of the property encompasses a two-car garage that opens to an alleyway and a 640 square foot sound-proofed music studio/guest quarters wrapped in theatrical red curtains and conveniently equipped with a kitchenette.

An unadorned exterior staircase, the sort of thing one might expect to find tucked into an unseen section of an office building or civic structure, climbs up to a wood-decked roof top terrace with an elevated, pergola-shaded shelter perfect for lounging, napping and—for those so inclined—getting frisky outdoors. Tall corrugated metal fencing along the sides may look a bit harsh to those who prefer more traditionally residential materials—we happen to l.o.v.e. the utilitarian nature of the humble and undulating material—but does ensure privacy for anyone who might like to soak up the sun and/or have an open air lunch snack and beverage in their birthday suits. Listing information indicates the roof deck is plumbed for a spa—a feature that pleases our mate The Dr. Cooter to no end—and there's a peek-a-boo view of the glimmering Pacific Ocean over the urban chaos of the surrounding roof tops and telephone wires.

We're not sure why Mister Boyd would want to vacate this obviously much-treasured residence in Venice for another, slightly smaller (and much more polished) loft-like residence in Venice located just over a mile away, significantly farther from the beach and much closer to the busy Abbot Kinney shopping and dining district. But, if we've said it once we've said it 78 times too many, such are the sometimes inexplicable and frequently capricious real estate ways of the rich and famous.

listing photos: Abbot Kinney Real Estate

Kobe Bryant Loses Three Mansions in Divorce

2012-01-20T15:58:00.000-08:00

In 2003 L.A. Laker Kobe Bryant was accused of assaulting a 19-year old woman in a Colorado hotel room. Mister Bryant denied the charges and claimed the sexual relations were consensual. The salacious charges were dropped a year later after the woman declined to move forward with a trial but not before the professional dribbler apologized to his wife for his sexual indiscretion with a $4,000,000 eight-carat purple diamond ring. His impending divorce, however, will cost the well-compensated shooting forward and 5-time NBA champion far more than a four million dollar finger sparkler.

All the celebrity-based blogs and sports-oriented websites are abuzz today with the news that Bryant's soon-to-be ex-wife Vanessa will receive all three of the couple's luxurious Orange County cribs as part of her reported (and alleged) $75,000,000 divorce settlement.

Your Mama, as we are sometimes want to do, did a little digging around in the property records and determined that Mister and soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant together owned a total three mansions of varying values, all within 5 minute drive of each other, nestled into upscale Newport Coast area in the mountains above the Pacific Ocean just below the hoity-toity beach community of Newport Beach.

The self-dubbed Black Mamba and his then teenage bride bought his first house near Newport Beach (shown above) in October 2001, according to property records, for $1,700,000. The Orange County Tax Man shows the gated, U-shaped two-story mansion, tucked into the tail end of a tiny cul-de-sac in a gated Pelican Ridge development. Records show the house was completed in 1997, sits a .47 acre hillside parcel with roof top and mountain views, measures around 6,500 square feet, and contains a total of 6 bedrooms. The palm tree-dotted back yard wraps around two sides of the house and includes various entertainment terraces, built-in barbecue center, small but lush lawns, and free-form swimming pool and spa.

Documents Your Mama had a long look at online show the property was transferred from Mister Bryant into soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant's name in early January 2012.

In July 2003, the couple spent $2,650,000 to purchase another, smaller but still large home two short blocks away in the same upscale gated enclave of Pelican Ridge. Records indicate the house is slammed on to a tight .29 acre plot and a recent report in the New York Post indicates it's occupied by soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant's momma.

Documents available online show this house was also transferred into soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant's sole ownership on the very same day in early January (2012) as the above mentioned abode.

In June 2008, Mister and Missus Bryant purchased, through a trust, a not-yet completed mansion just 1.5 miles away in the much ritzier (and, natch, guard-gated) Pelican Crest planned development. Records show the house, listed at $10,900,000, was snatched up for $9,540,000.

Listing information from the the time of the sale that Your Mama managed to tease up out of the interweb shows the then (and still) under construction 4-floor ocean view mansion was designed with more than 14,000 square feet of "Santa Barbara style living" that includes and elevator, 6 bedrooms, 9 full and 3 half bathrooms, subterranean parking for six luxury whips, a basement level with media, game, wine and music rooms plus and office and staff suite, and a sub-basement level with exercise room, sauna and steam facilities, and a game court.

It's not clear to Your Mama if Mister and soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant made any alterations to the plans for the Richard Krantz-designed domicile but a February 2011 article in the Orange County Register revealed that the home was then still under construction with a myriad of permits filed for various revisions.

Once again, online documents we perused show soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant became the sole owner of this property on the same day in early January (2012) as did the other to previously mention properties.

What soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant would want her trio of large and high-maintenance mansions and what she plans to do with them is, at this point, a mystery. However it certainly would not surprise Your Mama in the slightest if she eventually sold all three and moved her, her momma and kids into another pricey and posh pad in the area because, well, that's how the rich and famous often roll.

aerial photos (top and middle): Google
aerial and exterior photos (bottom): Orange County Register

Vanna White's Ex Lists Palatial Beverly Park Pad

2012-01-20T12:45:00.000-08:00

SELLER: George Santo Pietro
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: Make Him An Offer
SIZE: 14,554 square feet, 8 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A little birdie came chirp chirp chirpin' along the other day and tittered in Your Mama's ear that restaurateur and property developer George Santo Pietro—better known, perhaps, as the ex-husband of be-gowned Wheel of Fortune letter turner Vanna White—appears to have quietly floated his behemoth mansion in Beverly Hills' Beverly Park community on the market with an undisclosed price tag.

We quickly queried a few of our better contacts in the Platinum Triangle—the pricey pocket of Los Angeles comprised of the Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills and Bel Air communities—who often know the what's-what up in Beverly Park. We quickly heard back from an exceedingly well connected (and much valued) informant—let's call him Ned Knowshisstuff—who told Your Mama that word on the Bev Hills real estate street is that Mister Santo Pietro hasn't put an official asking price on the property, asking instead that interested parties "make him an offer he can't refuse." With all due respect, bitch pleeze. Come on now Mister Santo Pietro. You and Your Mama both know that ain't no way to sell a damn house, even a gigantic one like yours. It's just a way to ensure you feel indignant with insult when some bargain hunting billionaire offers half the amount you really want for the house.

Property records we peeped reveal Mister Santo Pietro first acquired the land in 1995 with his then-wife Vanna White. The erstwhile pair, who made a couple of kiddies together before the divorced in 2002, paid a member of the Saudi royal family $2,050,000 for the 5.076 acre spread near the northern gates of the guard-gated community of steroidal (mega-)mansions.

Deeds and documents we perused aren't entirely clear about if ex-Missus Santo Pietro—that would be Vanna White—still maintains a financial stake in the Beverly Park property but we do know Miz White now lives in the nearby, guard-gated and star-stocked Mulholland Estates enclave in a significantly smaller but still undeniably gigantic 8,988 square foot Mediterranean mansion just a couple doors down from a similarly-sized and styled mansion long owned by troubled Tinseltown scion and sometimes volatile actor Charlie Sheen. Mister Sheen, celebrity real estate watcher surely recall, bought a larger house in the Mulholland Estates 'hood last year and briefly had his old house—the one a couple doors down from Vanna White—on the market last year with a $7,200,000 asking price.

Anyhoo, the Los Angeles County Tax Man indicates Mister Santo Pietro's crab-shaped mansion, a titanic Tuscan-style structure, was custom-built in 1997 with 14,554 square feet and 8 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. Since there's almost no information available on the listing agent Mauricio Umansky's website and the property is not currently listed on the MLS, it's impossible for Your Mama to know if those numbers are entirely accurate the the home's current configuration. Suffice to say the crib is colossal and there are plenty enough bedrooms and bathrooms to comfortably house 2 families and require a part-time minimum wage girl whose only responsibilities are scrubbing terlits and making beds.

Photos of the property on the listing agent's website—the beau-hunky reigning real estate agent king of Beverly Park who stars on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills with his wife Kyle Richards and who listed three of the most recent properties to sell in the community of bulky and bloated private residences—show a cavernous entrance hall with double staircase, spacious formal living and dining rooms done up with Old World oil paintings, dozens of gilded Louis the Something chairs, and at least two fringe-trimmed velvet upholstered tie-back sofas. Beyond the formal living room, in the much cozier, men's clubby library the walls and ceiling are paneled in dark wood (that may or may not be mahogany or some other more exotic wood) with built-in lighted book cases and the herringbone patterned wood floors are covered in antique rugs and animal skins.

Less formal and family quarters comprise an open plan eat-in kitchen and family room festooned with red silk and fringed onion-shaped Chinese lanterns. The ceiling gives off an air of architectural authenticity with antique rough-hewn beams while a wood-burning fireplace with regal, carved stone chimney piece anchors the cluttered family room area at one end of the roomy room and a long row of industrial ranges runs along the entire back wall of the kitchen. A massive, u-shaped center island has a stool-height snack counter and double dishwashers. A jumbo (and truly terrifying) pot rack over the sink area would require Your Mama take out an extra life insurance policy just to run the dog's water bowl under the tap. We'll say nothing more of the two, cheap-looking plastic garbage bins inexplicably placed at the two ends of the center island.

A basement level wine cellar and lounge concrete floors, arched and vaulted brick ceiling, lots of tufted furniture and what appears to be and must be a knock off painting of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the original of which, as we all know, hangs permanently in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. It was here in this very wine cellar in early 2011 where hard partying Hollywood hot shot Charlie Sheen, just about to embark on a 36-hour bender, reportedly offered to rent Mister Santo Pietro's big ol' Beverly Park mansion at a rate of a quarter million clams a month so he could house the so-called "porn family" he wanted to create. Mister Sheen's minders quickly put the kibosh on that deal according to the folks at gossip juggernaut TMZ.

Photographs of Mister Santo Pietro's house on real estate agent Mauricio Umansky's website shows a vast master suite, probably in itself larger than the average American home, that encompasses a ballroom-sized bedroom with fireplace, sitting area, access to a deep covered balcony with over the tree top canyon view, and a separate office furnished with a gilded desk that looks like it could might have once been owned by a gold-loving Russian czar. There's also a small fitness chamber and a large Asian-themed massage room, a garage-sized closet lined with custom-built cabinetry, and at least one oval-shaped bathroom with inlaid marble floor, gorgeous glass chandelier, celebrity-style make-up vanity, and a separate soaking tub and steam shower. Although we can't fathom why, the open center area of the unnecessarily roomy master bathroom is furnished like a damn living room with a sofa covered in a champagne-colored silk slipcover and a pair of lyre-back Chippendale-style chairs (that may or may not be actual Chippendales). Now children, we can certainly understand the need for a stool or even a cushioned chair in which to plop down and trim one's toe nails in the bathroom but why is it that someone might want enough seating in the bathroom to host a handful of people? Seriously? Do the wealthy enjoy an audience when they brush their teeth or pluck the hair from their nostrils? Why? But we digress into our own ignorance.

The back of Mister Santo Pietro's palatial mansion opens to a series of arched colonnades that frame views over of negative edge swimming pool and spa and over the trees to the rugged ridge lines of the surrounding mountains. Lawn areas on either side of the swimming pool provide plenty of space for trampolines and impromptu matches of strip croquet. A steep slope on the front side of the mansion is planted vineyard-style with maturing grape vines, a horticultural folly that probably costs Mister Santo Pietro more to maintain each year than Your Mama earns in an entire year.

In July 1998 Mister Santa Pietro (and then wife Vanna White) paid a few million dollars to acquire the 2.11 acre parcel next door. Records suggest Mister Santo Pietro bought out his now ex-wife Vanna White in the summer of 2004 and by 2007 he'd erected an approximately 27,000 square foot with 9 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms.

In December 2010, after first listing the house at a now-obviously optimistic $50,000,000 and after leasing for a few month it to His Purple Majesty Prince at a reported rate of $200,000 per month, Mister Santo Pietro finally sold the opulent spec-built mansion next door to his own for $22,620,000 to a married couple whose fortune derives primarily from hawking mid-priced ladies handbags on QVC.

Although the high-end real estate market in Los Angeles (and elsewhere) suffered bitterly as a result of the mortgage crisis and global economic downturn in 2007-2009 there appears to be some serious life in the old girl the last couple of years with a healthy number of transactions in Beverly Park.

In September 2011 Lisa Vanderpump and Ken Todd (of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) sold their opulent faux-French pile for $18,800,000 and just a month later a two-house compound of 26,116 square feet once owned by Saudi Royal family member Abdul Aziz bin Adbullah went for $16,875,000.

In mid-November 2010 porn peddler Zorm Zada sold his geometric contemporary for $16,500,000 to a wildly wealthy Saudi businessman who, we were told by a Beverly Hills real estate maven, may or may not be member of the royal family and who quickly caught a severe case of The Real Estate Fickle and flipped the 11 bedroom and 18 pooper property back on the market a few months after buying with an asking price of $25,000,000. The 20,000-plus square foot compound was taken off the (open) market seven months later.

L.A.-based billionaire Tom Gores dropped $21,000,000 in late November 2010 on a 15 bathroom mansion with 20,013 square foot mansion, dubbed by the seller as The Great 78. Of course, Mister Gores already owned a slew of mansions in and around the Platinum Triangle so why he bought this one isn't known to Your Mama but such are the wacky real estate ways of the ridiculously rich.

The MLS currently shows just one Beverly Park behemoth listed on the open market, an origami-esque concrete, wood and glass contemporary on 2.83 acres, designed by California architect Rob Wellington Quigley, and currently listed at $25,000,000. The multi-winged modern manse and its various outbuildings measure in at around 16,000 square feet with a grandly scaled entertaining spaces, a de rigueur home theater, 1,000 square foot fitness/spa facility, a dozen bathrooms, 4 bedroom suites in the main house, another two in the detached two-story guest house and an additional 1 bedroom guest apartment in what listing information calls a "secluded pool house."

Undoubtedly there are several to many other estates in Beverly Park available for tour and purchase by Richie Rich types who can curry favor with the right well-connected real estate agent(s) able to gain access to any of the mega-mansions being shopped around as pocket listings.

As for Mister Santo Pietro's real estate plans, we have no idea. We might guess he's looking to downsize but then again he doens't really seem the type to downsize, does he?

listing photos: Luxury Style Photography for The Agency

Vera Wang's Glass House in the 90210

2012-01-19T14:44:00.000-08:00

Undoubtedly any number of property snobs and surely some of the more mouthy children are gonna gripe and snipe til the cows come home about being subjected first this morning to ice queen Oksana Bauil's glitzy two bedroom condominium just outside of New York City in the suburban New Jersey community of Cliffside Park. For those folks (and everyone else) Your Mama has an afternoon peace offering.

In the late days of last summer word began to slip slide down the celebrity gossip grapevine that wedding dress designer turned lifestyle guru Vera Wang spent nearly ten million smackers on a very glassy, minimalist-minded pied-a-terre in the oh-so-trendy (if exceptionally pricey) Trousdale Estates area on the eastern edge of Beverly Hills, CA.

Listing information we scared up from the time of the sale shows the low-slung single-story residence was originally built in 1967, exhaustively re-worked over the last three years by high-end house flipper/designer/real estate agent (and seller) Steven Hermann, and purchased by Miz Wang in August (2011) for $9,200,000.

The 4 bedroom and 4 bathroom pavilion, defined by high-gloss surfaces, voluminous spaces, and steel-framed walls of full height glass panels that suck up the sweeping views across the vast glittering sprawl Tinseltown and spill effortlessly out to the backyard entertainment spaces that include dining and sunbathing terraces, an elevated spa, in-ground swimming pool and a thin strip of well-watered lawn.

It only took a few short months for Miz Wang to roust her army of style and design mavens to whip her west coast landing pad into pristine, publication-ready shape. A recent piece in Harpers Bazaar penned by fashion writer Derek Blasberg—available online here—featured scrumptious pictures of Miz Wang's very spare Bev Hills getaway snapped by the devastatingly handsome, liberally mustachioed and generously talented photographer Douglas Friedman who maintains a image-driven blog called The Fascinator Your Mama has been rather smitten with the last few months.

While Mister Friedman's photos present a slightly more pared-down day-core than the already very spare day-core seen in the 2010 listing photographs, it appears to Your Mama's boozy and sometimes unreliable eyeballs that Miz Wang (may have) acquired and kept much of the furniture installed by Mister Hermann when the home was completed and prepped for it's unveiling in March 2011 when it was listed with a $10,900,000 price tag.

Anyhoo, in addition to her minimalist manse in Los Angeles, Miz Wang maintains a number of other properly pedigreed and exceptionally tailored residences including but not limited to a suburban mansion-sized duplex apartment at the insanely posh, unreasonably expensive and much ballyhooed building at 740 Park Avenue in New York City. Miz Wang dropped an astounding $23,100,000 on the massive apartment in late 2007 when she acquired it from the estate of her then recently deceased businessman father Cheng Ching Wang who himself owned and occupied the apartment with his wife Florence since 1983 when he paid canned soup heiress Elinor Dorrance $350,000 for the gargantuan co-op.

In case any of y'all missed the earlier link, nearly a dozen lush but brutally austere photographs of Miz Wang and her west coast abode can be seen here.

photograph: Douglas Friedman for Harper's Bazaar

Ice Queen Oksana Baiul Unloads New Jersey Condo

2012-01-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Oksana Baiul
LOCATION: Cliffside Park, NJ
PRICE: $799,000
SIZE: 2 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: One day last week, while holed up in our city view hotel room in New York City we unexpectedly received a covert communique from a nice gal in New Jesery—let's just call her Suhbeenuh Snitcharoohoo—who claimed intimate knowledge of a certain high-rise apartment tower in Cliffside Park (NJ) where Ukranian-born and -bred Olympic Gold medal winning figure skater Oksana Baiul has long lived in a high-floor apartment that she recently triple salchowed onto the open market a week or so ago with an asking price of $799,000.

Miss Baiul, who moved to the United States after the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway to pursue a somewhat short-lived professional career in the Ice Follies (or whatever the professional ice skating circuit is called), is perhaps best known for the dramatic and dizzying velocity of her flying camel into a donut spin maneuver (seen here at the minute mark), a modified catch-foot camel in which Miss Baiul effortlessly hiked one of her straw thin but clearly quite powerful legs up from behind her by the skate blade to form an "O" shape parallel to the ice, all while spinning like a goddam dervish on crack. Have mercy, puppies. Forget about how it makes Your Mama need a muscle relaxer just to watch ice gliding contortionists like Miss Baiul, we just can't fathom how she can can spin like that without barfing up her breakfast.

Iffin we were bein' honest—and we always are—we'd confess that despite living in New York City for nearly 15 years, prior to Missus Snitcharoohoo's digital missive we had neither visited nor even heard of Cliffside Park, NJ and we certainly hadn't an iota the self-described "small suburban community" atop the The Palisades ridge line on the west side of the mighty Hudson River directly across from the Morningside Heights neighborhood near the northern reaches of Manhattan.

Property records show Miss Baiul acquired her New Jersey nest in April 1998 when she paid $465,000 for her 1,646 square foot condo crib at at The Carlyle Towers, a massive, architecturally suspicious residential complex—not surprisingly designed by the architects at Kostas Kondylis Associates—with sensational panoramic views that extend up to the George Washington Bridge, across to the Manhattan skyline and down to Statue of Liberty. The lobby of the building, fronted by a High '80s-style glass-enclosed porte cochere and staffed 24-7 with attentive doorman and careful valet parking attendants, features glistening marble floors, scads of brass accents, a 40-foot water feature, and a couple of glammy (and gaudy) curved glass elevators. The colossal, two-tower, 370-unit condo complex affords residents access to a full-service fitness facility with indoor pool and restaurant, a second outdoor swimming pool and expansive landscaped terrace atop the multi-level parking structure, a putting green and, somewhat idiosyncratically, a croquet court.

According to Missus Snitcharoohoo, since the gold medalist moved her ice skates and bedazzled leotards to The Carlyle Towers, Cliffside Park in general and the relatively upscale complex in particular has become thick with "rich Russians and Asians" looking to soak up a smidgen of Miss Baiul's international celebrity through property proximity. Natch, we have no idea if that's true or not but we also have no reason to doubt Missus Snitcharoohoo who, as we said, claims intimate knowledge of The Carlyle Towers complex.

Listing information and marketing materials available online show Miss Baiul's high floor aerie has glossy chestnut-colored hardwood floors, miles of custom paneling and built-in mill work, custom floor-to-ceiling closets, long walls of windows that reach almost down to the floor and up to the ceiling, marble-sheathed bathrooms, 10 foot ceilings and solid wood 7-foot doors, and an in-unit washer and dryer. A fairly narrow, glass-railed 20-foot long balcony, accessible from both the living and dining rooms, would certainly be a thrilling spot to take in the twinkling Manhattan skyline were in not for the simple fact that even many non-acrophobics would be induced into involuntary hissy fits of anxiety at the mere thought of standing on that-there vertiginous balcony.

Missus Snitcharoohoohoo tattled that the listing photos depict Miss Baiul's apartment all but emptied of most of the ice skater's best artworks and furnishings and that before the decorative thinning the apartment reflected Miss Baiul's "over the top but stunning taste." She says toe-may-toe and we say toe-mah-toe, right? One and maybe even two brilliantly gilded baroque or neoclassical something or others in a mostly architecturally featureless and spacious but far from huge 2 bedroom condo could be fab if handled in just the right way but a condo full? Even a sparely dressed condo full? Well, that sort of thing just makes Your Mama feel fidgety and sweaty, regardless of the quality of the furnishings or the sublime brilliance of the nice, gay or lady decorator.

We know absolutely nada zilch kapooey about real estate in that particularly neck of New Jersey but gabby Missus Snitcharoohoo assured Your Mama Miss Baiul's south tower two bedroom in Cliffside Park is absolutely worth more than a million bucks and the $799,000 asking price decidedly aggressive.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with her, just few days after first contacted by Missus Snitcharoohoo we received a follow-up note in which she passed along the budding building gossip about how a bidding war broke had out between "a bunch of Russians and Koreans" and that the (alleged) offer accepted by Miss Baiul was an all-cash one at more than a million bucks. Bada-bing! Use yer noggins now children, Your Mama has zero direct knowledge about any details of any alleged sale of Miss Baiul's apartment. We're just passing along a little of the scuttlebutt that our Missus Snitcharoohoo told us has been floating around both towers of the twin-towered complex.

Missus Snitcheroo also passed along the additional gossip going 'round that Miss Baiul also quietly sold her house in the Hamptons for around $5,000,000 and that she and "her man" have purchased a heavily fortified and "massive mansion." Your Mama has no idea who Miss Baiul's man is and we were not able to verify whether Miss Baiul recently acquired a massive new mansion or if she owns (or ever owned) property in the Hamptons. Property records do suggest—but aren't entirely clear—that Miss Baiul may have once owned a house in an upscale enclave nestled into the Talcott Mountain State Park outside of Hartford, CT.

listing photos: Ridgeco Realty via Coldwell Banker

Brooke Shields and Chris Henchy Dump SoHo Digs

2012-01-18T15:02:00.000-08:00

SELLERS: Brooke Shields and Chris Henchy
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $2,950,000
SIZE: 2,600 square feet (approximately), 2-3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As first reported earlier today in the New York Observer's always delectable Manhattan Transfers column, six-foot tall model, movie star and mommy of two Brooke Shields and her enviably accomplished writer/producer hubby Chris Henchy recently unloaded their loft-like co-operative apartment in New York City's SoHo 'hood to a fashion industry financier for $2,950,000. The loft was first listed on the (open) market in August (2011) with an asking price of $3,200,000.

Property records aren't entirely clear as to when Mister and Missus Shields-Henchy bought their SoHo spread or how much they paid for the approximately 2,600 square foot loft ringed with 27 windows and located on the fourth floor of a boo-teek building with direct frontage on busy busy busy lower Broadway just above Canal Street where, we've been told, a person can still buy a fairly good knock off Louis Vuitton Monogram Keepall for under a hundred-fifty bucks if you know who and how to ask.

Anyhoodles, the full-floor loft includes a key-lock, direct elevator entrance, a lavishly long living/dining room with adjacent 1,500 bottle wine cellar, and an open kitchen with custom wood cabinets and a massive pot rack that looms dangerously over a center island. The loft's current configuration allows for up to three bedrooms including a sizable master bedroom suite with custom fitted walk-in closet and a vintage style bathroom complete with claw-footed soaking tub, separate glass-enclosed shower and a custom double sink vanity. Other notable amenities include a separate laundry room, central air conditioning, and additional private storage space in the building's basement. Monthly fees for the loft, according to StreetEasy, run $2,800.

A piss-ant perusal of the property records show other residents of the pet friendly and fairly narrow nine-floor building include (but are not limited to) a broadcast news executive, an internationally renown photographer, an interior designer/glass artist, and a former vice president of JPMorgan Chase who paid $2,700,000 in April 2007 for the building's 7th floor unit, purchased from the estate of then (and still) deceased novelist Olivia Goldsmith (First Wives Club). As it turns out the JPMC VP has the newly and completely renovated (and never lived in) 3 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom loft back on the market with an asking price of $3,875,000.

Mister and Missus Henchy-Shields and their two tots have relocated to the 4-story Greek Revival-style townhouse in the West Village records indicate they bought in April 2008 for $5,500,000. The townhouse was gut-renovated and expanded by Brooklyn-based architects at MADE, the same folks who rather sublimely worked over Oscar-winning actress Julianne Moore's West Village townhouse located a just 5 or 6 blocks away and listed in summer 2009 and into 2010 at $11,995,000 and very briefly again in the spring of 2011 with a higher $12,500,000 price tag.

On the west coast Mister and Missus Henchy-Shields shack up in a 4 bedroom and 4 bathroom house in the ritzy Riviera section of Pacific Palisades (CA)—located just a few driveways down the impressive spread formerly owned by super producer Brian Grazer and now owned by the Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner family—that Miz Shields acquired in the months after her 1999 divorce from tennis titan Andre Agassi.

exterior photo (top left): Nicholas Strini for Property Shark
listing photos and floor plan: Stribling & Associates

DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg Lists Bev Hills House

2012-01-18T12:17:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Jeffrey Katzenberg
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $9,400,000
SIZE: 9,173 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms (plus separate guest house)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Real estate watchers and property gossips around the world went ape shit in October 2009 when super-producer and entertainment industry honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg—once the assistant of Barry Diller now the co-founder and current CEO of DreamWorks Animation—somewhat surprisingly spent a staggering (and reported) $35,000,000 on a 6.34 acre estate perched on a private promontory in a particularly prime part of Beverly Hills, CA. The much-coveted, estate sized parcel sits just above the famed and historic Greystone Mansion and was sold to Mister and Missus Katzenberg by Simon "Si" Ramo, the 90-something year old physicist/engineer frequently described as the mack-daddy of the Intercontinental ballistic missile.

Mister Katzenberg quickly razed the existing 8,704 square foot mid-century modern residence (shown below), ripped out the tennis court, filled in the city view swimming pool, and hired all the necessary people to design and erect a marginally larger, U-shaped mansion that lightly hugs a massive courtyard and/or motor court at the front of the house.

Someone with whom we have the good fortune to be acquainted—let's call him Dale Trooze—espied the architectural renderings for Mister and Missus Katzneberg's planned mansion some time ago at a Beverly Hills City Council meeting during which Mister and Missus K. requested and granted a variance to raise the roof height of their planned residential monument to Tinseltown wealth and success to 18 feet from the much lower 14-foot high limit normally applied to the swanky and trendy Trousdale Estates neighborhood where the unusually wide and winding hillside streets are lined with sleek and sprawling low rise mid-century modern mansions, a few of which remain architectural and decorative time capsules and many of which have either been drastically renovated or replaced completely with a more new-fangled kind of contemporary residence formed of gleaming, prairie-like interior spaces, endless walls of full height (and high-maintenance) glass with cutting edge UV protection, and all the remote controlled high-tech/smart home mumbo-jumbo money can buy. Anyhoo, Dale Trooz snitched that the architectural renderings he peeped showed a fairly rectilinear pavilion of more than 11,000 square feet with a "monolithic" roof line.

That all said (and at unnecessary length), it's not Mister and Missus Katzenberg's new, soon to be finished residence in Trousdale Estates that really concerns Your Mama today but rather the couple's most recent residence in Beverly Hills they heave ho-ed on to the (open) market this week with an asking price of $9,400,000.

Property records indicate Mister and Missus Katzenberg have owned their huge home in the Beverly Hills flats just below Sunset Boulevard since March 1985 when they paid $2,685,000 for the architecturally undefinable residence—listing information somewhat generously calls it a "Contemporary Mediterranean"—built in 1985 on a flat .54 acre parcel and designed with scads of decorative Frenchy (faux)quoining and a sober (and unfortunately sobering) rusticated base on the ground floor.

The two-story main house measures 9,173 square feet, according to current listing information available online, and includes a total of 5 bedrooms and 6 full bathrooms. A sizable second, fully detached two-story structure at the rear of the property adjacent to the swimming pool contains a poolside cabana plus 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms suitable for use as a home office and/or as guest/staff quarters.

The voluminous main entry, which oozes with a showy 1980s kind of success, seeks to impress guests and the impoverished Chinese food delivery man alike with polished marble floors and floating bridge that spans the double-height space and connects the bedroom wings on the upper level. A wide opening and a short set of steps descends into into the formal living room with buff-color wall-to-wall carpeting underfoot, a wood-burning fireplace to anchor and warm the pale and airy space, and a series of nearly floor-to-ceiling arched windows that listing information mis-labels as "Palladian." (Palladian windows by definition, children, are divided into three parts with a central arched opening that's always wider than the flanking openings that are always rectangular and enclosed at the top by an architrave.)

Anyhoo, a monumental opening with imposing entablature in the living room gives way to a more intimately scaled library entirely encircled by (completely empty) floor to ceiling book cases, a marble-topped wet bar, and towering French doors that open to a small and lushly landscaped pocket of the back yard. On the opposite side of the entrance hall a formal dining room has buff color walls that perfectly match the buff color wall-to-wall carpeting that exactly matches the buff color wall-to-wall carpeting in the living room.

Like much of the house seen in listing photographs, the dining room feels torpid and utterly lifeless. However, Your Mama suspects (but can not say for sure) that the Katzenberg crib was all but stripped bare of almost every decorative detail and artwork in preparation for the sale. At some point in the not so distant past, we imagine, the entire mansion was much better dressed by a nice, gay or lady decorator, perhaps in the trademark style of dee-voon California decorator Michael Taylor who could actually make magic with all those acres buff color carpeting and truckloads of winter white roll-armed furniture seen in listing photographs.

The floors turn to blond hardwood in the colossal eat-in kitchen at the back of the house where there's a separate breakfast area and a titanic, butcher block-topped center island with snack counter. There are long runs of raised panel cabinetry that look to Your Mama like they could be exact same buff color as the carpeting in the living and dining rooms, an extra wide window over the primary sink, and a slew of commercial quality stainless steel appliances that include side-by-side fridge and freezers and an industrial stove and hood larger (and probably more expensive) than Your Mama's big ol' BMW.

Listing information shows the Katzenberg residence also includes a home gym—listing photos make it appear to Your Mama like the gym space might be carpeted with the same buff color wall-to-wall found elsewhere, which would be totally gross and unacceptable—and a bi-level family room/screening room with two (almost identically arranged) seating areas, a glitzy mirror-backed wet bar, and a wide-format movie screen that scrolls down from the ceiling at the touch of a button in front of a pair of full-height French doors that open the room to the fully fenced and high-hedged backyard entertainment areas.

Upstairs, each of the four family/guest bedrooms have a private bathroom and the expansive master suite, according to listing information, includes a sitting are with fireplace, a second and separate sitting room/office with built-in book and display shelves, a private terrace that overlooks the backyard and what listing information described as "spacious bathrooms."

A spacious but hardly vast Spanish tile terrace fits snugly into a corner of the back of the house off the kitchen and screening room. A broad, well-watered and tree-dotted lawn extends back to the rear of the property where a dark-bottomed swimming pool is surrounded by a wide, Spanish tile sunbathing terrace that is in turn girdled by precisely pruned trees and shrubbery and towering, fastidiously clipped privacy hedges. At one end of the swimming pool a deep trellis shades a row of French doors that open to spacious two-story poolside cabana with kitchenette and, as mentioned earlier, two guest or staff bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.

This section of Beverly Hills, near it's eastern border with the—ahem—musical community of West Hollywood, happens to be chock full of Showbiz sorts who include Larry King and his 7th wife (or 8th, depending on how one counts) who live directly across the street in a mansion they bought in February 2007 for $11,750,000. Also nearby are pricey properties owned by Golden Globed (and bizarrely British accented) superstar Madonna, music and television mogul Simon Cowell (who is actually British), American actress Lori Loughlin and Italian clothing magnate Mossimo Giannulli who bought their palatial pad in October 2010 for $7,500,000, and, until recently, Terry Semel, the former CEO of Yahoo! who unloaded his 8,804 square foot manse, originally listed for $12,275,000, in late December (2011) for $9,100,000.

In addition to his homes in Beverly Hills, property records and other online data bases show Mister and Missus Katzenberg also maintain an extraordinary Gwathmey Siegel-designed ocean front compound in Malibu, CA as well as a couple of sizable slope-side condominium residences in the guard-gated Bald Eagle Club community located in the rugged Wasatch Mountains in the swank ski resort community of Deer Valley, UT. Property records suggest the two units have been combined into one roomy residence with more than 10,000 square feet, 5 fireplaces, and 10 terlits in 7 full and 3 half bathrooms.

listing photos: Nourmand and Associates
aerial photo: Bing

Imprisoned O.J. Simpson Faces Foreclosure

2012-01-17T14:34:00.000-08:00

It may or may not come as a surprise to any of the children who might care that the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine is all abuzz and atwitter today over the news that once beloved but now (almost universally) despised and currently incarcerated former professional football player O.J. Simpson may soon lose his South Florida home to the unforgiving maw of foreclosure.

Mister Simpson, controversially acquitted of the brutal murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and man-pal Ron Goldman back in 1995, is currently holed up in the hoosegow in Lovelock, NV where he's about 5 years into a 9-33 year sentence handed down for his pivotal role in a 2007 incident during which he and a few thugs burst into a Las Vegas hotel room and at gun point stole hundreds of items of sports memorabilia, some of which Mister Simpson claimed belonged to him had been previously (and illegally) been removed from his possession.

Earlier reports and other documentation available online reveal Mister Simpson, who still has an income from his NFL pension and at least one other retirement account protected from creditors, failed to make mortgage payments on his South Florida home, located in the nondescript suburban community of Kendall about 30 minutes by car southwest of the sugary sands and twinkling neon lights of South Beach. Last September (2011) JPMorgan Chase, it seems, got tired of calling and sending letters demanding payment and filed the paperwork to initiate foreclosure. Mister Simpson's attorney quickly filed a motion for dismissal and so far as we can tell the bank has taken no additional action.

Property records reveal Mister Simpson acquired the fully hedged but surprisingly un-gated property in September 2000 when he paid $575,000 for the 1.65 acre spread that includes a 4,233 square foot single story residence with 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.

We don't have any specific information on the interior spaces but online mapping systems allow Your Mama to determine the property includes a long palm tree-lined driveway and circular motor court; a half-court basketball court; broad, pancake flat lawns; a rear motor court shaded by a massive tree; a sparkling swimming pool that extends off the back corner of an expansive entertainment terrace nestled into the crook formed by the L-shaped residence.

In 2007, as reported by the AP on NPR, Mister Simpson used $350,000 of the $750,000 he was paid for the ghostwritten pseudo-confessional If I Did It (2007) to pay down the original mortgage. Alas, when the three-quarter million dollar payment became known the Goldman family's attorney—in response to a still unpaid $33,500,000 civil judgement against Mister Simpson—filed suit and eventually the $750,000 was declared as ill-gotten gains. As such the $350,000 Mister Simpson used to pay down his mortgage was returned and his mortgage raised (with interest, we're sure) to off-set the amount returned by the bank to Mister Goldman's estate. The Goldman family was also granted the rights to the then unpublished If I Did It, which was eventually published by the Goldman family under the more cumbersome but intentionally condemning title If I Did It: Confessional of the Killer.

Listen puppies, impolite and inflammatory as it may be to state out loud, we might feel sorry for poor ol' O.J. Simpson if he didn't come off as such a pompous ass and entitled douche bag who, prior to being locked up, cleaved publicly and desperately to an ancient super stardom that had for all intents and purposes evaporated bitterly into a particularly pathetic and foul form of infamy. There were tax issues, domestic violence allegations, and various run ins with the law that included a $25,000 judgement against him in 2007 for pirating his goddam cable television. Pirating his cable television? Seriously Juice? Bitch, pleeze.

Anyhoodles poodles, as reported by NPR, the Miami-Dade County Tax Man shows the property is currently assessed at $478,401 and that in early December (2011) Mister Simpson's mortgage holder Chase Home Finance paid the 2011 property taxes in the amount of $8,732.36.

We do not, of course, have a single shred of inside intel on Mister Simpson's real estate and/or financial matters so you did not hear this from Your Mama but our inner cynic can't help but wonder if a foreclosure could be a calculated financial maneuver designed to rid the imprisoned 64-year old of the not inconsiderable expense of the mortgage(s), taxes and upkeep on a property he may not ever see again depending on when the powers that be release him from the pokey.

How hard the once mighty sometimes fall. Are you listening Lindsay Lohan?

aerial photo: Bing

George S. Blumenthal Lists Manhattan Pre-War Palace

2012-01-17T11:23:00.000-08:00

SELLER: George S. Blumenthal
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $35,000,000
SIZE: 6,000-ish square feet, 5-6 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms (plus staff room and bath)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Although we're now back in sunny California, warmly ensconced in our colorful cottage in the Hollywood Hills, Your Mama still has The Big Apple on the brain. After all, it was only yesterday Your Mama and The Chicken ate eggs with avocados at Coffee Shop on Union Square, hashed out Sanja Iveković's soo-blime Sweet Violence show at MOMA, and cruised the naughty knock-off vendors on Canal Street. So, rather than yammer on today about a bloated mock-Med (mc)mansion in Calabasas owned by a b-grade television star we've never heard of we thought we'd toss up a little uptown floor plan porn in the form of a natty and nabobish full-floor co-operative residence on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue recently hoisted on the (open) market with an asking price of $35,000,000.

An admittedly incomplete and unscientific review of available property records and various other documentation accessible on the interweb (i.e. voting records) indicates the monumental mansion-sized apartment is currently owned by George S. Blumenthal, a globally-engaged businessman and filthy rich pioneer in the mobile/cellular communications industry.

We weren't able to suss out when Mister (and Missus) Blumenthal acquired the colossal co-operative apartment or how much moolah they paid for the place, but listing information (and etc.) reveals the grandly scaled residence sits on the 9th floor of a dignified-looking limestone-sheathed, neo-Italian Renaissance style structure on the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 84th Street. The building, with a four story rusticated limestone base, was built in 1925 and designed by much lauded and applauded N.Y.C. luxury apartment house architect J.E.R. Carpenter.

The 13-story building has but 16 (or so) large and lavish apartments—some of them duplexes—and, natch, offers residents white glove services that include full time doormen, an elevator operator—the very rich prefer not to have to push buttons on their own, it seems—a fitness room, communal laundry facility, and multi-million dollar city and park views over the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For the prime location and pampering services Mister (and Missus) Blumenthal pay, as per listing information, a pocketbook punishing $16,689 per month in maintenance and co-operative fees. A few quick flicks of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that amounts to an ungodly $200,268 per year, not counting holiday tips for the staff, housekeeping services, and any applicable mortgage payments. Yes puppies, unlike many of the most expensive and exclusive buildings on the Upper East Side, 1030 Fifth does permit up to 30% financing. Also unlike some of the "better" and/or more—ahem—restrictive buildings on Fifth Avenue, 1030 Fifth allows Showbiz types and those whose vast fortunes were only recently acquired to take up residence in the building. More on that later.

Listing information does not indicate the square footage—we guesstimate it weighs in at around 6,000 square feet—and shows the palatial pad has 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms. A quick parse of the floor plan included with marketing materials shows the apartment's current configuration, by our count, includes 6 bedrooms—one labeled as a bedroom/office and another accessible only by passing awkwardly through the home gym space—and just 4.5 bathrooms plus an addition staff bedroom and (windowed) bathroom tucked discreetly behind the kitchen off the service entrance. A second 9x12-foot staff bedroom on the building's second floor is included with the sale. It's not clear if the second floor staff room includes a private pooper but it certainly should since it's downright sadistic to make a live-in domestic ride the service elevator every time s/he needs to shower, shave and/or use the damn terlit.

The day-core is undoubtedly of the highest caliber and quality if a bit fussy-frou-frou for our own far less traditional taste in furniture and artwork. However, the apartment itself, with its sumptuously scaled rooms, high (if not exactly soaring) 10-foot ceilings, paneled walls, and over-sized sash windows is an exquisite example of exactly the kind of somewhat rare and prodigiously pricey New York City apartment much coveted by the sorts of super rich folks with the desire, chutzpah, and financial resources to pay more than thirty million clams for an austerity-free apartment with direct Central Park views but without a single square foot of outdoor space.

A private vestibule connects the elevator entrance to an ample but far from grandiose foyer off of which radiatespacious living and entertaining spaces that positively reek of charity luncheons, dividend income statements, matronly Ferragamo pumps with 2.5-inch heels, and dog-earred annual reports from multi-national corporations. A bowling alley-length hallway extends back from the foyer to the bedroom wing and the guest bathroom. We appreciate the discreet location of the powder room—certainly rich and poor alike dislike being subjected to the noise and olfactory assault of their guests' after dinner dirty business—but also lament it's a wee bit unfortunate dinner and/or drinks guests must intrude on the more private family areas in order to access the (windowless) facility.

The apartment provides a desirable 55-foot wide run along Fifth Avenue and Central Park. The baronial, 550-plus square foot corner living room, wrapped in paneling that may or may not be mahogany, stretches 31-feet long with hardwood floors, offers the first of four fireplaces and features four over-sized windows with long views down Fifth Avenue and over the very busy and tourist-flooded plaza in front of The Met. A banquet hall-sized formal dining room with fireplace, wood floors and painted paneling anchors the northwestern corner of the residence and in between there is a room labeled "library" on the floor plan, an un-paneled room with thick crown moldings, fireplace, three park facing windows and the sort of patterned wall-to-wall carpeting one might safely expect to find in a swank suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Perhaps they are just out of the photograph's frame, but the single listing image of the "library" curiously does not show a single book or bookshelf.

As in many ambitiously-scaled New York City apartments designed with frequent entertaining in mind, the formal dining room links to the kitchen through a large (windowed) butler's pantry for prepping food, storing linens and hand-washing Baccarat water goblets. There's a surprisingly sizable laundry room to one side of the butler's pantry and a narrow but quite long, double-windowed eat-in kitchen on the other that provides a private chef with a large center work island and—as per the listing—a full complement of top grade appliances.

Depending on how one counts and/or utilizes the bedrooms that open off the 60-plus foot long L-shaped corridor that runs spine-like through the center of the apartment, there are six possible bedrooms: two that share a Jack and Jill bathroom; one guest suite with private bathroom; two more large bedrooms that share a hall bath with the home gym; the master suite with extensive built-in cabinetry and closets, a closet-lined dressing hall and two-window bathroom with twin sinks and separate cubby for the toidy.

As Your Mama mentioned earlier in our diatribe, 1030 Fifth Avenue encompasses only 16 (or so) regal residence, many owned by high-powered Wall Street wizards, newly minted hedge fund gajillionaires, and even a few titans from the Big Bizness of Show.

Christine Wassterstein, the one-time wife of big time boo-teek banker Bruce Wasserstein, sold her full floor spread on the 11th floor in early December 2008 after just a week or so on the market with an asking price of $34,000,000. Property records and online data bases show the buyer, Prakash Melwani, an upper level executive at Wall Street's asset management and financial services juggernaut Blackstone Group, forked over $27,500,000 for the 5 bedroom and 6.5 bathroom apartment that came with elephantine monthly co-operative fees of $13,441.
About a week prior to Mister Melwani's 11th floor acquisition, the full-floor spread on the 10th floor was sold by Canadian investment banker Richard "Dick" Schmeelk for $32,270,000 to sick rich hedge hog John Griffon and his wife Amy, the progeny of a Texas businessman whose wealth derives from low brow but necessary businesses such as convenience stores, car washes, and lube and oil stations.

In July 2008 lady hedge hog Karen Fleiss and her orthopedic surgeon hubby David pushed their titanic duplex at 1030 Fifth Avenue on the market with a staggering $47,500,000 price tag. Miz Fleiss told the New York Observer back than the apartment has been purchased "for 'around $2million' in the '80s." The Fleiss's 20-plus room duplex didn't attract a buyer at the opening price—or perhaps no one who could pass muster with the co-op's board—and by early 2009 the posh pad's price had plummeted to $34,500,000. Eventually each of the two floors of was offered separately at $15,000,000 and $19,900,000 apiece and in early 2010 Mister and Missus Fleiss finally sold the lower portion of their titanic two floor apartment for $8,898,000 to money man Richard Duke Buchan III and his wife Hannah.

Way back in September 2007 Academy Award winning super-producer Wendy Finerman and her second husband David Peterson dropped $10,362,500 for a 12-room duplex with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms and the penthouse pad, once owned by Robert Redford, is now owned by long-time broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer and her 4-times married Oscar-winning husband director Mike Nichols (The Graduate, The Birdcage, Silkwood, and our personal favorite movie of all time Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf). The high-powered couple reportedly paid around $10,000,000 for their penthouse digs back in 2001.

Apropos of nothing relevant to Mister (and Misssus) Blumenthal's apartment at 1030 Fifth Avenue, in 1976, Mister Nichols, then married to his third wife, writer Annabel Davis-Goff, sold a 6,500 square foot four-floor apartment with 2,500 square feet of terraces at the venerable Beresford building on Central Park West. The quadruplex is now owned by Cosmopolitan magazine's long ago ousted but none-the-less iconic mother hen and grande dame Helen Gurley Brown.

interior listing photos: Warburg Realty
exterior photo (top left): Christopher Bride for Property Shark

Joan Rivers Gets Back on the Manhattan Real Estate Merry-Go-Round

2012-01-16T05:59:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Joan Rivers
LOCATION: East 62nd Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $29,500,000
SIZE: 5,190 square feet, 3-4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in May 2009 trash-talking octogenarian comedienne Joan Rivers heaved her mansion-sized New York City triplex penthouse apartment on the market with a hefty hefty hefty asking price of $25,000,000.

At some point, we're not sure exactly when, Miz Rivers took her posh penthouse pad off the (open) market. Howevuh, the sassy senior recently pushed the terraced 5,190 square foot spread, perched grandly atop a limestone-clad 42-foot wide Horace Trumbauer-designed townhouse building in East 62nd Street, back on the market with an notably higher asking price of $29,500,000 and this time, hunties, the listing includes a floor plan (above) for all us floor plan addicts to drool over.

By Your Mama's count, which may or may not be an accurate assessment, the three floor penthouse has 3-4 bedrooms (the top floor office is serviceable as a fourth bedroom), 4.5 bathrooms, 2 staircases, 2 mezzanine balconies, more than 20 closets including a cedar walk-in and another just for the china, 5 fireplaces, 2 itty-bitty but windowed kitchens, a couple of planted terraces with oblique Central Park views, a voluminous double height entrance hall far larger than most Manhattan studio apartments, an 800-plus square foot formal living room with soaring 23-foot ceiling, and a comparatively tiny—let's call it intimately scaled—formal dining room.

Since this is our last day in New York City before we wing our way back west and we're starting to run short on time, we're going to refrain from commentary about the unquestionably wonky and awkward spatial moments—i.e. access to the lowest level is via a narrow stairway in the laundry room off the mid-level kitchen—and instead let the children duke it out over the layout, decadent day-core and (higher) price.

Because the penthouse is a condominium as opposed to a co-operative, the buyer need not court a persnickety co-op board and the building rather surprisingly, as per listing information, allows a minimum 10% down payment. Maintenance, common charges and taxes add up to a considerable $20,100 per month which means it takes a quarter million a year for Miz Rivers just to pay the monthlies. Beehawtcha may still be working her much nipped and tucked tail off in the Business of Show, but with those sorts of expenses, no wonder she wants to sell this place.

Current online listings includes only a couple juicy photos of the decidedly opulent and heavily gilded penthouse but marketing materials from 2009 included a few more that can be seen here.

floor plan: Prudential Douglas Elliman

Anderson Cooper Expands Hamptons Compound

2012-01-14T08:55:00.000-08:00

BUYER: Anderson Cooper
LOCATION: Quiogue, NY
PRICE: $1,700,000
SIZE: 3,654 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It seems that smart, savvy and sometimes giggly CNN anchorman Anderson Cooper is on a bit of a real estate tear in the last few years with pricey property procurements in both New York City and the Hamptons where he's just completed the purchase of a multi-acre compound next door to the summer/vacation home he's long owned in the tiny, pin drop quiet (and somewhat obscure) community of Quiogue.

Property records Your Mama peeped show Mister Cooper snatched up his first house in Quiogue way back in April 1998 when he and another unmarried male named Steven Elzy dropped $700,000 on a thickly treed two-parcel spread that totals 3.14 acres and fronts a slim finger of the multi-pronged Quantuck Bay. In March of 2003 property records we accessed indicate Mister Cooper bought out Mister Elzy's interest in both parcels that comprise the property for $1,150,000.

According to the Suffolk County Tax Man Mister Cooper's clapboard-sided crib in Quiogue, situated at the tail end of a long, private driveway, was built in 1974, measures 3,749 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and a detached garage.

A couple of videos of button pushing comedienne Kathy Griffin visiting Mister Cooper in Quiogue last summer reveals that not only is Mister Cooper built like a brick shit house—as is, it should be noted, 50-plus year old Miss Griffin—he's as hairless as a baby's backside, doesn't keep much food around besides a lot of hot doggy things, and has a spaniel named Molly. The videos also reveal his hideaway in the Quiogue, an area many snooty Hamptonites are adamant isn't really The Hamptons, includes an extensive gym where he pumps weekend iron and a black bottom swimming pool surrounded by an unsightly black chain link fence. It appears to Your Mama the swimming pool is set far from the house, enough of a distance perhaps that unless there's a pool house—and there does not appear to be a pool house—Mister Cooper and his friends, especially the more crass ones like the Miss Griffin, might be inclined to take a wee behind a tree rather than make the long traipse across the broad tree-shaded lawn to use the facilities in the house.

Anyhoo, at some point the 2.4 acre property next door to Mister Cooper's low key house in the Hamptons became available. The property was last listed, according to listing information we dug up on the interweb, for $2,250,000. Since the transaction has yet to be digitally recorded we weren't able to confirm the purchase price through property records but Mister Cooper is reported by The Post to have snatched up the property for somewhere around $1,700,000. The Post also reported that Mister Cooper's plans to maintain the property as is—although we imagine he'll do some upgrading—and that his interest may (or may not) have had something to do with preserving his privacy and ensuring a buyer didn't knock down the existing house and erect some sort of heinous mcmansion.

The seller of the waterfront property was the widow of Oscar-winning screenwriter Budd Schulberg who wrote the iconic 1954 film On the Waterfront starring Marlon Brando and went to meet The Great Director in the Sky in 2009.

Listing information shows the shingled cottage was built in the 1940s, measures 3,654 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and 2 fireplaces in the main house. There's additional living/office space above the garage as well as a pool house adjacent to the in-ground gunite swimming pool and spa.

In addition to his budding compound in Quiogue, the not quite out of the closet silver fox owns a couple of New York City properties including a very contemporary penthouse just south of Midtown Manhattan he acquired in April 2005 for $2,480,000. Previously to the penthouse, the globe trotting cable news anchor owned another apartment in the building on a lower floor with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 11.5-foot ceilings, Carrara marble counter tops in the suped-up kitchen, deluxe slate and blue stone bathrooms, a stereophonic surround sound system, and custom closet organizers. Records show he sold the apartment in January 2006 for $1,580,000.

In September 2009 Mister Cooper scooped up an approximately 9,000 square foot decommissioned firehouse near Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. Property records show he paid $4,300,000 for the four-floor structure and recently reports indicate the beau-hunky newsman recently moved in after an extensive renovation and restoration headed up by New York-based architect Cary Tamarkin that included the installation of an elevator and the restoration the 1906 red-brick and terra cotta quoined façade as well as various original spiral staircases and brass fire poles.

listing photos (Quiogue): Prudential Douglas Elliman
exterior photos of firehouse: Curbed

Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly On the Move Again

2012-01-14T06:10:00.000-08:00

SELLERS: Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $8,495,000
SIZE: 4,096 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was only about 3.5 years ago that English-born movie actor Paul Bettany (A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code, A Knight's Tale) and Brooklyn-bred Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Requiem For A Dream, Blood Diamond) paid $6,920,000 for a full floor loft-type penthouse apartment on the edge of New York City's star-stocked TriBeCa neighborhood.

At that time multi-lingual Miz Connelly was rearing one child from a previous relationship, a boy then about 10 and now about 15, as well as a second child she produced with Mister Bettany, another boy then a toddler now about five. In May last year the couple sired a second child together—the third for her—this time a baby girl now not even a year old.

Perhaps (or perhaps not) due to their slow growing family, blond Mister Bettany and brunette Miz Connelly have recently, as first discussed by the kids at Curbed, put their expansive TriBeCa penthouse pad back on the market with an asking price of $8,495,000. Although the penthouse measures in, as per listing information, at a roomy 4,096 square feet, its current configuration only encompasses three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, a count that requires the couple to double up two of their three children in a single bedroom. And who, let's be honest chickens, wants to pay seven million bucks to have their children share a damn bedroom?

Anyhoo, current listing information shows a key-locked elevator slides open to a private vestibule that in turn gives way to a 20-foot long foyer that connects the 45-foot long Hudson River view living room to the 34-foot long open plan kitchen/dining room area that features a sizable center work island, white subway tile back splashes, a black marble farm sink, a full coterie of stainless steel appliances, and two pantry closets.

In between the living room, which has a massive sky light plus a total of 9 windows on three sides, and the kitchen/dining room there are a huge walk-in coat closet, an unusually generous laundry room, and a windowless powder pooper.

Beyond the kitchen/dining room, at the extreme ass end of the apartment, a nearly square 400-ish square foot library/family room has a full wall of custom built maple bookshelves, a vintage wood burning stove that balances the crisp modernity of the loft's imposed architecture, and a spiral staircase that winds tightly up to a small, glass-enclosed sun room and 1,380 square foot roof terrace.

Two of the loft's three bedrooms share a bedroom-sized walk-in closet—a somewhat unusual clothing storage set up to be sure—and window-free, L-shaped bathroom with an awkward column smack in the middle. The master suite, accessible from the living room or from the bedroom corridor, offers a surprisingly petite bedroom with one north facing window, a commodious closet/dressing room, and a surprisingly spacious windowed bathroom with poured concrete floors and double sinks, a free-standing soaking tub, and separate open shower.

The 8-story red brick building, built in 1980 and converted to a co-op in 1984, fronts the very busy, extremely loud, and sometimes wind whipped West Side Highway which will certainly turn off any number of the children, particularly those who don't have an affinity for (often noisy) New York City living. However, the panoramic views up and down the Hudson River and across to Jersey City are most certainly the stuff from which downtown New York City real estate dreams are made.

Before settling in TriBeCa, the Bettany-Connelly clan owned and occupied a spectacular 18-room single family limestone mansion in Brooklyn's baby buggy filled Park Slope neighborhood (above). Property records and previous reports indicate they bought the 5,243 square foot house—or 5,276 or 7,054 square feet depending on which online resource one peeps—in August 2003 for $3,700,000. They listed their former Prospect Park-fronting mansion with its 9 bedrooms, 6 fireplaces and 3.5 bathrooms in the spring of 2008 with an $8,500,000 price tag. It quickly sold it to a computer genius in late 2008 for $8,450,000.

Your Mama, like the industrious kids at Curbed, can't help but wonder if Mister Bettany and Miz Connelly wish they'd never sold their big ol' mansion in Park Slope and will head back over the Brooklyn Bridge or if they're simply seeking larger quarters in Manhattan that will more suitably fit their family of five.

listing photos and floor plan (TriBeCa): Prudential Douglas Elliman
listing photo (Park Slope): Sotheby's International Realty via StreetEasy

Your Mama Hears...

2012-01-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

...from a well-informed informant, let's call her Candy Dancer, that the massive Beverly Hills, CA crib owned by French-born denim tycoon turned L.A. real estate mogul turned Canadian hotelier Georges Marciano is about to hit the market with an asking price of around $32,000,0000.

Mister Marciano, for any of y'all who may not know, is a colorful character to be sure, one who lives unapologetically large. He and his three brothers founded the Guess? jeans empire that launched into the retail stratosphere in the 1990s with its long and lucrative association with bodacious, deeply troubled and now deceased model Anna Nicole Smith. he sold his 40 percent stake in the wildly successful clothing empire to his brothers Paul, Armand and Maurice for nearly a quarter billion dollars. He took his mountain of money and branched out into real estate development, amassed a fleet of Ferraris, spent $16,189,769 to purchase an 84.37-carat white diamond, made strange run for the governorship of California and opened the LHotel boo-teek hotel in Old Montreal–that's Canada kids–filled to the gills with prime pieces of his massive post-war art collection.

In 2007 Mister Marciano accused five former employees of conspiring to embezzle nearly half a billion bucks worth of his assets including a plethora of blue chip contemporary artworks by artists like Ed Ruscha, Jim Dine and Roy Lichtenstein. The case was tossed out but the five former employees counter-sued for defamation and in mid-2009 won a titanic $370,000,000 judgment against Mister Marciano for his wrongful allegations and accusations.

Property records show Mister Marciano acquired the stately estate in October 1988 for an unknown amount of money and Your Mama discussed the supremely located, 2-plus acre estate back in January 2007 when Mister Marciano unsuccessfully attempted to unload his humongous Italianate pile just up the street from the Beverly Hills Hotel with a much lower asking price of $28,000,000. We'll let the more savvy real estate children decide if the current marketplace for extremely swank high-maintenance estates in Los Angeles can bear the four million dollar bump to the price tag.

Since the house is not officially on the market–and since, technically, its just real estate rumor and gossip that it will be listed at all–no online listing is currently available. However, we managed to scare up some marketing materials from when it was on the open market in 2007. (Redfin shows the deluxe estate was also listed in 2005 but we don't know at what number.)

The Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the double-gated mansion was built in 1927 and measures 14,055 square feet with 9 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms while 2007 listing information shows and approximate square footage of 23,306 with a total of 10 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms. We're not sure why the wild discrepancies in stats but it may (or may not) have something to do with the u-shaped mini-mansion sized detached guest house with separate gated driveway and motor court tucked into eastern corner of the property between the swimming pool complex and lighted tennis court.

The house was once owned by Showbiz pioneer and pasha Harry Cohn and later, in the early to mid-1980s, we're told, by television talk show host Mike Douglas. Current nearby neighbors include real estate showboaters Stewart and Lynda Resnick, Tom Cruise, and Christina Aguilera and former residents of the hoity-toity 'hood include recently passed über-agent blue-eyed crooner Frank Sinatra, Sue Mengers, entertainment industry legend Lew Wasserman, cigar smoker Groucho Marx, diminutive superstar Tom Cruise, chat show host Phil McGraw, and airplane mogul Lou Gonda.

aerial photo: Google

Soap Star Victoria Rowell Lists Los Angeles Home

2012-01-11T06:56:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Victoria Rowell
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,599,000
SIZE: 4,354 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week before we winged our way east we received a covert communique from regular tipster Tommy Talksalot who informed us that former professional dancer and model turned Emmy-nominated actress Victoria Rowell has put her Los Angeles residence on the market with an asking price of $2,599,000.

A quick perusal of Miz Rowell's resumé on the Internet Movie Data Base shows her big break cam in the late 1980s with two-episode arc on The Cosby Show, a turn of entertainment industry good fortune that launched into her showbiz salad days, the 1990s and early Aughts when she simultaneously appeared on the soap story Young and the Restless (1990-2007) and the medical crime dram Diagnosis Murder (1993-2002).

Along the way she appeared in a number of other tee-vee shows (Noah's Arc) and mostly bad movies (The Distinguished Gentleman) and pushed out a couple of children, one of them with jazz genius Wynton Marsalis. Since her time at Y&R came to an end in 2007–there are unconfirmed rumors she may reprise her role this year–she's written a couple of books: a memoir about her experiences in the foster care system (The Women Who Raised Me) and a possibly thinly veiled novel (Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva) about a black actress who appears on the soap story The Rich and the Ruthless.

Anyhoo, property records show Miz Rowell acquired her Los Angeles home way back in the first days of 1997 when she paid $825,000 for the 1923 red tile-roofed Mediterranean perched on a sloping .29 acre city view lot in the quintessentially Los Angeles 'hood that cleaves to the steep slopes around Beachwood Canyon.

Listing information shows the two-story house measures 4,354 square feet with a total of 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms that include, as per listing information, a celebrity-style master suite comprised of window-wrapped bedroom with city views, "dramatic" bathroom, "spacious" walk-in closet with custom built-ins and a separate private sitting room, which may or may not be that rather useless-looking room furnished with a circular hotel lobby sofa and crystal chandelier.

The main living and entertaining spaces have dark, espresso-colored hardwood floors include a long living room lined on two opposite walls with French doors, a over-sized formal dining room with various access points to the outdoors, and a kitchen fitted with long and narrow center island, antique white raised panel cabinetry, brown and beige flecked granite counter tops, and all the to-be-expected from a multi-million dollar house high-grade, commercial style stainless steel appliances. Additional interiors spaces mentioned but not but now shown in online listing information include a den, library, family room, media/music room, and a breakfast room adjacent to the kitchen.

Various city and canyon view terraces, balconies and what listing information calls "Italian gardens" extend the indoor living spaces to the outdoors and include a swimming pool tightly tucked into a courtyard ringed by vine-draped walls and tree-shaded lawns below the house look pretty and serene but due to their steep slope are relatively impractical for anything but viewing and lop-sided strolling.

Miz Rowell's low-key but celebrity-filled neighborhood includes homes owned by Grant Show, Colin Hanks (that's Tom's actor son), Gina Hecht, Jeremy Sisto, Danny Masterson and Bijou Phillips, and a bit farther away the ever-expanding compound of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Sandra Oh, and several homes owned by sassy OCD reality tee-vee star and house flipper Jeff Lewis

An incomplete and entirely unscientific spin through property records suggest (but does not prove) that Miz Rowell does not currently own any other property in Los Angeles, or anywhere else for that matter. Howevuh, given that she married Atlanta-based artist Radcliffe Bailey a couple of years ago it's not such a stretch they might own a home in or around Atlanta.

listing photos: Prudential California Realty

1107 Fifth Avenue Floor Plan Porn (Continued)

2012-01-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

Y'all are in some floor plan luck today. Yesterday evening we received an email from a fine gentleman—let's call call Freddie Figurine—who thoughtfully forwarded a couple of scans of the original (if not particularly detailed) floor plans of Marjorie Merriweather Post's titanic and generously terraced triplex penthouse atop 1107 Fifth Avenue (at East 92nd Street) in New York City.

The children will recall that yesterday we (somewhat briefly) discussed the 10-room penthouse apartment at 1107 Fifth Avenue long owned by recently deceased European aristocrat Monique Uzielli and recently hoisted with great fanfare on the market with an $29,500,000 price tag.

The floor plans of Miz Post's mansion-sized penthouse were scanned from Andrew Alpern's 1987 book New York's Fabulous Luxury Apartments With Original Floor Plans from the Dakota, River House, Olympic Tower and Other Great Buildings. If you get all goose pimply over the floor plans for exceedingly luxurious New York City apartments, Mister Alpern's book is a must own tome. Your Mama has owned a copy since we were knee high to a grasshopper but as we're not at home in the Hollywood Hills but rather ensconced in the art-filled classic six pre-war pad of our pals Soozee-Q and Pretty Boy on the Upper West Side of Manhattan we didn't have access to our copy of the book to include the floor plans with yesterday's discussion.

The children can and should drool through the plan at their own speed but there are a number of features that we find worth noting: 20-plus prison cell-sized staff bedrooms plus half a dozen additional work rooms for valets and personal secretaries; a larder the size of a small bedroom on the main floor off the kitchen and extensive laundry facilities on the third floor larger than most Manhattan studio apartments.

We counted more than a dozen fireplaces, 9 bedrooms (some with private sitting rooms), at least 10 family bathrooms plus half a dozen or more in the various domestics quarters. The master suite alone comprised an entry vestibule flanked by his and her bedrooms, his with walk-in closet, bathroom and sleeping porch and hers with a second bathroom larger than most of the staff bedrooms, a balcony with park and city views, a large private sitting room, and a walk-in "gown closet."

Now then puppies, we're off into the near-freezing temps for lunch at Petrossian with a writer who pens intricate, exhaustively researched and dishy books on the (real estate) doings of the rich, famous and very powerful.

floor plans: New York's Fabulous Luxury Apartments With Original Floor Plans from the Dakota, River House, Olympic Tower and Other Great Buildings by Andrew Alpern

Some Monday Morning Floor Plan Porn

2012-01-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Estate of Monique Uzielli
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $29,500,000
SIZE: about 4,000 square feet, 2-5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen booterbeans, Your Mama just dropped in to New York City on the red eye and we are beyond exhausted so, in the interest of our own mental health, we've got to keep it short and simple today with a wee tidbit of juicy Big Apple floor plan porn.

Late last week word slipped down the international property gossip grapevine that a near mythic penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue had hit the market with an asking price of $29,500,000. And children, is it ever a damn doozy of a penthouse.

The roughly 4,000 square foot full floor penthouse pad, girdled by (approximately) 4,000 square feet of wrap around terrace with 360-degree city and park views, was originally the top floor of a monolithic, mansion-sized 54-room triplex apartment of cereal heiress and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post. Miz Post's palatial penthouse, perched atop 1107 Fifth Avenue (at East 92nd Street), is reported to have included such super-rich people style amenities as a silver storage room, wine cellar, cold storage space for furs and flowers, a private carriage driveway and private elevator, a separate ground floor suite of rooms for a concierge, and another separate suite of rooms for her parents.

At one time the Post penthouse was the largest apartment in all of New York City but was later broken apart and in 1959 the uppermost floor was purchased for an unknown sum by a European aristocrat lady named Monique Uzielli (née de Gunzberg). Miz Uzielli "passed away peacefully" in Montreux (Switzerland) in early October 2011.

Listing information for 10 room spread shows there's a private elevator landing, 2-4 bedrooms depending on how one counts and how one configures the space, 3 bathrooms plus a cell-sized staff bedroom and bathroom, 4 wood burning fireplaces, 2 kitchens, and considerable but hardly unheard of monthly maintenance and common charges of $13,470.

The floor plan included with current listing materials shows the penthouse has been divided into two separate living spaces. A smaller north and east facing apartment, perfect for live-in domestic staff or long-term guests, encompasses a living room with terrace access, one bedroom also with terrace access, a compact but windowed kitchen, and one bathroom.

The larger apartment features and entrance gallery larger than most Manhattan living rooms, a paneled living room with fireplace, library (with fireplace, bathroom walk-in closet and walk-in safe, formal dining room, and service quarters that consists of a kitchen with direct terrace access, 21-foot plus long butler's pantry, and the aforementioned cell-sized staff room and bathroom.

At the opposite corner of the penthouse the two-room master suite include s large boo-dwar with fireplace and park view, cozy corner sitting room with fireplace and jaw dropping views over Central Park, built-in storage cabinets, a dressing closet and multi-winged walk-in closet, and downright small by today's standard attached bathroom.

Iffin Your Mama were the betting type, and we are most definitely not the betting type, we'd wager our retirement account this penthouse will be quickly snapped up by a deep pocketed globe trotting type who will undoubtedly spend many millions more reconfiguring, redecorating and otherwise doing over the entire penthouse into a world class show stopper of an apartment.

Would any of the children like to give it a go and try to reconfigure the floor plan?

listing photos and floorplan: Brown Harris Stevens

Khloé Kardashian and Lamar Odom Rent Kondo Krib in downtown Dallas

2012-01-06T16:57:00.000-08:00

The ever-industrious gossip beavers over at E! Online gleefully revealed yesterday that after a brief but fevered and pap-trailed hunt for a house in the Lonestar State reality tee-vee star Khloé Kardashian and professional dribbler Lamar Odom have opted not to buy a big house in hoity-toity Highland Park or veh-heh-hehrrry posh Preston Holler and settled instead on a 2 bedroom loft-like condominium at the glittery 33-story W Dallas Victory Hotel & Residences in downtown Dallas.

The high-floor condo crib, owned by Mack Hicks, the son of Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks and previously on the market at $1,625,000, was reportedly snatched up by Mister and Missus Odom just a few days before Jesus's birthday at a rental rate of $7,500 per month. It's not clear if the price includes the furnishings or if Missus Odom will have to bring in a nice, gay or lady decorator in to whip the place into reality tee-vee worthy condition.

The corner apartment is wrapped in floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors that open to a narrow wrap around terrace and luxuriously equipped with automatic window shades so neither Missus or Mister Odom nor any of their cadre of personal assistants, bodyguards and publicity minders need ever suffer the indignity of pulling a damn shade when the sun gets dips down to a blinding level.

The open plan main living/dining/entertaining space includes a floating seating area/tee-vee lounge, billiard nook, kitchen-sized wet bar with loads of wine storage cabinets, snack/beverage counter, and an ice maker. The living room area is open to a streamlined Euro-style Varenna kitchen with sleek ebony cabinets, snow white counter tops, and fully integrated appliances by name brands that include Miele and Kupperbush.

The W Dallas Victory Hotel & Residences complex offers hotel guests and residents access to 24-7 security and controlled access, doormen and concierge services, a zero-edge swimming pool and a lap pool, 5,000 square foot Bliss spa, two state-of-the-art fitness centers, an entertainment lounge, and VIP access to the on-site Craft restaurant by star chef and Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio.

Mister Odom, who has long and lucratively dribbled and shot orange rubber balls for the Lakers, was recently signed to the Dallas Mavericks through the 2012-13 season with an only "partially guaranteed" $8,200,000 annual salary. According to various sports related reports we can only barely understand, Mister Odom's contract apparently allows the Mavericks to cut and/or buy out his contract before the end of the season if they find themselves with a better option for a power forward.

Back in Los Angeles Mister Odom and Missus Kardashian-Odom shack up in a gated, 8,347 square foot mock-Med (mc)mansion in a gated enclave in hot as Hades and super-suburban Tarzana, CA. Property records show the then newly hitched couple picked up the 7 bedroom and 9 bathroom mini-estate in December 2009 for $3,950,000.

Now then, please someone get Your Mama a nerve pill, a tall gin & tonic and a promise we won't have to speak on the real estate matters of any of those over-exposed Kardashians for kwite some time.

listing photos (top set): Realtor.com
aerial photo (bottom): Bing

The Fed Snatches Up Bare Land Above Lake Zurich

2012-01-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

While all the global property gossips went ape shit over the recent news that Elin Nordegrin knocked down a twelve million dollar manse in North Palm Beach (FL), word out of Zurich's Tages-Anzeiger newspaper—that's in Switzerland, pansies—is that tennis titan Roger Federer dumped a substantial load of dough on a vacant parcel of land in the hoity-toity municipality of Herrliberg.

Local reports thoughtfully forwarded to Your Mama by I.M.N. Shtawd state that just before the Christian Christmas holidays Mister Federer acquired a 5,800 square meter hillside plot of vacant residential property with an unobstructed view of Lake Zurich (shown above). That's a sizable but hardly magnanimous 1.43 acres for all us folks not on the metric system of measurements and mathematics.

The Tagi article goes on to report the value of the land in question is roughly 23,000,000 Swiss Francs which amounts to a hefty hefty hefty $24,781,800 at today's rates according to Your Mama's rusty but trusty currency conversion contraption. It's not known what Mister Federer actually paid for the property and it's also not known if the tennis king plans to develop the property for personal and private use.

Iffin Your Mama is honest—and we always are—we'd confess we don't know exactly where Mister Federer and his wife Mirka and their twin tykes live when he's not circling the globe, staying in customized suites at 5-star hotels, and earning tens of millions per year (even in the sunset of his stratospheric career). There are various reports that float around the interweb that Mister and Missus Federer own and/or maintain (or maintained) several homes in Switzerland that include an apartment in Oberwil outside of Basel, a penthouse pad in the tax-friendly lakeside village of Wollerau (shown above), and a ski chalet in the Swiss resort town of Valbella. The couple are also widely believed to have a luxury residence in Dubai.

photo (Herrliberg): Benjamin Soland for Blick
photo (Wollerau): MurraysWorld.com

Elin Nordegrin Knocks a Big One Down

2012-01-06T10:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Your Mama done missed the the celebrity real estate boat. While we prattled on about Paris Hilton's old house in L.A. and deceased playboy Gunter Sachs' very contemporary Manhattan townhouse all the globe's other property gossips starting with TMZ went gaga over the news Elin Nordegrin knocked down the North Palm Beach, FL mansion she bought not quite a year ago for, as per the property records we peeped, $12,250,000.

Miz Nordegrin is, of course, the former Swedish nanny who married and procreated with philandering professional golfer Tiger Woods. Sometime in 2009 when Missus Woods wised up and figured out her dear huuzbund was sleeping with hussies–ahem, excuse us–women all over the United States of America she snatched up the kids, lawyered up and was granted somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 (or so) million bucks from her divorce decree. Miz Nordegrin reportedly now dates financier Jamie Dingman, a globe-trotting son of a billionaire who also, rather ironically and allegedly, got bizzy with VIP lounge hostess Rachel Uchitel,

The Palm Beach County Tax Man's records also show the original ocean front mansion, the one Miz Nordegrin knocked down, was built in 1932 and measured in at a rather monstrous 17,178 square feet with 2 fireplaces, 7 car garage parking, 8 bathrooms, and an elevator. At the front of a the house two gated drives met in a massive motor court at at the back a stone terrace with in-ground swimming pool and elevated spa hugged the house. A broad lawn ringed by half a dozen palm trees and sliced in two by a wide walkway that extended from the terrace to a small sunbathing deck set into thick foliage above the beach and to a private stair to the sand and surf.

That's all gone now, of course, soon to be replaced with whatever visions Miz Nordegrin and her team of smart architects and nice, gay (or maybe lady) decorators conjure up as her post-divorce dream house. The folks at TMZ managed to get their hands on a small cache of photographs of the house taken mostly from inside the gates during and after the demolition.

A little digging around on the Palm Beach County Tax Man's website and Your Mama discovered Miz Nordegrin's 2011 tax bill was $240,435, a staggering amount of money for most people for sure but, we imagine, much less we imagine that she'll have to cough up once her new (and probably more valuable) house is finally finished.

Ex-Missus Woods and the erstwhile couple's two young kiddies currently (and reportedly) shack up in a nearby ocean front condo she leased for the duration of the demolition and construction of her new(er and presumably better) mansion. As far as we know Miz N. still owns and maintains a luxury apartment in Stockholm's upscale Östermalm neighborhood as well as a rustic, accessible only by boat retreat on Falgaro Island near Stockholm.

aerial photo: Bing

Rent Paris Hilton's Real Estate Sloppy Seconds

2012-01-05T15:09:00.000-08:00

The guys and gals over at Trulia Luxe reported earlier today that tabulebrity and reality television denizen Paris Hilton's former Los Angeles, CA party pad is up for temporary grabs at $16,000 per month, recently reduced from its original asking price of $20,000 per month.

Listing photos for the 1920s Spanish-style casa, perched just above the Sunset Strip on North King's Road, show the interior of the house just about exactly as it appeared when Miss Hilton occupied the house in the mid-Aughts, the white hot pinnacle of her gossip glossy ubiquity that sprang forth fully formed the well-timed leak of a home-made sex tape released in 2003 just before the premiere of her first (and wildly successful) reality show The Simple Life with former b.f.f. Nicole Richie. In August 2007, in the wake of 20-some days spent in the slammer for a probation violation that stemmed from a 2006 drunk driving incident, the then ever-present paparazzi who lurked around her house compelled young Miss Hilton to decamp her Sunset Strip digs and drop $5,900,000 on her current home, a much larger, 7,493 square foot mock-Med (mc)mansion in the guard gated Mulholland Estates community high in the mountains between Beverly Hills and Sherman Oaks.

Anyhoo, it appears to Your Mama that either Miss Hilton's real estate agent—her also (semi-)famous uncle Mauricio Umansky, smoldering co-star on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills—is utilizing old photos of the house from when it was done up in a classic, post-millennial High Hollywood Nightclub style or the current owners acquired the home fully decorated and haven't touched a god damn thing, not even the multiple, larger than life-sized portraits of Miss Hilton.

Now listen, cinnamon sticks, we know Miss Hilton had her day at the celebrity races and that for a good number of years the sometimes naughty-acting and occasional law-breaker held firm to the pole position amongst all the other many celebutantes who competed for attention from the celebrity "news" media. For chrissakes, she (and a sex tape) single-handedly launched Kim Kardashian into international infamy simply by association.

That said, let's get honest for a moment, shall we? Beehawtcha Hilton, despite the almost violent media hysteria and vast money-making that her tabloid-tracked life generated, the lady's reign as the queen of the gossip glossies has done waxed and waned, at least for now. A low profile for the next few years, some intensive acting lessons, and a crackerjack agent who can gently bring her back with small but choice roles on both the tee-vee and silver screen might put her back on top of the heap. For now, however, Miss Hilton will have to make due with a slightly less high profile existence as a glamour puss businesswoman who heads up a billion dollar empire of fragrances, apparel and other Paris-branded products. Miss Hilton may be an heiress to a hotel fortune but she is also a mogul in her own right.

Listen children, we don't mean any disrespect to anyone but even a property gossip like Your Mama has certain standards. We're not talking about the house itself. Oh no, it's a fine Spanish style house built in 1926 and nestled into a steep hillside well above the street with gated off-street parking, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, updated systems and innards, and a small but flat back yard with swimming pool, wee patch of grass, and a couple of high-glam poolside tent cabanas. We love love love all the archways, the easy-peasy flow from in- to outdoors, and the fab staircase in the entry would be magnificent without all the decorative tarting up. There's also a desirable separate guest wing and home office, according to the listing, and one of the 4 bedrooms has been converted to the "ultimate" boutique-like dressing room and closet.

But, hunties, unless they've been removed, listing photos still show a stripper pole in the middle of the living room, dizzying wallpaper in the breakfast room, and a fully mirrored bathroom that would easily drive a drinker to take up dope. And did we mention the multiple, over-sized sexpot portraits of Paris Hilton? Yes, well there are those too.

One hopes the current owners, a couple from Texas as we may or may not correctly recall who paid $3,865,000 for the house according to property records, have pared down and cleared out the worst decorative offenses; A stripper pole? Really? Your Mama ain't no prude, puppies, but a stripper pole in the living room? Pleeze.

It's our opinion, which isn't worth a god damn thing, minus the shrine-like day-core Miss Hilton's former home would likely lease in a hot minute for sixteen thousand a month. Yes, that's an ass load of money to spend on the rent but no, children, it's not even remotely unusual for similar (and smaller) houses in prime areas of Los Angeles to rent for that amount of money.

Howevuh, iffin the day-core indeed remains all but unaltered from Miss Hilton's residency as is shown in the current listing photos—y'all will forgive Your Mama if this is offensive to anyone—we can't help but ask what sort of douche bag spends sixteen grand a month to live in Paris Hilton's sloppy real estate seconds and is that the kind of chap or chippie one really wants as a tenant in a multi-million dollar plus investment property? You decide. There is, as they say in real estate, a lid for every pot and at the right price—whatever it may be—there's certainly some salt for this pepper.

listing photos: The Agency via Trulia

Gunter Sach's Estate To Unload A Rare Paul Rudolph Residence in New York City

2012-01-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Estate of (Fritz) Gunter Sachs
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $38,500,000
SIZE: (approximately) 10,000 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: True confession: our incessant (re)search into the real estate activities of celebrities sometimes gets dull and we end up gathering wool with our own real estate fantasies and touch stones. We're not complaining, we're just saying a job is a job and sometimes it's nice to mentally escape into our own real estate desires. Thing is, ask anyone who knows Your Mama well and they'll (probably) sigh with exhaustion then tell you our (probably too frequent) personal real estate meanderings often border on a (probably) unhealthy obsession that funnels us directly into time consuming black holes of real estate fantasy. Our latest and very powerful property preoccupations are a positively puny but colorful two-room garret with a damn near microscopic balcony on the Rue Chapon in Paris and, because we are soon on our way to New York City and have The Big Apple on our brain, a still au courant architectural tour de force townhouse on the Upper East Side. The townhouse, brought to our attention in an early November (2011) article in the Wall Street Journal by well-connected real estate journalist Josh Barbanel, was designed in 1966 by dexterous Brutalist architect Paul Rudolph, long owned by members of the global glitterati, and currently listed with a prodigious (but hardly unheard of) price tag of $38,500,000.

Sited mid-block on a leafy stretch of East 63rd Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, the aggressively contemporary 4-story Rudolph-designed residence was originally commissioned by a couple of high-style gentlemen named Alexander Hirsch and Turner Lewis. The Misters Lewis and Hirsch unloaded the very spare but not bare townhouse in the mid-1970s to Roy Frowick, the über-iconic fashion designer otherwise known as Halston who frequently entertained a decadent parade of hard-partying and high-flying famous folks like Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli, Elizabeth Taylor and Andy Warhol.

Mister Halston in turn sold the townhouse in 1990 to Italian industrialist Gianni Agnelli and German-born photographer Gunter Sachs, an avid astrology buff, international bon vivant, and scion to the Opel automobile dynasty. At some point Herr Sachs bought out Signore Agnelli's half-interest in the townhouse and lined the long and tall walls of the airy rooms with scads of candid photographs of his beau monde social circle and a contemporary art collection that could easily make a lesser collector of contemporary art puke with envy.

Who among the children can name three of the big name artists whose work can be seen in the listing photographs? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?

In addition to his art-filled townhouse in Manhattan, thrice married Mister Sachs, who spent a few years during the swinging sixties hitched to blond bomber turned reclusive animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot, owned a chalet in the hoity-toity Swiss ski resort of Gstaad. In May 2011, after diagnosed with what he described in a suicide note as a "hopeless illness," Mister Sachs put a gun to his own head. He further explained in his suicide note, "the loss of mental control over my life was an undignified condition, which I decided to counter decisively."

Take a moment to absorb that iffin you need to...

Moving along now, the Hirsch-Lewis/Halston/Agnelli-Sachs/Sachs townhouse appears as an electric shock of steel and smoked glass on an otherwise fairly staid and mostly featureless block of dignified (if ho-hum) brick buildings. However, the first thing an automobile owning New Yorker might notice about the house is not the meticulously taut and rather severe architecture of the facade but the curb cut and private garage, a very special sort of rare, hideously expensive and insanely desirable luxury in a city piled high with every kind of very rare and hideously expensive luxury. The floor plan included with online listing and marketing materials shows the garage, just spacious enough to accommodate one fairly large automobile, includes a wall of closet storage, a washer and dryer and two direct entrances the house, one to the foyer and the other to the decent sized and not doubt well-equipped but isolated and windowless kitchen.

Listing information doesn't indicate the size of the townhouse–earlier reports on the house state it's around 10,000 square feet–but does show there are a total of 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, 3 living rooms on 3 floors, 2 kitchens, one elevator that stops on all 4 floors, one nearly hidden office, and an (approximately) 1,600 square foot roof terrace.

The front door opens into a long foyer/gallery with charcoal-colored slate flooring and art gallery white walls lined with dozens of identically matted and framed black and white photographs (above). A death defying floating staircase constructed primarily of steel offers no handrail for the aged, inform or drunk and switches back up to the townhouse's upper levels. The long entrance gallery narrows as it passes the elevator, laughably small coat closet, and discreetly located powder pooper before it explodes open into a cavernous, multi-level, living/dining room with a gasp-producing 32-foot high ceiling with massive sky light.

The slate tile floors under foot in the dining area give way to long strips of polished oak floors in the living room that includes a fireplace flanked by a deep niche where open are shelves lined with vintage camera equipment and Campbell's soup cans and various other Warholian things. A towering wall of glass gives way to a compact but high-impact bamboo garden. A second, even more dramatic floating staircase ascends to a loft/den that overlooks the living room and wraps around to the rear of the residence to the first (and least private) of three (smallish) guest bedrooms that each have somewhat limited closet space but an attached bathroom.

The second floor, street facing master suite (above, top) has soaring double-height ceiling, a 20-foot(ish) long corridor lined on one side with closets, and a long (and unfortunately windowless) bathroom (not shown in listing photos). A connected but separate closet-lined dressing room also has direct access to the elevator/stair hall, a well-conceived utility that means hair stylists, personal shoppers, and Keiko the mani-pedi gal need not enter the owner's most intimate chamber in order to do their bizness and work their various magics on the home's owner.

A spacious casual living room on the top floor includes a free-standing bar, wee (windowless) kitchenette, a large walk-in storage closet, and a wide floor-to-ceiling window and solid full-height door that gives way to the roof terrace, a vast (if not particularly private) expanse of outdoor space far larger than the interior area of many if not most Manhattan apartments. We love the collage-style collection of personal photographs that make a complex visual pattern on the rear wall but we think the room would benefit substantially from a pitched ceiling and/or sky light and a large, hand-woven silk rug placed under the main sitting area near to the windows.

Some of the more traditional townhouses in the immediate area are owned, as per property records, by big-living folks like Diandra Douglas–she's Michael's ex-wife, film producer Barbara Broccoli–she's Cubby's daughter, Daisy Prince–she's Hal's daughter, the government of Bulgaria, and Andrew Cogan–he's the director of Knoll who lives in a 19th century townhouse with an insane, thoroughly modern masonry screen facade designed and added in 1956 by architect Edward Durrell Stone.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Dan Cortese Files for Divorce and (Re-)Lists Malibu Mansion

2012-01-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Dan and DeeDee Cortese
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $2,949,000
SIZE: 6,322 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: There are a number of reasons regular people and rich and famous folks in particular sell there homes. Besides the all too frequent and often incurable cases of The Real Estate Fickle there are what's known in real estate industry lingo as The Three Ds: death, diapers and divorce. In the case of television presenter and actor Dan Cortese–that's pronounced core-tez and not core-teez, thank you very much–and his real estate agent wife DeeDee, married since 1994, it's divorce. Perhaps (and probably) having something to do with the impending dissolution of their near 20-year marriage Mister and Missus Cortese have (re-)listed their Malibu, CA mansion with an asking price of $2,949,000.

The chisel-chinned, wisp slim, and fiddle fit Mister Cortese, a fratty sort of fella who might call friends and strangers alike "bro," started up his ladder of fame in the early 1990s and through mid-1990s as the jocky host of MTV Sports. That success led to recurring roles on a number of sitcoms and evening (melo)dramas that include Melrose Place, The Single Guy, Veronica's Closet, What I Like About You, and Surviving Suburbia. Along the way Mister Cortese hosted a couple of (very) short-lived game shows (My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad, Crash Course) and appeared in a number of made for the boob-toob movies (Ball & Chain, Brain Trust) and on the silver screen in silly movies we've never heard of and hope never to be subjected (Everybody Wants to Be Italian, Soccer Mom). In addition to purveying property in Malibu, soon to be ex-Missus Cortese paints portraits of children.

The erstwhile Corteses acquired their then brand spanking new gated mini-estate in Malibu, nestled into a short cul-de-sac of like-minded mansion due north of Point Dume, in April 1998 for an undisclosed price, or at least a price we couldn't tease up out of the internet with a few minutes' effort.

As it turns out Mister and soon to be ex-Missus Cortese first hoisted their mock-Mediterranean manse on the market in May (2011) with a slightly higher price tag of $3,250,000. Information readily available on StreetEasy shows the property was put in escrow in early October but the deal, alas, quickly came to naught and by Halloween the house was back on the market.

Listing information shows the C-shaped two-story pile, which sits on .82 acres and curls around a parking lot-sized gated motor court with attached 3-bay garage, measures 6,322 square feet and includes, in the main and attached guest houses, a total of 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, and 3 fireplaces.

The double-height foyer has a sweeping staircase with scrolled wrought iron banister and several wide archways that lead to the various rooms of the house that include a formal living room with fireplace and French doors with backyard access and a formal dining room with tiled floor, French doors and, framed in a faux stone archway, a wall mural that depicts some Italian seaside scene, probably someplace in Sicily where Mister Cortese's people come from. We are certain there are those children who will find the wall mural charming or quaint or Old World or whatever but, generally speaking, we find wall murals decoratively despicable. We're sure there's a hard and fast rule about such thing in Your Mama's Big Book Of Decoratin' Dos and Don'ts but we just cain't be bothered to look it up right now.

Anyhoo, another archway connects the formal dining room to the family quarters that include a generous breakfast room with backyard access and, through yet another stone encrusted archway, a sizable center-island kitchen with vaulted ceiling criss-crossed by wood beams (that look to our untrained eye like they were painted to look rustic and old but really are neither of those things), brown and beige flecked granite counter tops, a plethora of high-grade stainless steel appliances including separate full-sized fridge and freezer that flank the six burner range, and miles of raised panel cabinetry done up with articulated pediments, fluted columns and a mottled faux finish.

The nearby family room has another fireplace, wood floors, French doors that swing open to a large entertainment terrace that overlooks the resort-style backyard and, for the hooch hounds, a built-in wet bar with granite counter tops and a couple of cushioned wrought iron stools. Listing information shows the house also includes a den, attached guest/staff quarters, and office, and interior laundry room.

The second floor includes various family and guest bedrooms and bathrooms that include the Cortese bambinos' theme decorated bedrooms, his like a surf shack/tiki hut and hers all pink and princess-like. A small, semi-circular sitting room adjacent to the master has narrow arched windows and a wee balcony that allow for a panoramic over the tree tops view that includes a sliver of the Pacific Ocean. The spacious (but far from huge) master suite offers a high ceiling, a curvaceous fireplace, French doors that open to a private covered balcony with mountain view, and a classic (and cliché) mock-Med mcmansion-style bathroom with elaborate custom cabinetry, twin sinks and vanities, a vaulted ceiling, and a separate shower and soaking tub for two.

Kitty Hazclaus, a phrase-turning real estate insider with whom we're acquainted in The Bu summed it up best perhaps when she briefly but cattily described the over all decorative scheme of the Cortese crib to Your Mama as, ""Like Costco and Victoria Gotti designed a signature line of furnishings." Did any of y'all gasp out loud the first time you read that like Your Mama did? Have mercy and pass the nerve pills, please. We remain in breathless awe of the bare naked and wicked wicked wicked sharpness of Miz Hasclaus' assessment of the situation but we can't really argue with her tough judgement since she's sort of pinned the tail on the donkey, you know? Then again we would never, ever, in a million years disagree publicly with out Miz Hazclaus because, well, as y'all can see, the old bird has a rather withering tongue.

Moving along into the outdoor areas at that encompass numerous and various patios, balconies and terraces that extend off both the upper and lower levels of the rear of the house. Steps from the main terrace off the kitchen descend into a thicket of pencil-thin palm trees that surround the elevated party-sized spa and lagoon-shaped swimming pool. Some of the stone paved terraces around the spa and pool have built-in bench seating and others are better suited for pool-side dining and sun basking. Well-watered lawns swoop, swirl and undulate around the swimming pool and spa and provide plenty of room for an assorted number of outdoor activities that could (but do not, as far as we can tell, currently include) a shuffleboard court, horse shoe pit, and super-sized sand box. Some things for the next owner to think about as they consider what they might do to customize the property.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker / Malibu West

New Year's Mish Match Catch Up: The Rybolovlev Girl

2012-01-03T15:59:00.000-08:00

Just before the winter holidays property gossips around the globe went plum berserk with the undeniably astonishing news that Russian multi-billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev dropped a stomach-knotting and record-busting $88,000,000 to purchase a posh penthouse pad atop the lordly, limestone-clad 15 Central Park West building in New York City. The nearly 7,000 square foot park view penthouse and its gigantic wrap around terrace, designed by Robert A.M. Stern and decorated in high style by Mica Ertegun, was reportedly purchased for his flaxen-haired and equestrian-minded 22-year old daughter Ekaterina to use as a "crash pad" when she visits The Big Apple.

Imagine children, being an otherwise low-profile 22-year old beau monde heiress who reportedly studies an unnamed subject in an unnamed part of the United States and owns an eighty-eight million dollar pied-a-terre where the monthly maintenance alone is probably more than a minimum wage domestic worker earns in an entire year? It boggles the mind really, don't it?

Anyways, soon came rumor and report that the fertilizer oligarch and mining magnate, who is in the midst of an acrimonious (and expensive) dee-vorce and just acquired a majority stake in the AS Monaco professional soccer team, snatched up a second apartment in the building to house young Miss Rybolovleva's traveling security detail. Of course, children, these lavish livers don't buy staff apartments like ordinary rich people. No way José. Instead they purchase, according to various New York City real estate chroniclers, a low-floor, two bedroom and two-point-five bathroom apartment with a hefty even for most multi-millionaires $8,395,000 price tag.

Listing information for the apartment in question shows the third floor unit features chevron pattern hardwood floors, over-sized windows, marble sheathed bathrooms, 10 closets, walnut cabinetry in the well-equipped galley-style eat-in kitchen, and a laundry closet in the foyer. Believe it or not, sugar bombs, a laundry closet in the foyer is better than not having one at all in a New York City apartment, even in an eight million dollar New York City apartment. Common charges and taxes run $3,782 per month, a lot of money by most standards but not so much for a billionaire or an eight and some million dollar apartment.

Subsequent to reports on the (alleged) purchase of a second apartment at 15 Central Park West Mister Rybolovlev's official spokesperson released a statement to the New York Observer that reads:

"Neither Dmitry Rybolovlev, nor his daughter Ekaterina Rybolovleva, nor any companies connected to them have purchased apartment 3F at 15 Central Park West, New York City. The reports suggesting that they have are completely inaccurate. There have never been any plans or even any discussions about purchasing this apartment."

Interestingly, and perhaps or maybe not coincidentally, apartment 3F no longer appears listed as "in contract" on the real estate helper site StreetEasy. Make of that what you will dollies.

listing photos and floor plan: Brown Harris Stevens

New Year's Mish Mash Catch Up: Brangelina

2012-01-03T10:46:00.000-08:00

Before any of you people get your under panties in a wad about Your Mama using the tie-erd term Brangelina to refer to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie know deep in your snarky souls that we use it very reluctantly and only in the service of keeping the headline to just one line, okaaay? Moving along...

Over the weekend came the surprising celebrity real estate news that Oscar-winning actress/director and global do-gooder Angelina Jolie bought her man-mate Brad Pitt a piece of land with a waterfall outside of Los Angeles, CA where he can realize his real estate and architectural dream of designing and erecting a cantilevered Falling Water-like residence. Miz Jolie, ever the thoughtful (and deep pocketed) Life Partner and co-parent, allegedly purchased the waterfall and surrounding acreage as a combination holiday and 48th birthday present for Mister Pitt.

An unidentified source, "a friend" of the generally pretty private pair told the the UK's dishy tab The Daily Mail that Mister Pitt, a surprisingly knowledgeable architecture and design fanatic, "has dreamed of a home with the sound of a waterfall cascading under the house." The source went on to explain Mister Pitt "wants to pull all aspects of nature, light, glass and varying levels into the concept. No further details were given as to the topography or whereabouts of the waterfall endowed spread other than it being "near LA."

Hmm. Unfortunately Your Mama has no specific knowledge or inside intel on this one but does anyone else smell an unsubstantiated celebrity real estate rat?

The Jolie-Pitts, as far as Your Mama knows, already own and maintain a fair (but shrinking number) of homes around the globe that include a just about self-contained 1,000-ish acre spread in the South of France, a remote Cambodian retreat, a townhouse mansion in New Orleans, LA, a (spectacular) ocean front compound near Santa Barbara, CA, and a multi-parcel compound in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, CA. Mister Pitt sold his bluff-top Malibu modern last month (December 2011) to the voracious and seemingly insatiable property collector Ellen Degeneres and her lady-wife Portia De Rossi who themselves have their superstar-style compound in Beverly Hills, CA on the market with a blistering $49,000,000 price tag.

New Year's Mish Mash Catch Up: Lady Gaga

2012-01-03T09:25:00.000-08:00

All the celebrity real estate gossips were abuzz and atwitter last week over the rather bizarre rumor that international superstar Lady Gaga was house shopping in the sleepy, suburban and very unlikely locale of Lititz, PA.

So the rumor went, Miss Gaga went on a house hunt in the same neck of the Amish Country from where her new(ish) man friend Taylor Kinney hails. Mister Kinny is, of course, the beau hunky actor who works his six-pack abs on the Vampire Diaries program. Gee-awd, aren't the teens and tweens d.o.n.e. with vampire stories yet? We sure are.

Anyhoodles poodles, the house all the gossips reported Miss Gaga toured is a very traditional 6,138 square foot stone-built mansion in the upscale Bent Creek Country Club listed at $1,699,000. Listing information for the faux English Manor-style manse shows the two-story home was built in 2007 with4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, 3 fireplaces and a 3 car attached garage.

Thing is, puppies, not only did Miss Gaga not buy the house Lititz, PA, she never even stepped a 47-inch high hoof-heeled shoe in the house. Yes, she had previously been spotted in the area–Mister Kinney's family lives nearby it seems–but turns out listing agent Anne Lusk, who like Miss Gaga has long blond hair, is a bit of a sartorial daredevil–not unlike Miss Gaga–and was spotted at the house wearing a leopard coat and funky shoes and someone, for some reason, jumped the gun and reported to someone else that Miss Gaga was house hunting.

As far as we know Miss Gaga lives in hotels–or perhaps has a high-priced rental in lower Manhattan–but has not actually bought any real estate anywhere with her new-found extreme wealthh. There are scads of rumors and (unsubstantiated) reports–including on this here blog–she's building a house on a secluded waterfront property on Martha's Vineyard but we can't prove it.

listing photo: Prudential Lancaster Real Estate

Pierce Brosan Goes Mano-a-Mano with Eroding Beach in the Bu

2011-12-31T13:20:00.000-08:00

There's trouble in paradise if one's idea of paradise is the freakishly expensive strip of sand known as Broad Beach in Malibu, CA. Broad Beach has for decades been lined with beach bungalows and ocean front mansions, many owned by rich and famous folks, showbiz executives, and a slew of west coast-based Wall Street types.

One of Broad Beach's newest mansions, now just about finished, was built for and is owned by smoldering Irish-born movie star Pierce Brosnan (Mamma Mia!, The Thomas Crown Affair and half a dozen money makers from the James Bond film franchise) and his second wife, former actress/tee-vee presenter/activist Keely Shaye Smith.

We're not sure why the gossips at X17 reported earlier in the week that Mister Brosnan and Missus Shaye Smith paid a bone shattering $45,000,000 for the two-parcel ocean front spread because the admittedly somewhat vague online records we peeped indicate they acquired the property in March 2000 for $5,100,000.

Whatever the case, the existing house was razed (or at least significantly dismantled) and replaced by a gigantic, just about completed U-shaped Balinese-inspired mansion with ocean side swimming pool and detached guest/pool house.

Unfortunately for Mister Brosnan, Missus Shaye Smith and the many of the other well-heeled (but probably bare-footed) Broad Beach home owners, the shoreline has eroded and diminished significantly over the last 10 or so years. In order to protect their newly built residence, Mister Brosnan and Missus Shaye Smith, as well as numerous other residents along Broad Beach, erected a ghastly but necessary tall wall of sandbags to hold the advancing ocean at bay. More recently home owners along Broad Beach spent boo coo bucks to construct an an even more unsightly and permanent rock revetment between their homes and thundering surf.

Fortunately for him and his, Mister Brosnan's just about completed crib has a swimming pool but should he or any of his children and/or guests desire to stroll along the shoreline or bob around in the ocean, they must first make a grisly, knee scraping scramble over the revetment.

Some of the other property owners who share the same stretch of eroding shoreline as the Brosnans include Tinseltown types such as Steven Spielberg (who leased his contemporary Craftsman-style compound last summer to David and Victoria Beckham for $150,000 per month), Mike Ovitz, Dustin Hoffman, Danny DeVito and Rhea Pearlman, and a slew of high-flying financiers and real estate developers who include Mark Attanasio, George Novogroder, Edward Roski Jr., tool tycoon Eric Smidt, and former shipbuilding mogul turned investor Burton Borman whose 10,000-plus square foot Frank Gehry-designed digs on Broad Beach include, of all luxuries, a lighted and sunken ocean side tennis court.

This is not the first Broad Beach area home Mister Brosnan and Missus Shaye-Smith Brosnan have owned. In fact, the environmentally concerned couple have long resided in Malibu in a Mediterranean style hillside house that sits much closer to busy and loud Pacific Coast Highway than the beach. In June 2010 Mister Brosnan and Missus Shaye-Smith Brosnan listed their 3,412 square foot hillside house with an asking price of $3,900,000. Just a few days before Christmas, eighteen months after first being listed, several price chops that brought the final asking price to $2,790,000, and at least one failed escrow the two-story, 3 bedroom, 3.25 bathroom and 4 fireplace Brosnan/Shaye Smith abode has been sold to a non-celebrity for an undisclosed price We heard through the Malibu celebrity real estate gossip grapevine but can't confirm it went for $2,650,000.

Property records indicate Mister Brosnan and Missus Shaye Smith also own at least one home near the scenic Hanalei and Wainiha bays on the star-studded Hawaiian island of Kauai.

aerial photo: X17

Marina Abramović Lists Modern Minded Manhattan Loft

2011-12-30T16:31:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Marina Abramović
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $3,495,000
SIZE: (approximately) 3,000 square feet, 1 bedroom, 1.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: 'Tis the end of the year (and a travel day to boot) so much to the chagrin of some, we're sure, Your Mama's gonna to take the low road today and dredge up a wee piece of New York City art world celebrity real estate that we didn't stop to (dis or) discuss earlier in the year, namely the very spare SoHo loft performance art pioneer Marina Abramović first heaved and hoisted on to the market in January (2011) with an asking price of $3,750,000. By May the price had dropped to $3,375,000 and in mid-August it was taken off the market until late September when it reappeared with a mysteriously higher (and current) price tag of $3,495,000.

The raven-tressed and Serbian by birth Miz Abramović, who apparently once described herself as the "Grandmother of Performance Art," has been making decidedly intense, sometimes obtuse, often enigmatic and frequently controversial performance-based artwork for more than three decades. Art-minded types probably already know and recall that from mid-March to the tail end of May 2010 the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan held a comprehensive retrospective of her work that included the punishing 736.5 hour extended performance of The Artist is Present during which Miz Abramović, weirdly regal in a floor-length blue or red wizard-like outfit and a sloppy side pony braid, sat silent, all but immobile at a small table set up in the airy atrium of the museum where spectators, one at a time, sat in an opposite chair for as long or short amount of time as they wished. The artist and the sitter(s) simply stared at each other, a quiet and painfully self-conscious yet terrifically dynamic exercise that produced a variety of (sometimes emotional) responses from participants, some who returned several and even many times. Your Mama did not sit with Miz Abramović during her epic performance but we do know a number who did. Most said they were mesmerized and unexpectedly moved and the others thought it was a silly waste of time.

Anyhoo, property records are a bit vague for Miz Abramović's SoHo spread, but previous reports about the apartment indicate she acquired the approximately 3,000 square foot full-floor loft sometime in 2001 for around $1,500,000. Current monthly maintenance charges run $2,269 per month).

The sixty-something year old avant garde art star later and somewhat recently had the apartment overhauled from top to bottom by New York-based architect Dennis Wedlick. A 2010 article in the New York Times states that Miz Abramović provided Mister Wedlick 4 months and three-quarters of a million clams to re-work the loft in to its present condition, a light-filled minimalist urban retreat with direct (manually operated) elevator access and gleaming gallery white walls juxtaposed with very purposeful and vibrant bursts of color. An interior structure compactly and cost-effectively encloses a variety of the apartment's plumbing and service areas into a single, permeable and semi-transparent 325-ish square foot interior volume that contains a fitted dressing room in the master bedroom, a half bathroom off the long, window-lined entrance gallery, a luxurious but utilitarian master bathroom, and a wee but well-equipped galley style kitchen. The outer wall of the translucent light box-like structure is lined with aluminum framed frosted glass panels that swing open or twist close to reveal or conceal the inner areas as desired or necessary.

About half the approximately 3,000 square foot spread encompasses a prairie-like living and dining area with 11-foot (or so) ceiling, 13 over-sized windows that run in perfect sequence around two walls, an acre of white-washed hardwood floors, and an extensive lighting system. Listing photos show the vast, sun-bleached space divided into three distinct areas: a lounge with low-slung Euro-style contemporary and mid-century modern furnishings; a dining area near the kitchen; and an open space outfitted with little more than a personal (and trendy) Pilates machine.

Certainly Miz Abramović has a studio space where she exercises her creative impulses but Your Mama imagines Miz Abramović might sometimes instruct her team of hipster assistants and minimum wage booty kissers to push all the low-slung Patricia Urquiola-designed Lowseat sofas up against the walls when she's feeling in the mood to interpretive dance or wants to rehearse one of her mind and body challenging performance pieces that have made her rich and famous, or at least famous in the Art World, caps intended.

The galley style kitchen, small as it may be, packs an ocular punch with top-of-the-line Euro-style appliances, custom fabricated polished concrete counter tops, and lacquered turquoise and apple green flat-fronted cabinetry. We're certain many if not most of the children will poo-poo the eye-popping color scheme in the kitchen but Your Mama, an out-and-out sucker for bright and/or shiny things, happens to think it's the bees knees in contemporary kitchen design.

A coat closet and larger storage closet flank a door that leads to the building's interior stair hall and helps to define a bookshelf-lined office nook nestled in next to a series of sliding panels that disappear completely into the wall when fully opened to reveal the apartment's lone bedroom, a sizable multi-windowed room with commodious walk-in closet, even larger custom-fitted dressing room, and master bathroom that offers top quality Thassos marble tile floors and walls, two cast concrete sinks on a cornflower blue pedestal, a separate cast concrete soaking tub and opaque glass panels that slide open to reveal the terlit and bee-day and large shower enclosure with pebble tile flooring.

Listing information indicates a second bedroom can be "easily added" without compromising the overall expansiveness of the loft by sectioning off a small portion of the main living space.

In addition to her sparely done loft in downtown Manhattan, Miz Abramović also owns a semi-rural retreat in out-of-the-way Malden Bridge, NY she acquired in March 2007, according to property records, for $1,350,00. The star-shaped residence's original architect Dennis Wedlick was quickly commissioned by Miz Abramović and given 8 weeks and a quarter million dollars to "strip the house bare," paint the ceilings white, refinish the wood floors, remove various columns that cluttered up the space and relocate the driveway to the rear of the residence because, according to Miz Abramović, "Americans like to park their cars in front of the house. This is unacceptable. A car should be parked out behind the barn." It was her positive experience with Mister Wedlick in Malden Bridge that prompted her to re-hire the smart architect to, as mentioned above, re-work her downtown digs.

listing photos and floor plan: Sotheby's International Realty

In Style Bigwig and Project Accessory Judge Sells Downtown Digs

2011-12-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Ariel Foxman
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $949,000
SIZE: 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As anyone who knows Your Mama will probably ruefully and woefully attest, we love us a reality television program. We can't help it. So many of them cater to the trailer trash that runs in trace amounts in our decidedly not-blue blood and with this genetic sickness we will test drive just about any old reality tee-vee turd ball that comes along. Of course, we don't keep watching most reality programs. After all, just how many episodes of a morbidly over-weight dance teacher who screams and wags her luridly manicured fingers at the neurotic mothers of the talented tweenage girls she teaches to tap and grind can a person take, you know?

Being unfortunately inclined towards reality teev-vee, it didn't even occur to Your Mama not to tune in for the first few episodes of the first season of Project Accessory, a recent if not quite full term off-spring of supermodel Heidi Klum's boob-toob gold mine Project Runway. Much to our own surprise we worked our way through the entire first season and saw the winner crowned (or whatever) but our inner jury remains in a hostile flux about the continued watchability of future seasons. Not only is Molly Sims–no offense to the tall darlin'–a pale facsimile of Miz Klum's accented camp but a fair number of the contestants were not particularly compelling which would be okay if they made compelling cuffs, handbags and belly chains but, alas...

But we digress. One of the regular judges on Project Accessory's first season was a compact-looking, chisel-chinned, droopy-eyed and well-pressed young(ish) gentleman named Ariel Foxman, the honcho editor at celebrity-focused magazine InStyle and the sartorial-minded son of Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman.

Previous to sitting atop the mast head at InStyle Mister Foxman headed up the thankfully defunct Condé Nast men's shopping guide Cargo. It was during his years at Cargo, in the mid-Aughts, that the New York Observer reported and revealed in April 2006 that Mister Foxman received (and did other favored editors, editrixes and executives at Condé Nast) some sort of mortgage assistance in 2005 when he purchased what was then described in the Observer as an "oversized one-bedroom spread that had listed for $625,000."

As it turns out Mister Foxman paid handsomely for his co-operative apartment located a momentary stroll to the insanely chic or, depending on your view of the 'hood's gentrification, jump-the-shark sheek collision of the West Village and the Meatpacking District, a once stinky, out of the way corner of Manhattan where the streets literally ran with animal blood and now transformed in to an upscale and urbane shopping and dining district dense with fancy-schmancy eateries, high-cost hotels and private clubs, emergent and established art galleries, a glassy Apple store and scads of designer boo-teeks.

The fine folks at StreetEasy and Property Shark both show Mister Foxman, in February 2005, actually paid $695,000 for his fifth floor, three-exposure, 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom apartment in the well regarded Art Deco-style Abingdon Court building. That price, according to Your Mama's bejeweled abacus, is more than ten percent over the asking price.

Mister Foxman briefly and unsuccessfully attempted to sell his West Village one bedroom over the summer of 2009 when he heaved it on the market with a $995,000 price tag. For unknown reasons, Mister Foxman quickly caught a classic case of The Real Estate Fickle and de-listed his stylish downtown bachelor pad just three weeks later.

Fast forward to July of this year (2011) when Mister Foxman once again listed his fully updated and contemporized pre-war one bedroom bolthole with a $995,000 price tag. Three weeks later the co-op crib went to contract–that's like escrow for all the west coasters–but that deal soon swirled down the real estate terlit as some deals do and by late September the apartment was back on the market, again at $995,000. A week later the price dropped to $949,000 and about three weeks after that the apartment was once again put into contract. Mazel Tov! and ¡Buena Suerte!

Listing information for Mister Foxman's apartment doesn't indicate the square footage but we guesstimate it's a generous but far from huge 800 or maybe 850 square feet. What listing information does reveal is that the three exposures are to the north, west and east and that the monthly maintenance cost for the full-service building runs a not insignificant $1,205 per month.

The apartment opens, as do many decent-sized one bedroom pre-war one bedroom apartments in Manhattan, directly into a large foyer that could, if the occupant so chose, do double duty as an intimate (if essentially windowless) dining room. The deep ebony wood floors and crisp white walls in the foyer extend into the step-down corner living room with excellent windows on two walls and just enough floor space to accommodate a proper seating lounge/tee-vee nook and a dining area just large enough for six to sit for a take-out from Fatty Crab. Generally speaking Mister Foxman's tailored but contemporary clean-lined day-core is lovely except for that upsetting pair of two-toned armchairs that flank the wall-mounted flat screen tee vee and the credenza below it. Probably they were bought at Wyeth or on 1st Dibs for as much as a Fiat 500 but we just don't get it.

The galley-style kitchen isn't large by any stretch but it more than adequate for Manhattan where many residents rarely cook has a window and is fully upgraded with plenty of counter space for laying out the hors d'oeuvres and booze bottles, dark and sleek flat-fronted Euro-style lower cabinets for hiding ugly pots and pans, and open shelves above the white counter tops for displaying daily dishes. Mister Foxman (or his nice-gay or lady decorator) slathered the rear wall of the kitchen, a wall complicated with a radiator and a large but off-center window, in a patterned wallpaper that looks like some sort of winter time forest scene, a naked birch trees in the snow sort of thing. We're still torn up by the notion of wallpaper in general and this wallpaper in particular. We want to like it but we're afraid to commit and worry about it's trendiness despite the fact it's been in decorative resurgence for more than 10 years.

Anyhoo, Mister Foxman (or, again, his nice-gay or lady decorator) opted for an abstract pattern wallpaper in his boo-dwar where the long wall behind his Nakashima-esque bed frame is sheathed in a somewhat dizzying but not unpleasant vertical striped wall covering in repeating shades of blue. The bedroom benefits from two closets–or one long one with two doors as shown on the floor plan–and windows on two walls that encourage cross ventilation.

Listing photographs do not show the one bathroom but does describe it as "Deco" which means either the original Art Deco-era bathroom has been retained (and presumably restored) or an all new "Deco" style facility was installed to replace the original one.

We really haven't any idea where Mister Foxman might go now that his one bedroom and one bathroom co-op in the West Village is–knock on wood–about to be sold but given that's he's now the honcho of a huge celebrity-culture driven magazine and a judge on a reality television program Your Mama imagines he might feel he wants a second bedroom (and maybe even a second bathroom) so his overnight house guests don't have to bed down on an air mattress in the living room anymore.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Producer Randy Barbato Lists Hollywood House

2011-12-28T12:29:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Randy Barbato
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,649,000
SIZE: 2,512 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms (plus guest house)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was only a few weeks ago alterna-super-producer Fenton Bailey put a $1,649,000 price tag on his historic and nicely provenanced Arts and Crafts bungalow in the Hollywood Heights area of Los Angeles, CA, built in the early 1920s by Hollywood's first art director Wilfred Buckland.

This week Mister Bailey's long-time b.f.f. and producing partner at World of Wonder Productions Randy Barbato pushed his own historic 1925 Spanish style hillside mini-compound on the market, also and in what may or may not be a coincidence, with a $1,649,000 price tag.

The Emmy-nominated Misters Barbato and Bailey co-founded and co-operate one of the finest and funkiest production houses in Tinseltown that creates and produces a long list of reality television shows and documentary-type movies both mainstream and somewhat subversive. They are the people responsible for boob-toob fare such as Million Dollar Listing, Becoming Chaz (and Being Chaz), RuPaul's Drag Race, and silver screen things like Party Monster, and the ever-popular, unexpectedly touching and simply lashtacular The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

Property records show handsome Mister Barbato, who like and with Mister Bailey sprang forth in a hail of rainbow sprinkles from the bowels of NYU and the decadent downtown Manhattan underground club scene in the mid-1980s, purchased his discreetly situated, masculine edged, and glamour-tinged hillside house above Hollywood in May 2003 for $1,113,500.

Current listing information indicates the two-story main house, perched privately well above the tail end of a sleepy cul-de-sac (with easy freeway access) in the Hollywood Dell 'hood, encompasses a relatively modest 2,512 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. A wee but voluminous detached guest suite, atop the street-level garage and divided from the main house by a narrow brick courtyard, offers an additional living/sleeping space and one more three-quarter pooper.

A stingy vestibule is all that separates the front door from the damn near baronial living room that extends 30-feet in the long direction and benefits from beautifully well-worn wide plank wood floors, coved ceiling, and a wide arched windows and French doors on three of its four walls. The day-core is both cutting edge and ironically referential and conducive to both civilized and uncivilized cocktail parties, particularly the sorts of parties where nobody would notice or mind if Your Mama slipped off our metallic gold sneaker to run our stubby toes over that pale burgundy rug that looks like it might be silk or some other synthetic yet sumptuous fiber.

A short corridor off the living room connects to the main entertainment terrace at the rear of the house and provides for a welcomed modicum of privacy for a pin thin but decadently done powder pooper with luscious carved marble sink and small carpet in front of the crapper woven with one of pop art star Andy Warhol's famous soup can paintings, in this instance tomato rice flavor.

A shallow but wide pointed arch joins the living room the just about square dining room where Mister Barbato (or his decorator A.J. Bernard or maybe some other nice-gay or lady decorator) wisely installed a massive circular dining room table. The ceiling is coved, the floors laid with shiny pavers set at a 45-degree angle to the room, and a wide row of French doors that open to the slim courtyard that separates the main house from the detached guest suite with laundry facilities.

The 45-degree angle shiny paver tiles extend into and through the generous eat-in kitchen daring makes use of both sleek modern cabinetry and old-timey country kitchen type cabinetry unified with a pale, cement-colored grey paint. The appliances are high-grade and stainless steel, hefty rough-hewn wood beams cross the ceiling in rapid succession, a bistro-ish vertical stripe curtain charmingly hides a section of the lower cabinets near the sink and dishwasher–we'd imagine the refuse and recycling bins are in there–and a vintage work table with vintage lab stool runs down the center of the room for food prep and service, snack and/or booze ingestion, and cozy kitchen confidentials with pals.

An archway in the kitchen, which can be closed off with curtains instead of doors, leads into the intimately scaled family room with gleaming paver tiles on the floor, heavy and rough-hewn beams across the ceiling, a comfy looking velvet upholstered and down-filled sofa, a wall-mounted flat screen tee-vee, and French doors that open, rather dangerously for anyone boozed up or otherwise intoxicated, to a narrow strip of brick terrace that girdles the plunge-sized swimming pool.

A tight, enclosed staircase curls up from the dining room to an architecturally dramatic landing (not pictured here) where two impressively sized guest/family bedrooms (above, lower left and right) share a fully-renovated bathroom Jack-and-Jill style bathroom. Listing photos suggest Mister Barbato utilizes one of the guest/family bedrooms as a home office/library (above, lower right) as it's lined with bookshelves, filled with contemporary art and objet, and furnished with a plaid curtains, a distressed leather club chair, and a desk that looks too damn tiny to do anything besides sit at and talk on the phone.

The sufficient but hardly huge master suite (above, top left and right) offers Mister Barbato a manly (or "manly") but elegant retreat for slumber and love making that includes magnificent mahogany floor-to-ceiling built-in wardrobes with an integrated dresser and gorjus arched French doors that link to a private terrace with an over the tree tops canyon view. The attached bathroom (above, top right) is average sized but remodeled on an above average manner with a masculine mix of modern details (frameless glass shower enclosure) with the vibe of a vintage haberdashery or upscale barber shop (dark wood paneling).

Listing information and online marketing materials state Mister Barbato has put somewhere around $400,000 into upgrades and renovations that include but are not limited to renovation of master bedroom and both upstairs bathrooms (as well as the detached guest suite crapper), the restoration and re-tiling of various patios and terraces, and the smart addition of an adjoining parcel of land that brings the total property size to approximately three-fifths of an acre (25,197 square feet as per listing information).

Outdoor lounging and entertaining areas are many in the thickly and thoughtfully landscaped backyard areas comprised of copious courtyards, numerous patios, and various pathways that zig zag up, down and around the terraced hillside that rises steeply from the back of the house. The gardens and terraces are, by our humble and meaningless opinion, impeccable. We wouldn't change a single drought tolerant anything. We are however, concerned about the squeezy plunge pool. We do love a plunge pool–we are most definitely not a size queen when it comes to cement ponds–so the two- or maybe three-person pool isn't an issue at all. However, anyone who knows Your Mama knows we do love us a big bottle of booze so, natch, it's the balance beam thin strip of terrace that surrounds the pool that has us most concerned. We'd surely be loathe to spend the time and energy to walk around and through the house to get from the living room to the back terrace but the reality is we don't have the best equilibrium when sauced up on the hooch and, too, we do so hate to get wet when we're drunk. 'Tis a quandary for sure but thankfully we're not in the market for a new house.

Anyhoo, the detached guest suite (above), which y'all will recall sits above the street level garage and across a small courtyard from the main house, includes a bedroom area with vaulted ceiling and a wall of quasi-rugged reclaimed wood paneling and arched windows with cul-de-sac view. There's also a truly tiny closet, a tight but well-equipped three-quarter bathroom, laundry facilities, and a tight corkscrew stair that winds down to the garage. Only a gossamer curtain separates the sleeping area from the laundry area and the spiral staircase (over which hangs various yard care implements such as a rake), which means unless the curtain is drawn you're sleeping in the garden shed/laundry room, a fancy laundry room/garden shed but a laundry/garden shed room none-the-less. Our imperious and sometimes openly hostile house gurl Svetlana would have a conniption over the set up. Beehawtcha will sleep in a room adjacent to the laundry room but she will not, under any circumstances except drunkenness, sleep in the laundry room.

One presumes both Mister Barbato and Bailey plan to move on to bigger and better digs in Los Angeles but we haven't any inside intel as to where they plan to lay their heads and host holiday parties next. Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

Von Dutch Tycoon Tonny Sorensen Lists L.A. Crib

2011-12-27T11:02:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Tonny Sorensen
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $6,900,000
SIZE: 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Once upon a time, in the not so distant fashion past, every celebrity-oriented blog and gossip glossy regularly featured photographs of Von Dutch trucker hat wearing celebs who included Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Gwen Stefani, Nic Cage, Sheryl Crow, Beyoncé, and Ashton Kutcher who was pretty much the poster boy for the trucker hat trend that had reached both its zenith and nadir by the mid-Aughts.

From the heads of celebrities the Von Dutch trucker hat found its way to the mall-walking masses and became much favored head wear by many of the same sorts of people who, without a shred of irony, succumbed to sartorial absurdities such as bedazzled Ed Hardy t-shirts and pastel-colored velour lounge outfits with the word "JUICY" emblazoned the ass.

We can, in all sincerity and truthfulness, say that neither Your Mama nor the Dr. Cooter–or anyone we know for that matter–fell prey to the Von Dutch millinery mania that became so feverish, over-hyped and over-exposed that some stylistas and fashionistas began to refer snidely to the brand as "Von Douche."

The Von Dutch label, which bloomed out of the southern California custom and vintage car subculture, was not created by but was foisted on the world by Danish-born arts- and (pop) culture-minded entrepreneur Tonny Sorensen who in invested in and became CEO of the Von Dutch apparel label sometime around the turn of the century.

The Von Dutch label was sold to multi-national footwear and apparel conglomerate Groupe Royer in 2009 and Mister Sorensen has moved on to other ventures that include the creative networking and brand building site Planet illogica and California Christiana Republic whose sole product seems to be the so-called OneZ, an utterly mortifying pajama-like garment that bears a striking similarity to the fleecy and freaky Forever Lazy.

But we digress. Fascinatin' as it all may be it is not, after all, Mister Sorensen's psychically cataclysmic clothing products we are here to discuss but rather the sleek Beverly Hills, CA house he's quietly put up for sale with an asking price of $6,900,000.

Property records reveal Mister Sorensen acquired the crescent-shaped crib in February 2004 for $4,100,000 and listing information states the single-story 4 bedroom and 5 bathroom residence was subsequently and completely remodeled. Listing information doesn't indicate the square footage but the Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the house was originally built in 1961 and measures in at a considerable but far from gargantuan 4,990 square feet.

A gated motor court at the front of the property parks upwards of 20 cars for parties and other charity events and a shallow moat runs along the front of the house where the front door opens into a spacious open plan living room with bleached (or otherwise almost white) hardwood floors, a bank of floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors that connect to the backyard entertainment areas, and a double-sided fireplace flanked by floor-to-ceiling book cases and display shelves.

The living room bleeds seamlessly into a glass-walled formal dining room with a possibly but probably not-vintage Verner Panton Globe Pendant light and the dining room, which does double duty as a home office in listing photos, in turn opens into an airy and very contemporary eat-in kitchen complete with long center island, cantilevered snack counter, sleek flat-fronted Euro-style cabinetry, over-sized windows with garden and city views, and a full complement of super-slick, high-cost Euro-style stainless steel appliances.

Since they're not shown in any of the listing photos we have access to, we can't say a damn thing about the three family/guest bedrooms or any of the 5 bathrooms. Listing images do show a sizable, architecturally pared down master bedroom with its full wall of floor-to-ceiling glass sliders that open to the swimming pool area and double-sided fireplace. The over-sized firebox opens on the other side to the living room which allows anyone in the living room to look directly into the master bedroom, a serious concern to anyone concerned their full-time house gurl or weekend house guest might want to sneak a peek at their private bedroom activities.

The slim backyard wraps around and hugs the back of the house and is divided into various areas that include a dining terrace, small grass patch for the pooches, and a swimming pool surrounded by a narrow strip of decking. The ground falls away beyond the swimming pool and allows for lovely if not particularly amazing city lights view over the shrubbery and tree tops that pepper the down slope.

The Trousdale Estates 'hood, soon to be gabbed about in all its louche, mid-century modern glory in an upcoming book by Steven Price, has long been home to oodles of Tinseltown luminaries and some of Mister Sorensen's nearest neighbors include 4-time Oscar-nominated director Jason Reitman (Young Adult, Up In The Air, Juno)

The trendy (and quite pricey) Trousdale Estates neighborhood, soon to be gabbed about in all its mid-century modern glory in an upcoming book by Steven Price, has long been appealing to Tinseltown types and indeed Mister Sorensen's sleek next in the hills sits sugar borrowing distance from 4-time Oscar-nominated director Jason Reitman (Young Adult, Up In The Air, Juno).

Property records show that in June 2010 Mister Sorensen dropped $1,200,000 to purchase a rugged, rustic, and semi-remote ranch spread in Three Rivers, CA (above) that encompasses more than 600 acres, borders the Sequoia National Park, has nearly a mile of frontage on the south fork of the Kaweah River, offers stunning and staggering views of the surrounding snow-capped mountains, and includes a perfectly ordinary (and even dumpy) 1,650 square foot residence with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a detached four-car garage perfect for stashing and storing a sliver of Mister Sorensen's extensive vintage car collection.

listing photos (Beverly Hills): Westside Estate Agency
listing photos (Three Rivers): Century 21 Three Rivers

A Few Links to Keep Y'all Busy For the Holidays

2011-12-24T09:31:00.000-08:00

photo: Your Mama

Happy Holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Las Posadas, Festivus, Whatever) from Your Mama, the Dr. Cooter, our long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly, and our mean ol' pussy Sugar.

Your Mama thought some of the children might need or want a brief escape their familial holiday psychodramas so below are a few links to keep y'all busy and distracted.

photo: Villa World

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that rumored to be on the rocks Tinseltown married couple Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith have quietly sold their 7-acre spread with it's plantation style residence (above) that overlooks Secret Beach near Hanalei on the island of Kauai in Hawaii for $20,000,000, $6,500,000 more than they paid two year ago.

photo: Gossip Center

As shown above, recently engaged pop superstar Britney Spears liberally festooned her newly leased mansion in Thousand Oaks, CA with bazillions of twinkling Christmas lights and a rather disturbing number of lighted holiday inflatables.

listing photo: The Levin Group

Hollywood heiress and reality television star Tori Spelling sold her big mansion in Encino and dropped $2,400,000 on a much more modestly scaled (if still quite pricey) ranch house in the Point Dume area of Malibu (above).

And, finally, just in case some of y'all might be boozed up on egg nog and/or artificially mellowed out with Mary Jane or a big fat nerve pill we bring you something deliciously syrupy and disturbingly maudlin courtesy of our boozy b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau who sent out this this little video ditty of the incomparable (and barely conscious) Petty Lee as her digital Christmas card.

Rose McGowan Snags Hollywood Hills House

2011-12-22T17:38:00.000-08:00

BUYER: Rose McGowan
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,390,000
SIZE: 2,927 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In mid-August sex-pottish small and silver screen actress Rose McGowan (Red Sonja, Conan the Barbarian, Charmed) charmingly regaled chat show ho-stess Chelsea Handler with her recent and high-larious (if costly) tales of real estate woe.

In early 2011 Miss McGowan put her historic residence in Los Angeles' Los Feliz area on the market with an asking price of $1,849,000. She'd decided to move, she told Miz Handler, because she
suffered severe allergies brought on, she thought, by something in the house. She'd spent, according to Miss McGowan, seventeen thousand bucks trying to clean the duct work (etc.) but turns out she wasn't allergic to anything in the ducts or bowels of the house but rather to her easily swapped out down pillows.

Alas, by the time she figured out she was allergic to down she'd already (and inadvertently) fed a bunch of real estate professionals pot brownies–her assistant left them on the kitchen counter during an open house–and sold her house for at a loss in late May for $1,775,000 to music manager Scott Rodger whose client roster includes (or has included) superstars like Paul McCartney, Björk, and Arcade Fire.

Miss McGowan, raised in a hippy-dippy religious cult in Italy and Oregon, told Miss Handler she hated her new house and that she actually tried to buy her old house in Los Feliz back but Mister Rodger wanted "a lot more money" for the quirky and well-patinated 4 bedroom and 2.75 bathroom abode that Miss McGowan purchased in July 2004 for $1,850,000.

We felt for likable Miss McGowan but quickly forgot about her real estate plight until yesterday when the statuesque blond gal who puts together the celebrity real estate stuff at Trulia Luxe revealed Miss McGowan slammed down $1,390,000 on the last day of November for a mid-century modern-ish residence in the Hollywood Hills that lacks any and all the vintage charm of her beloved but lost Los Feliz home.

Since the transaction for her new mid-century modern-ish digs high atop Nichols Canyon was recorded several months after Miss McGowan told Miss Handler how much she hated her new house we just can't be sure if this house is the same house she bought and hates or if this is a third house for which–one hopes–she harbors a greater appreciation than the one she told Miss Handler made her cry.

Whatever the case, property records and listing information shows Miss McGowan's newest house in the Hollywood Hills, a collection of boxy volumes joined by a towering curtain wall of glass that signifies the front entry, measures 2,927 square feet over two floors with a total of 4 bedrooms and 3 or 3.5 bathrooms depending on where in the listing one looks.

The airy, double-height entry–punished in listing photos with a fleshy color we hope Miss McGowan has the good sense to let her nice, gay decorator fix–has a floating switchback staircase with steel supports and concrete treads. The stairs lead to the second floor where the home's primary living areas are located and where the ceilings are lower than most will find optimal, the floors a combination of polished concrete, medium-brown hardwood and taupe wall-to-wall carpeting, and the kitchen and bathrooms recently remodeled with a crisp, clean-lined cabinetry and sleek modern hardware.

A chunky, stone tile-encrusted and somewhat awkwardly located double-sided fireplace warms both the "formal" living and dining rooms. The living room, spacious enough to easily accommodate a grand piano, opens to the broad backyard terrace through a not-quite-wide-enough bank of wood-framed glass doors and the dining room has a custom designed built-in floating corner buffet and another not-quite-wide-enough bank of wood-framed glass doors that open to the backyard terrace.

A wide opening that can be closed off by a some flimsy beige curtains joins the dining room to the contemporary center-island kitchen complete with custom cabinetry (some white lacquer some walnut), a bevy of medium-grade stainless steel appliances, black granite counter tops (or some other sort of solid surface), and a double-stack of open shelving on either side of the commercial-style range and exhaust hood most suitable for the display of cookery knick-knacks, daily use dish wear, and extensive collection of dry herbs and spices.

The property, nestled into a steep up slope, encompasses just over a quarter acre of land but most of it is unusable, or at least unused. At the front there's little more than a short driveway that connects the street to the conveniently direct entry two-car garage, an extra-wide set of entry steps, and a raised planting bed full of drought tolerant plants. At the back outdoor space is somewhat limited to a wide stamped concrete terrace where a nipple-high rough-to-touch stacked stone wall keeps the hillside at bay and a cozy covered section provides a welcome an shady respite from the scorching summer sunshine.

Given Miss McGowan's previous homes–that would be the historic Spanish is Los Feliz and before that an historic Spanish in the Whitley Heights' hood just above Hollywood, this lackluster (but not un-fixable) 1964 contemporary seems a strange residential shoe for her to wear. Iffin we didn't know any different–and, really, we don't–we'd think this is the house that made Miss McGowan cry As far as Your Mama is concerned it's not nearly private enough, lacks historic character and desperately needs the expensive talents of a nice, gay decorator to squeeze some stylish blood from this real estate turnip.

listing photos: Michael Andrew McNamara Photography for Prudential California Realty / Beverly Hills

Decorating Duo Roman And Williams List NYC Loft

2011-12-22T11:36:00.000-08:00

SELLERS: Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $3,500,000
SIZE: Unknown square footage, 1-2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen chickens, not only are we feeling icky with a seriously sour vodka belly we've got various gifts to wrap, holiday bags to pack, an insurance company to argue with, and a couple of pooches to wrangle, not to mention our mean ol' pussy Sugar to deal with. Plus we've got our foodie friend Flower coming in from New York this afternoon, which means there's linens to launder, rugs to vacuum, a terlit or two to scrub and, finally, a reservation at Farmshop in Santa Monica that will require a nerve pill and pitched battle with sluggish rush hour cross-town traffic.

What we really need is the day off but rather than leave the children unexpectedly high and dry today, we've got a couple of celebrity real estate quickies. Let's start with the done done done–if not likely to everyone's liking–New York City loft apartment of Stephen Alesch and Robin Standefer, otherwise known as the hot hot hot designer/decorating duo of Roman and Williams.

Mister Alesch and Miz Standefer, former movie set designers, probably won't be household names for many tabloid and gossip glossy readers but anyone who has picked up a shelter publication in the last 5 or 8 years certainly knows exactly who they are. In addition to putting their special stamp on a number of du jour New York City hotels (Ace, The Standard, the lobby of the Royalton, the upcoming Willow on West 57th Street) and several dernier cri downtown eateries (Lyon, The Dutch) that cater to well-employed hipsters and other self-consciously cool types, Roman and Williams have done up posh private residences for scads of big shit showbizzers such as Kate Hudson, Gwynnie Paltrow and Chris Martin, and Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor for whom Mister Alesch and Miz Standefer have worked over at least four homes including the Los Angeles, CA mansion they recently sold to chisel-chinned actor and model dater Jason Statham.

Mister Alesch and Miz Standefer first listed their narrow, full-floor loft in NYC's once nitty gritty now impossibly chic and upscale NoHo nabe in early-July 2010 with a $3,500,000 asking price. The loft listing was discussed at that time by the EV Grieve blog and soon after by the kids at Curbed. Listing information indicates the price tag, which remains at $3,500,000, includes the furniture, curios, collectables and other assorted curated ephemera for which Roman and Williams are well known and which has been for the better part of the last ten years–for better and/or worse–their decorative calling card.

Property records are a big vague, we're afraid, but it looks to Your Mama like Miz Standefer and Mister Alesch scooped up the full floor loft in the white hot (and arguably over-gentrified) neighborhood sometime in 2005 for an undisclosed purchase price.

Listing information doesn't indicate the square footage but does show the slim fourth floor space as having 14 windows, four exposures with open southern and eastern views, direct elevator entry, 2 bedrooms, and just one bathroom. While it's true there's just one, albeit it exquisitely done bathroom, and it's obvious the "master" bedroom is tucked in to the rear of the loft with a walk-in closet, it's a bit of a stretch to call that fish bowl-like interior library a bedroom. Certainly it'll do in a pinch with an overnight guest who doesn't have pockets deep enough to shack up for the weekend at the nearby, terribly sheek and celebrity-stocked Bowery Hotel but without a damn closet or proper window to the outside it's an out-and-out punishment to make someone occupy the small, book-filled space as a full-time bedroom.

We haven't time to really dig into the curio-filled, idiosyncratic, and sumptuously moody day-core but we will say it's many-layered things are lovely to look. However, as picture perfect (and decoratively up to date) as this loft may be the high-gloss ebony wood floor makes this a real challenge to anyone who might have dogs and/or wear shoes in the house. It would only take about a month for Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly to have those mirror-like jet black floors scratched up like an agitated toddler stuck in a stickery bougainvillea bush. We're also not too keen on the double glass doors in the (otherwise windowless) bathroom. We just prefer a more opaque assurance of privacy in the pooper, especially one that opens (wide) to public areas of the loft.

The married designer-decorators' for sale residence happens to be in the same pin-thin building where in May 2005, according to property records, much lauded and accomplished interior designer Bill Sofield sold a loft unit for $1,250,000 to tee-vee and movie actor (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Oz, Jurassic Park) and Tony-wining Broadway star BD Wong (M. Butterfly).

Your Mama really has no intel whatsoever about where Mister Alesch and Miz Standefer plan to set up house next though we'd bet a pony it's someplace nearby but significantly larger. What we do know is that the design world darlings also own a modestly-sized 2-bedroom cottage (above) just a short skip to the ocean in Montauk (NY) they bought, as per property records, in February 2006 for $1,400,000 and was featured in (and photographed for) the New York Times last year.

listing photos (New York City): Stribling
interior photos (Montauk): Roman and Williams

Zynga Tycoon Mark Pincus Lists Two, Sells One: Part II

2011-12-21T17:04:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Mark and Alison Pincus
LOCATION: San Francisco, CA
PRICE: $8,900,000
SIZE: unknown square footage, 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Sometime in 2009, the quickly getting wildly and filthy stinking rich Mark Pincus and his online retailing wife Ali(son) were in the real estate mood for something more substantial and much more expensive than the (as of today just about sold) starter crib in San Francisco's Cole Valley 'hood Your Mama dissed and discussed earlier in the day and last listed at $1,970,00.

Property records show in November 2009 Mister and Missus Pincus splashed out $8,100,000 to purchase the four-plus floor mansion smack in the heart of the very upscale and old money* enclave of Presidio Heights situated a bit southwest of the posh Pacific Heights 'hood in the few few leafy blocks immediately to the south of The Presidio.

The folks at real estate juggernaut Zillow speculated last week that Mister and Missus Pincus may never have actually occupied their Presidio Heights mansion and that safety issues–specifically related to a crazy-talking former stripper and filmmaker lady from Russia–in part prompted the Digital Age honchos to seek less accessible, more private and, ultimately, more secure residential circumstances. Online listing resources indicate the Pincus's Presidio Heights pad was pushed on the open market about a week before Halloween (2011) with a (still current) asking price of $8,900,000.

Current listing information shows towering house, set well back and up away from the street behind and above a two-car street level garage and secure gated entry, was originally built in 1937 and has clearly been recently and extensively updated, upgraded and modernized in a manner that befits a budding tech tycoon like Mark Pincus and his entrepreneurial design maven wife Ali(son).

No square footage is offered with listing information which does show the house has a total of 6 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms, a count that includes a lower level staff suite. Two full flights of stairs between the street and the front door will likely turn off the lazy and/or glutially underdeveloped multi-millionaires who may otherwise appreciate the opulent but casual and quite colorful residence.

The foyer's old-school elegance as exampled by the black and white checked marble floor and the shimmering silver- (or maybe platinum-) leaf ceiling is offset with a mish-mash of potted plants and flowers and walls that glisten with vivacious high-gloss grass green paint. The formal living room with dark wood floors, wood burning fireplace and terrace access takes a more subtle peach-y palette while the formal dining room strikes a minimalist pose with eight metallic bamboo Chippendale-style chairs with deep blue velvet seats that surround a gigantic distressed dining table, a melodramatic all-white chandelier, a striking (if not particularly compelling) contemporary artwork or two, and a dramatic wall of curved and multi-paned floor-to-ceiling windows and French doors that open to the (mostly) symmetrical , painstakingly tailored, and (mostly private back yard.

The over-sized country-style center-island kitchen/family room has a white and glass-fronted custom cabinetry, vibrant lemon yellow subway tile back splashes, highest quality (and integrated) appliances, marble counter tops and a snack counter that separates the cooking area from the lounge and breakfast areas set into a full wall of curved and multi-paned windows and French doors like in the formal dining room that open directly to the backyard entertainment spaces.

The bedroom level encompasses four family bedrooms and a sizable garden-view master suite (below, top left and right)) with sitting area, Juliet balcony, fireplace (with flat-screen tee-vee mounted above), built in book and photo display shelves, and a decidedly feminine bathroom with barely there all-glass shower enclosure, two sink vanity with marble counter top and matching beveled mirrors, and a oval soaking tub that sits under an oval skylight.

Larger and even less formal family/media quarters and bedroom-sized wine-cellar on the lower level (below, top left and right) open out to the terrace space at the front of the house over the garage and a full-floor penthouse/attic level finished as sitting room (with fireplace) and office area with giant circular window (above, bottom right), perhaps the best vantage point in the house for a view over The Presidio towards the muscular tips of the Golden Gate Bridge.

A shallow stone terrace steps down a small grass patch resident pooches and other domestic animals will appreciate. A stone apron surrounds the lawn area that is in turn surrounded by a privacy promoting thicket of well trimmed bushes, hedges and trees. A wrought iron-railed stair runs along one side of the yard and connects to the lower and service areas of the house. Presumably this is how Juan the gardener gets the lawnmower and hedge clippers from his truck to the back yard.

*Old money is a relative term people, so before all you Euro-royals, Burke's Peerage snobs, and blue-blooded Mayflower descendants get all snippy and self-righteous about how old money simply does not exist in California, we ask that you hold your sassy tongues and recognize that Your Mama means old money as it relates to specifically to San Francisco's oldest, wealthiest and most discreet residents. Oh-kaahy?

listing photos:Sotheby's International Realty

Zynga Tycoon Mark Pincus Lists Two, Sells One

2011-12-21T14:50:00.000-08:00

SELLERS: Mark and Alison Pincus
LOCATION: San Francisco, CA
PRICE: $1,970,000
SIZE: 2,875 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Just in case any of the children somehow missed the many discussions in all the other property gossip blogs and websites that previously discussed the following matters...

It was already a week ago now that the ever-industrious kids at Curbed in San Francisco revealed Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus and his design maven lady-mate Ali(son) Pincus had not just one but two multi-million dollar properties in San Francisco listed on the open market.

The fast-moving, sometimes controversial, and much-hyped–some might say over-hyped–Zynga makes (annoyingly addictive) digital games for smart phones and social networking sites like Facebook. Just about anyone over the age of two and under the age of 50 has probably been sucked in by a Zynga-made game such as CityVille, Mafia Wars, and the Scrabble-like Words With Friends, the very game that recently got actor Alec Baldwin in a ridiculous brouhaha with American Airlines. Anyone who reads the newspaper (and/or receives the news and "news" from any other media outlet) surely knows by now that last week Mister Pincus lucratively (but not, arguably, entirely successfully) took his four-year old Zynga public with a stratospheric 8.5 billion dollar market capitalization that has more than a few people wondering if Dot Com Bubble Number Two (or Three) might have already and somewhat quietly crept up on its zenith.

Ali(son) Pincus, a foodie and "digital media veteran" according to her corporate bio, is the co-founder and Chief Partnership Officer of One Kings Lane, a curated and by-invitation-only online retailer of home day-core that sells colorful decorative doo-dads and hoo-has that look pretty much like just about everything pictured in listing photographs of both the Pincus's San Francisco properties.

The larger of the two Pincus properties, which we'll address later, is a five-story mansion with a tech tycoon-sized asking price of $8,900,000. The other, a (too) highly-stylized and completely-contemporized spin on a classic 1940s San Francisco bungalow, was first listed in late September 2011 at $2,189,000 and endured a price chop in early November to $1,970,000. According to listing information on the real estate juggernaut Redfin, a purchase is "pending."

Property records indicate Mister and Missus Pincus will likely, depending on the final sale price, take a substantial loss on the property. They bought the attached house in the quiet and upscale Cole Valley 'hood in August 2005 for $2,850,000. A couple quick flicks of the busy beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that's $880,000 more than the current $1,970,000 price tag not counting carrying costs, renovation expenses and real estate fees.

The three-story Cole Valley crib, situated on a fairly steep street in a quiet and frequently foggy enclave in the shadows of Mt. Sutro and Twin Peaks, was originally built in 1940 and totally modernized in more recent years. Current listing information shows there are a total of 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms in 2,875 square feet however a closer inspection of the floor plan provided with online marketing materials (above) shows in its current configurations there are, really, only two practical bedrooms, a smallish one awkwardly situated just off the kitchen and the penthouse level master suite.

At the street/entry level an actual driveway that will park one car stretches past a tiny front yard of precisely clipped boxwood bushes to a single car garage with smoked glass and aluminum doors, direct entry to the house, a small bay perfect for refuse and recycling bins, and an exercise wall, whatever that is. We don't probably care to exercise in the garage–or anywhere else for that matter–but we certainly understand the highly desired and rare urban luxury of both a private driveway and an enclosed garage space. That's two off-street parking spaces, puppies, in a city where just about anyone, even a well dressed woman, a shaggy bearded Burner, or a naked queen in the Castro, will shank a sumbitch over a long-term parking spot in one of the tightly packed residential neighborhoods that make up the center of The City.

Anyhoo, a long corridor links the foyer to the garage and to the rear end of the lowest level of the house that includes a laundry room large enough to garner the approval of our not-easy-to-please house gurl Svetlana, full but windowless bathroom (above lower left with horizontal chartreuse-striped walls and disharmonious white marble tile work), and a sizable, unconventionally-shaped room that opens through wide banks of windows and French doors to a small deck with sunken spa. Listing photos show the room (above lower right) inexplicably doing double duty as both a guest bedroom and a family room outfitted with built-in entertainment niche and ceiling-mounted projection television system with wide screen that magically drops from the ceiling at the touch of a button. To each their own–and even though we think this house is totally and completely staged from the One Kings Road warehouse–it seems counter-intuitive to put a bedroom set in with the family room stuff and it seems unrealistic that most homeowners/occupiers of a near-two million dollar home in San Francisco would devote this much prime interior real estate to a guest room in a large but hardly huge house.

The open plan main living and entertaining spaces on the second floor stretch from the front clear through to the back of the house and have the blondest of blond wood floors throughout. A triangular reading nook protrudes from the living area in to the surrounding tree tops and a fireplace anchors the room with inset flat screen mounted above the firebox and a bevy of built-in book shelves, display cases, and storage cabinets on either side.

The "formal" dining area at the center of the living/dining/kitchen space has a built in buffet that also functions as a guard rail for the stair and opens directly into the well-equipped u-plan kitchen complete with built-in breakfast banquette covered in an impractical white leather. Or, at least we think it's leather. It could be pleather or perhaps some other sort of high-cost/low-maintenance artificial material. We don't know and listing information isn't specific. Sleek, steely blue-grey flat-fronted cabinets topped with what looks like marble (but may be another material entirely) ring the sky-lit kitchen that's finished with a glimmery, high-glam black tile back splash, vintage-style pendant light, and good quality stainless steel appliances that include a four-burner baby Viking-brand range with commercial-style hood.

Just off the kitchen, behind where the refrigerator is situated, a short hall connects to the smallish but adequate if not-optimally located bedroom with street view and smallish but adequate closet. Missus Pincus pulled out all her decorative stops in the separate three-quarter hall/guest bathroom designed and styled with a glass enclosed shower, high-gloss black and frosted glass vanity cabinets, ebony counter tops, and walls sheathed in lurid, lustrous and decidedly decadent jet black faux-crocodile skin wallpaper. It's not a statement Your Mama would make but we suspect there are untold numbers who pee with glee over this sort of thing.

A glass-railed floating staircase climbs from the living/dining area to the third floor, an light-filled, window-lined space entirely devoted to the master suite (above) and complete with commodious bedroom. A curvaceous, wave-like arched wood ceiling opens the room up to long banks of over-sized windows that provide panoramic northern-plus views that encompasses distant but knee buckling glimpses of the famously vermilion towers of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Unfortunately the master bedroom's view of the Golden Gate is over the disturbingly eye-level and alarmingly-close roof top terrace and access walkway that clings to the top of the neighbors house. Yes puppies, this means as long as the electronically-controlled shades in the Pincus pad are not drawn, the neighbor and/or any of their guests could, at any time of day or night, climb the steps to their roof terrace and in one direction take in a quintessential San Francisco view of the Golden Gate Bridge and in the opposite look directly and unmistakably into the whites of your damn eyes while you do the usually private things people do in their bedrooms: sleep, dress, fight and fornicate.

This egregious and obvious lack of privacy in the master bedroom, however, did not deter a buyer since, as already mentioned, the property is in escrow. The master suite also includes a walk-in closet and a small but airy and almost all white bathroom with pitched ceiling, separate terlit cubby with window, surprisingly small shower stall, and an entire wall of windows and sliding doors that open to one of the master bedroom's two private terraces. Anxious privacy seekers may find some relief in that the lower portion of the window in the shower and the sliding glass doors in the main part of the bathroom were frosted, obscuring everything below the shoulders or thereabouts.

Back on the main/middle floor a slim cantilevered deck off the living room/reading nook narrows over to a spiral staircase that curls tightly down to the aforementioned wee deck with sunken spa that extends off the lower level media room/bedroom. The fully fenced and landscaped low-maintenance backyard, undeniably generous for San Francisco or any other urban center, steps down from the spa deck to a meandering dining patio joined by stepping stones to second, cochlear terrace with fire pit ringed with a towering stand of bamboo, a couple of slender white birches and a trio of dignified redwood trees.

Stay tuned chickadoodles, we'll shortly have more about Mister and Missus Pincus' much larger and more grand but stylistically similar mansion in Presidio Heights 'hood currently and since late October 2011 listed at $8,900,000.

listing photos and floor plan: Sotheby's International Realty

UPDATE: Sandy Weill

2011-12-20T09:39:00.000-08:00

Your Mama suggests the children sit down and swaller a nerve pill because several reports from (reputable) New York City real estate gossip columns claim that very controversial former Citigroup CEO Sanford "Sandy" Weill sold–for the full asking price–the opulent New York City penthouse he slung on the open market with much hullabaloo just over a month ago with a glass shattering $88,000,000 price tag and a very public promise to donate the sale proceeds to unspecified philanthropic causes.

The first reports out of the New York Observer on Sunday pinned the prodigious purchase atop limestone sheathed 15 Central Park West on Russian chemist turned multi-billionaire potash potentate Dmitry Rybolovlev, a man who sold his multi-pronged fertilizer concern last year for around $6,500,000,000 and is said to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 9.5 billion bucks.

The folks at Forbes quickly followed up with an important (and flabbergasting) clarification: The Weill spread, 6,744 square feet of immaculate interior space with a wide terrace that wraps around three sides of the apartment with drop dead park and city views, was not actually purchased by Mister Rybolovlev but rather Ekaterina Rybolovleva, his horse-minded 22-year old second daughter, reportedly a resident of Monaco, a student at an unnamed U.S. University, and a competitive equestrian.

Forbes actually received a statement from young Miss Rybolovleva's representative(s) who revealed the barely legal heiress "plans to stay in the apartment when visiting New York." That's right, "when visiting." This pampered whippersnapper–a college student, mind y'all–just dropped a record breaking $88,000,000 on a god damn pied à terre.

This news comes on the heels of the $85,000,000 purchase of The Manor, showbiz widow Candy Spelling's severely bloated behemoth in Los Angeles acquired earlier in the year by 22-year old London-based Formula One racing heiress (and out-and-out real estate size queen) Petra Ecclestone. Doth we spot a budding real estate trend, children? College-aged scions with multiple part-time residences around the world that each cost more than the GDP of any number of nations in sub-Saharan Africa? Have mercy.

Whether an emerging real estate trend or not Your Mama smells a back story to the Rybolovlev(a) acquisition that we suspect has less to do with one globe-trotting über-heiress with a thing for pricey pieds à terre trying to outdo another globe-trotting über-heiress with a thing for pricey pieds à terre than it does an exceedingly wealthy international businessman managing his vast fortune in a manner advantageous to his jam-packed pocketbook and swollen real estate portfolio.

We don't know a roller coaster from a dirt clod but we can imagine this pricey procurement could be a good thing for Mister Rybolovlev's tax situation, an easy place to park a substantial amount of cash or possibly have something to do with the ongoing divorce battle with his soon to be ex-wife Elena who has requested the Swiss courts grant her half of everything he's got including the keys and deed to Maison La Amitie, the grotesquely opulent, 33,000 square foot ocean front residence in Palm Beach, FL for which Mister Rybolovlev paid Donald Trump $95,000,000 in cold hard cash back in the summer of 2008.

Mister Weill and his wife Joan coughed up $43,687,750–or $42,405,000 depending on where one looks–for the Robert A.M. Stern designed and Mica Ertegun decorated penthouse at 15 Central Park West back in August 2007. At the time it was one of the highest amounts paid per square foot for a private residence in Manhattan. The single-level, mansion-sized penthouse carries, according to listing information we peeped, monthly maintenance fees and taxes that total $13,824.

A few quick flicks of the well-worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that Mister Weill now has $44,312,250–or $45,595,000–less capital gains and no-doubt substantial real estate fees to donate to the charity or charities of his choice.

As far as we know Mister and Missus Weill continue to own and maintain a much smaller apartment on a much lower floor at 15 Central Park West, a significant estate in big money Greenwich, CT, a camp in the Adirondacks, and a nearly 400 acre spread in Sonoma, CA they scooped up in October 2010 for (a reported) $31,000,000.

floor plan: Brown Harris Stevens

Barbi Benton Lists Los Angeles Dream House

2011-12-19T16:34:00.000-08:00

SELLERS: Barbi Benton and George Gradow
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $11,950,00,000
SIZE: 11,608 square feet,

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While hanging around Your Mama's momma Goose's crib over the weekend we honed in on a sizable estate high in the mountains above Los Angeles' Bel Air 'hood that's been on and off the market for quite some time and is currently listed with an asking price of $11,950,000. The contemporary compound, according to property records and other online resources, is owned by former Playboy model-slash-(h)actress Barbi Benton and mobile home park mogul George Gradow.

Miz Benton, now a bit of a high-camp icon, hasn't really been relevant in the entertainment industry for decades. Her brunette-haired salad days were, of course, the 1970s and 80s when she several times appeared with her naughty bits out in the glossy pages of Playboy and lived for nearly 10 years in unmarried sin with soft-porn purveyor Hugh Hefner. Not surprisingly, she was a dewy 19 and he a Viagra-free 43 when they hooked up. Missus Gradow-Benton–née Klein–eventually parlayed her nekkid modeling in to a regular role as a hayseed on Hee Haw, went on to a pretty forgettable career as a country music singer, and later became a staple on both Love Boat and Fantasy Island, where b- and c-list showbizzers went to make a few pennies and sunset their lackluster careers. Settle down now. We're not trying to be awful and snide. We don't make the rules in Tinseltown, we just calls 'em as we sees them. Anyhoo, not long after Miss Benton and Mister Hefner went splitsville she married the much more conventional real estate tycoon George Gradow whose claim to fame–or, rather, infamy–came many years later in the early-Naughts when he was convicted and sent to a federal pokey after he fessed up to doctoring financial documents in an effort to defraud and mislead the I.R.S.

After they married in the late 1970s Miz Benton and Mister Gradow shacked up in high style on a gated, privately situated six-acre estate in sleepy (and somewhat staid) Pasadena, CA with a quarter-mile long palm tree-lined driveway, massive multi-winged mansion, rolling lawns dotted with mature specimen trees, and the requisite swimming pool and tennis court. Property records show the couple sold the estate in mid-1990 for $3,700,000.

We're not quite sure where the couple bedded down in Los Angeles between when they sold their Pasadena palace in 1990 and 2003 or '04 when they bought a big-ass modern mansion just off legendary Mulholland Drive high above the natty and nabob-y Bel Air 'hood. Property records are a bit vague but as best as Your Mama can tell Mister and Missus Gradow acquired the star-style compound through a corporate entity in either late 2003 for $7,000,000 or in March 2004 (through a corporate entity) for an undisclosed amount.

The Gradows have actually had the property on and off the market several times at various prices since September 2008–shortly after Mister Gradow was released from federal prison–when it landed with a dullthud on the open market with an asking price of $17,500,000. Redfin reveals the 2.75 acre estate was last heaved on to the open market in mid-July 2011 with an asking price of $11,950,000. In early October the price dropped to $10,950,000 but two months later, in late November, the price inexplicably jumped back up to its current $11,950,000.

The gated compound runs along the precipitous ridge of a private promontory with an almost entirely unobstructed view from downtown over Hollywood and Beverly Hills, past the towers of Century City and across the flat expanse of the West Side until it abruptly dead ends into the Pacific Ocean. A giant roof top terrace actually provides even more comprehensive 360-degree views that tackle and taken in the San Fernando Valley.

The Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the boxy, collection-filled main manse has 4 bedroom and 7 bathrooms in 11,608 square feet while current listing information shows 15,270 square feet with a total of 8 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms. In addition to the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in the main house, the larger figures encompass (but do not fully account for) the detached 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom guest house and the separate 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom staff residence.

We're not sure who designed the all-white and all but unadorned residential structure, built in 1990 according to tax records and listing information, but first impressions upon arrival to the front motor court makes Your Mama think it might be an male architect who operates–or operated–in the same architectural vein as minimal minded modern masters–or "masters" depending on your proclivities, preferences and points of view–like 1984 Pritzker Prize winner Richard Meier.

An opening in a vast white wall connects the front motor court to a more intimate rear motor court with 3-car attached garage. All-glass front doors set into the winter-white front façade swing open to a capacious double-height entrance hall with stone tiles on the floor, twin staircases on opposite ends of the room that meet in an arched second-floor balcony, and a woozy-making ceiling with sculptural, dog bone-shaped detail. The airy cream-colored space leads into a decidedly voluminous "formal" living room with fireplace that has more in common size-wise with a hotel lobby than it does most ordinary peoples' living rooms. Towering place anchor and define various sitting areas and natural light floods the room through a checkerboard pattern skylight. Like in the entry and throughout the entire house, the couples considerable and sometimes visually cacophonous art and crafts collections hang on the walls, stand on the floor, and pepper the flat sufaces.

Other rooms that pinwheel off the main living room include a library with fireplace ringed by high-shine paneling and built-in bookshelves, a separate room equipped with full-sized and fully stocked u-shaped bar, a banquet hall-like dining room that seats 32 diners at four seriously high-gloss burled wood dining tables, and a tee-vee nook with built in cabinetry and entertainment center and an entire wall of glass that opens to a long allée that connects the main house to the swimming pool and spa and beyond that a self-contained pool/guest house. Normally we discuss a bit of the day-core but we can not bear to to approach the haphazard "screen" of potted plants that separates the main living room from the tee-vee nook nor will we touch with a ten foot pole that mortifying quintet of cawkee-colored electrified recliner-loungers.

The eat-in kitchen has a generous breakfast area lined with mirrored Biedermeier-style cabinetry, French doors with city views and dining terrace access, and an L-shaped center island with a snack bar at one end and a second but elevated snack bar at the other. The gleaming, finely tailored upper and lower cabinets have entirely flat fronts and lack hardware, the counter tops are a lustrous flecked ebony, and the appliances up-to-date and high end.

At least one of the guest/family bedrooms is furnished with intricately painted Mexican folk art furniture and has walls and ceilings completely covered in a hand painted cloud pattern we find so cockamamie and egregious we fail to find a pithy remark.

The master bedroom, larger than Your Mama's entire house it seems, encompasses a conference hall-sized space with party-friendly sitting area, two fireplaces, half a dozen or more gigantic square windows to take in the rugged canyons and sparkling lights, curving walls that swoop in to embrace the bed, and a set of relatively prosaic French doors that access a private terrace. There are dual streamline moderne-tinged bathrooms with black granite (or some other fancy black stone) detailing and at least one, boutique-y dressing room lined with glass fronted closets for protecting but still displaying clothing and footwear.

Back on the main floor, several rooms open out to multiple terraces with canyon and city views and an entire wall of glass in the tee-vee nook disappears into the walls and opens the room to a long, up lit allée carpeted with thick lawn and lined with trimmed shrubbery and partially shaded by a variety of well-tended, mature specimen trees. The lawn gives way to the stone (or maybe it's stamped concrete) terrace that surrounds the sunken spa and swimming pool. Beyond the swimming pool a guest house/pool pavilion has building-wide set of steps that climb from the pool deck to an open air covered porch.

The Benton-Gradow's Bel Air spread sits between Usra Major, the angular and melodramatic former Wilt Chamberlain mansion, and a 9,951 square foot residence once- and long-owned by now-deceased poster babe Farrah Fawcett and currently held in the luxury property portfolio of international superstar-new mommy-songstress Mariah Carey and her man-mate Nick Cannon.

Mister Gradow and Miz Benton have long split their time between Tinseltown compound and Aspen, CO where in the late 1980s they custom built an ultra-contemporary (approximately) 25,000 square foot mega-mansion they dubbed the Copper Palace (above). The house, located on 40 pristine acres in the snazzy Starwood enclave overlooking the Roaring Fork Valley, was designed by organically-minded and wildly imaginative Albuquerque-based architect Bart Prince. The truly one-of-a-kind house, which looks almost nothing like what most people think of when they think of a house, encompasses a handful of dramatically cantilevered pods that contain 6 bedrooms suites (including a mirrored master with circular bed that rotates 360-degrees at the touch of a button), a family kitchen plus an industrial-scaled catering one too, a disco with disco ball, a domed, multi-colored screening room, gym and massage rooms, and his and her indoor lap pools. Miz Benton and Mister Gradow's nearest neighbor in Aspen is Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia who some years ago had his hotel-sized ski house on the market with an asking price of $135,000,000.

In the spring of 2001 Miz Benton and Mister Gradow unsuccessfully attempted to unload their futuristic hillside house with an asking price of $25,000,000. The house did not sell but they do offer the property up as a vacation rental for an undisclosed amount of money.

listing photos (Los Angeles): Rodeo Realty
listing photos (Aspen): Aspen Holiday Homes

Weekend Wrap Up: Courtney Love Faces Eviction

2011-12-18T13:10:00.000-08:00

It will not likely come as a surprise many if any celebrity real estate watchers that Courtney Love's New York City landlord is spitting mad at the always eccentric and sometimes volatile rock star.

Miz Love's Chicago-based landlady Donna Lyon, who leased the picture perfect West Village townhouse to Miz Love earlier in the year at a rate of $27,000 per month, claims the Hole front woman violated the terms of her lease agreement by wallpapering and painting significant portions of the four floor townhouse decorated and designed by the previous owner, the accomplished and exceedingly accomplished Steven Gambrel.

Miz Love says something a little different–natch–and allowed the xoJane website exclusive access to the townhouse that's now filled to the gills with tatted doilies and a Buddha statues.

Miz Lyon also claims Miz Love is $54,000 in arrears on the rent but Miz Love told the Post that she's absolutely not behind on the rent but rather that Miz Lyon is asking that the last two months of the lease be paid up front.

Whatever.

Listing images above show townhouse as it appeared in listing photos before Miz Love got her hands on the place.

photos: Corcoran
floor plan: Halstead via Curbed

Weekend Wrap Up: Gabriel Brener Floast L.A. Mansion on the Market for Eighty-some Million Clams

2011-12-18T13:04:00.001-08:00

Private investor and professional soccer team owner Gabriel Brener, the scion of a Mexican industrialist, has reportedly floated his leviathan limestone mansion in the hoitiest of the toitiest section of Holmby Hills in Los Angeles, CA on the market with an elephantine asking price of "more than $80,000,000."

The Wall Street Journal reported late last week that the mega-mansion has 6 bedrooms that include a main floor master suite while the Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the Neoclassical Georgian monster manse measures a stupendous (but hardly record-breaking) 22,396 square feet with 7 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms.

No listing for the gated and heavily fortified estate exist online but aerial images show the tree-ringed estate encompasses parking lot-sized front and rear motor courts, deep and wide terraces, manicured expanses of expensively-watered lawns, lengthy dark-bottomed swimming pool with semi-circular spa, lighted tennis court, and small putting green

The approximately 3.5 acre multi-parcel spread occupies the hallowed real estate grounds where Walt Disney's private residence once stood and is surrounded by grand (and grandiose) estates owned by couture queen Suzanne Saperstein, showbiz über-executive Brad Grey, soap story tycoons Bradley and Colleen Bell, big businessman Gary Wilson, art world honcho Larry Gagosian, and high-powered talent agent Bryan Lourd whose clients include (or have included) Penelope Cruz, Tom Cruise, Oprah, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Natalie Portman and Robert De Niro.

aerial image: Bing

Weekend Wrap Up: A New Krib for Ashton Kutcher?

2011-12-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

Now that seasoned movie star Demi Moore has booted her philandering, much younger husband from their once-happy family home in Beverly Hills, the soon to be single Ashton Kutcher needs a sexy new nest to bed down and bed babes.

According to multiple reports the well-compensated sitcom star, producer and Twittering tycoon recently peeped a supah-sleek, 9,385 square foot modern mansion elegantly perched on a ridge high in the Hollywood Hills

The very contemporary 5 bedroom and 8 bathroom hill top aerie hovers over Lake Hollywood and includes entire walls of retractable glass, glass floors, a floating dining room (whatever that is), a sizable and swank kitchen, state-of-the-art screening room, fitness/massage room, expansive patios, cantilevered decks, various outdoor rooms, several built-in fire pits, and an infinity-edged swimming pool with elevated spa.

The privately situated residence is listed for lease at $50,000 and for sale with an asking price of $10,800,000.

listing photos: Nick Springett Photography for The Partners Trust

Weekend Wrap Up: Degeneres Purchases Pitt Property in Malibu

2011-12-18T09:33:00.000-08:00

It's official.

Late last week the peeps at People revealed property mad chat show hostess Ellen Degeneres and her wife Portia di Rossi paid a hefty $12,000,000 and signed all the necessary deeds and documents to acquire a glassy, bluff-top Malibu (CA) residence owned by a-list actors and global do-gooders Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Told you so. And told you so again.

Mister Pitt picked up the property for $8,410,000 in March 2005 and, after quietly shopping the 1.26 acre ocean front estate off-market for around $18,000,000, officially listed the C-shaped contemporary in mid-August 2011 with a much lower asking price of $13,750,000.

Mister Pitt (and Miz Jolie) own a number of homes around the world including in Los Angeles' Los Feliz area, an ocean front compound near Santa Barbara, a mansion in New Orleans and a 1,000-ish acre spread in the south of France.

The Missus Degeneres and di Rossi own a horse ranch in upscale Hidden Valley area near Thousand Oaks (on the market earlier in the year for $16,500,000) and a colossal compound in the hills above Beverly Hills currently on the open market with a $49,000,000 price tag.
listing photos: Coldwell Banker / Malibu West

UPDATE: Warren Beatty and Annette Bening

2011-12-16T10:03:00.000-08:00

OWNERS: Warren Beatty and Annette Bening
LOCATION: Beverly Hills (Post Office), CA
PRICE: $25,000/month
SIZE: 10,594 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A month or so ago Your Mama revealed that Oscar-winning Tinseltown high priest Warren Beatty and his dee-voon, 4-time Oscar-nominated wife Annette Bening put their long-time mock-Mediterranean mansion in the 90210 on the rental market at $27,500 per month. At that time online listings only included one crappy aerial photograph of the mansion, which Mister Beatty and Miz Bening have owned since May 1996.

Since our discussion the Beatty-Benings have dropped to rent price to $25,000 and online listing(s) now include a mostly monochromatic cache of images that show both the inside and outside of the partially vine-encrusted (mc)mansion privately sited at the tail end of a long, gated drive and tucked into a thick thicket of mature trees with limb- and leaf-obstructed vistas over the pancake-flat San Fernando Valley. Listing information indicates the ready to be rented residence measures in at a considerable 10,594 square feet with a total of 6 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms.

Listing information describes the Beatty-Bening family's bulky abode as "Very light, bright and open" with "Grandly scaled rooms throughout, high ceilings, and a great flow for large scale entertaining." Certainly the entrance to this house asks for oohs and aahs from party pals and over-night guests: A tall, bougainvillea-draped arch and shallow portico frames the front door that opens into a notably spacious and even glitzy white-marble foyer with a swooping marble and wrought iron staircase that looks to Your Mama like a not unappealing but not entirely successful homage to one of the wickedly grand and extra-wide staircases a body might see in an 18th century Parisian hotel particular.

Listing photographs show the interior spaces completely empty and devoid of anything that might be taken or mistaken for actual day core. On the main floor wide arched doorways and scads of French doors open to the outdoors and connect adjoining rooms where the floors are covered in either sand-colored wall-to-wall carpeting or gleaming, high-gloss, honey-colored parquet de Versailles-style hardwood floors.

The walls, baseboards and trim work around windows and doors–but not crown moldings, since there does not appear to be a single inch of ceiling moldings in the entire house–are bathed in a buttery beige hue that somehow seems to both gobble up and reflect light. Listen kiddos, no one loves a stripped down piece of architecture more than Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter but some houses, regardless of architectural authenticity and/or integrity, just work better with a little crown molding. This house, the Beatty-Bening's old crib up off Mulholland Drive, most certainly would benefit from moldings. Unless, we dare say, the day-core was all done up in the old-school earthy-glamour of Michael Taylor with boulder-shaped poufs and pillows, a plethora of planted foliage, and a odd but balanced amount of organically shaped sofas and Louis the Something bergere chairs that together generate the correct amount of design tension (and wrongness) that shouldn't really work together but does, and perfectly. Then you could go without the moldings in a house like this.

Anyhoo, we're not sure which of the many empty rooms in the listing photos shows the master bedroom but the images do clearly reveal the master suite encompasses a bi-winged, clothes horse-friendly custom-fitted walk-in closet and a luxurious, hotel-style bathroom sheathed in ecru-colored marble with two sinks, separate shower, giant jetted soaking tub, and a private cubicle for the terlit and bee-day.

Many rooms on the second floor open to Juliet balconies with scrolled wrought iron railings and most rooms on the main floor open out to deep covered porches or other outdoor entertaining areas that include tree-shaded lawns, a sunbathing terrace, circular spa with tree-framed valley views, and a negative edge swimming pool with azure tile detailing. A glass-roofed green house tucked into the wooded hillside below the back of the house opens through a series of sliding glass doors to a broad deck that extends into the canopies of the surrounding old-growth trees.

Although we don't have any specific intel on the matter, Your Mama assumes the Beatty-Benings have relocated down the road a mile or two to a compound with multiple residences including a massive main mansion they recently completed that replaces the old house that was significantly rattled and damaged during the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

listing photos: Westside Estate Agency

John Leguizamo Wants to Lighten His Real Estate Load: Part II

2011-12-15T17:27:00.000-08:00

SELLER: John Leguizamo
LOCATION: (near) Kingston, NY
PRICE: $835,000
SIZE: 2,612 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Since March 2003 Mister and Missus Leguizamo have escaped the relatively intense urban core of downtown Manhattan for a wooded lake front retreat in Upstate New York's Ulster Country between historic, working-class Kingston and charming (and increasingly hipsterish) community of Rosendale. Property records show they paid $750,000 for the the scenic and secluded but not isolated 7.64 acre spread with direct frontage and private access to Fourth Lake, one of the lake-lets that comprise the Binnewater Lakes chain.

The house sits privately on a slight knoll just off the main road on a semi-private shared driveway and current listing information shows the two-story stone farmhouse measures 2,612 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. A separate cottage with old-timey and very Upstate-y screened porch provides another 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom for guests, etc.

The main house has a cavernous double-height living room with blond hardwood floors, massive stone fireplace, built in book shelves, and exposed wood-beam ceiling. There's also a not very formal formal dining room with exposed wood beam ceiling, a den/tee-vee lounge (also with exposed wood beam ceiling), and u-shaped kitchen much in need of a little spicing up.

The hot and humid Upstate summers encourage outdoor living but the bugs can be beastly and bothersome so the over-sized, stone-floor screened porch that extends off the rear of the house is an excellent feature that has a built-in barbecue center and plenty of cross-ventilated space for a sizable backyard barbecue party. The screen porch opens out to a deep and lovely stone terrace with twinkling view of the lake through the thick stand of trees at the water's edge.

Set into a protected, grassy hollow beside and below the house is a simple, rectangular in-ground swimming pool with blue stone coping, diving board and lovely if limited lake view.

Earlier today we discussed the Los Angeles penthouse Mister and Missus Leguizamo have on the market for $949,000 as well as some of their recent real estate activities and the remainder of their property portfolio as we know it.

listing photos (Kingston): Westwood Metes & Bounds Realty

John Leguizamo Wants to Lighten His Real Estate Load: Part I

2011-12-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

SELLER: John Leguizamo
LOCATION: Venice, CA
PRICE: $949,000
SIZE: 2 bedrooms (plus loft), 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It may (or may not) surprise the children to learn that energetic, sometimes hammy, usually self-absorbed, and preternaturally talented actor/comedian John Leguizamo–who may or may not be quite as Puerto Rican as he's always claimed to be–maintains a hefty handful of residential properties on both coasts.

Our short, unscientific, and possibly incomplete research shows Mister Leguizamo and his wife Justine own (at least) a couple of townhouse in downtown Manhattan, a thickly wooded lake front getaway in Upstate New York, and a West Coast penthouse outpost just two short blocks from the beach in Venice (CA). Over the last few years Mister Leguizamo has, it seems, been in the mood to change up some of the ingredients that make up he residential real estate: The latter two of the aforementioned homes being for sale with asking prices of $949,000 and $835,000 respectively.

Let's begin on the West Coast, in the funky and a bit gritty Los Angeles beach community of Venice where property records reveal Mister and Missus Leguizamo spent $512,500 in March of 2000 to acquire a duplex penthouse condominium in a secure, mixed-used (and ass-ugly) building situated a quick skip to the beach and so far north in Venice it might as well be Santa Monica.

Although the listing for the Leguizamo's Venice penthouse no longer appears in the MLS–Redfin shows it was de-listed in mid-November 2011–the fairly compact low-rise aerie remains on the listing agent's website with an asking price of $949,000.

As it turns out this ain't the first time the Leguizamos have ridden the real estate bull at this rodeo. From July 2007 to October 2008 the 2 bedroom (plus loft) and 2 bathroom penthouse level pad was on and off the market a couple of times at unknown prices.

Mocha-colored hardwood floors glimmer throughout the open plan main living space comprised of entry, dining area and step-down living room with gas fireplace, airy double-height ceiling, and over-sized windows outfitted electronically-controlled blinds and enabled with views to the south and west over the surrounding roof tops. Sliding glass doors open the living area to a small but adequate-for-outdoor-diningsemi-circular terrace that overlooks the complex's oval swimming pool, circular spa and exhausted-looking sunbathing terrace.

The apartment-sized and woefully out-dated (if decently-maintained) kitchen tucked up behind the spiral stairs that corkscrew up to the lounge-loft has old-school white tile counter tops, low-end and/or near-vintage appliances–check out that fridge from the 1980s–and mahogany-colored cabinets that Your Mama would bet both our long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly ain't made of mahogany.

The coffee-colored wood floors continue in the bi-level lounge-loft while wall-to-wall carpeting the exact color of wet sand covers the floors in the bedrooms. Both the lounge-loft and the master bedroom have balconies/terraces that with the one in the living room makes a total of three outdoor spaces.

Back on the East Coast Mister and Missus Leguizamo have been on a bit of a real estate roll since early 2008 when they coughed up $5,750,000 to acquire a handsome townhouse in the heart of Manhattan's Greenwich Village known as the Gold Coast. The 3,136 square foot residence happens to be almost directly across the street from where, when we lived in N.Y.C., Your Mama used to see a straight-talking therapist of the lesbian persuasion.

In addition to to his Gold Coast townhouse crib, Mister Leguizamo has long owned another townhouse in the far less swank–but arguably more chic–farthest reaches of the East Village between Avenues C and D, a neck of Alphabet City quite familiar to Your Mama since we occupied a tiny but perfectly laid out 2-bedroom walk-up in a tawdry tenement in the Loisada for 10 years before we hooked up with the Dr. Cooter and married up to a deluxe duplex in a full service building in the gallery-choked West Chelsea neighborhood.

Anyhoo, prop records show the entertainer and his first wife picked up the East Village townhouse in the spring of 1995 for an undisclosed amount of money. The townhouse was transferred to a corporate entity in 2002 but deeds and documents we peeped on Property Shark strongly suggest Mister Leguizamo still owns the house.

About the same they they bought the Gold Coast townhouse Mister and Missus Leguizamo listed a classic, 7-room pre-war spread (shown above) in the dignified full-service building at 45 Gramercy Park North for $5,850,000. Listing information from the time shows the apartment encompasses a semi-private elevator landing, commodious entrance gallery, large but not huge formal living and dining rooms, big kitchen, small home office, 3 good-sized bedrooms and 2 (windowed) bathrooms, plus a staff room and bath (with window) tucked snugly into the crook between the kitchen and dining room. After numerous price chops, the peeps at StreetEasy show the well-scaled 11th floor park-view co-operative apartment, which comes with a coveted key to the private Gramercy Park, sold a year later for $3,650,000.

Stay tuned for Part II, a brief (and somewhat dry) discussion of Mister Leguizamo's country house located in Upstate New York and on the market with and $835,000 price tag.

listing photos (Venice): Sotheby's International Realty
listing photos (New York City): Sotheby's International Realty via Street Easy

Mysophobic Comedian Howie Mandel Lists Malibu Mini Compound

2011-12-14T12:44:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Howie Mandel
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $7,250,000
SIZE: 5,936 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bedrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Continuing with our ongoing game of Celebrity Real Estate Pick Up Sticks comes news that Canadian-born germ-phobic comedian/actor turned game show host Howie Mandel (St. Elsewhere, Deal or No Deal) and his long-time wife Terry have put their recently-built Malibu mini-compound on the market with an asking price of $7,250,000.

Property records Your Mama peeped show Mister and Missus Mandel scooped up the 1.04 acre Point Dume property in July 2006 for $3,000,000, tore down a perfectly ordinary red tile-roofed residence and replaced it with a much larger Douglas Burdge-designed West Coast version of a cedar-shingled Nantucket-y seaside mansion. Listing information says the new house was "unveiled" in 2009.

The main mansion measures, as per listing information, 5,936 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. A fully-detached two-story pool/guest house contains another bedroom and 1.5 more bathrooms, which brings the tally to 6 bedrooms and 6 full and 2 half bathrooms.

Living areas in the multi-winged main house include an airy double-height "formal" living/dining room with cocoa-colored hardwood floors, a trio of French doors that connect to the poolside stone patio and outdoor entertainment areas, built-in china and linen storage in the dining area and a fireplace flanked by built-in display cabinets topped by a pair of circular openings in the living area.

A wide opening in the wall of the dining room links to the cook-friendly center island kitchen complete with hardwood floors, white Shaker-style cabinetry with integrated high-grade appliances, grey-veined white marble counter tops, white subway tile back splashes, and an over-sized white porcelain farmhouse sink.

The kitchen opens directly into a family room with flat-screen tee-vee mounted about the fireplace, built-in storage cabinets for entertainment equipment and board games, and a casual dining area placed in front of a gigantic east-facing window with long view across the swimming pool and over the gently sloped football field-sized backyard lawn to a horizon view of the sparkling Pacific Ocean.

Listing information reveals the compound also includes a library, den, staff quarters, office, indoor laundry facility, fitness room, and home theater.

A massive, multi-purpose stone terrace extends off and wraps around the rear of the residence and include a lounge area with stacked-stone outdoor fireplace, built-in barbecue center, elevated spa, built-in fire pit, and a couple of sunbathing areas. A broad, pooch-enticing lawn ringed by rugged shrubbery stretches back and slopes down from the outdoor entertaining areas so as to prove a limited but still panoramic view of the Santa Monica Bay and the distant mountains that form the rugged California coastline.

Property records (and The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial) show Mister Mandel also maintains a massive mansion with swimming pool and tennis court in the guard-gated, star-studded equine-friendly enclave of Hidden Hills (CA). He and the Missus have owned the horsey estate (above) since early 1999 when–records are a smidgen unclear–they acquired the 2.39 acres spread for what appears to be either $650,000 or $1,300,000. The Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the Mandel's mock-Med (mc)mansion in Hidden Hills measures 12,816 square feet and includes a total of 8 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms.

listing photos (Malibu): Pritchett-Rapf & Associates via Trulia
aerial photo (Hidden Hills): Bing

R&B Artist R. Kelly Lists Suburban Chicago Mansion

2011-12-14T10:37:00.000-08:00

SELLER: R. Kelly
LOCATION: Olympia Fields, IL
PRICE: $1,595,000
SIZE: 22,000 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 8 full and 6 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Word slipped down the Chicago celebrity real estate gossip grapevine this week that native Chicagoan singer/songwriter R. Kelly–née Robert Sylvester Kelly–has officially placed his mega-mansion in suburban Olympia Fields, IL on the market as a short sale with an asking price of $1,595,000.

Our brief and entirely unscientific research on the interweb informs us that Mister Kelly has a number of notable professional accomplishments that include three Grammy awards. He has also written and/or remixed songs for a long list of music industry superstars such as Luthor Vandross, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Michael Jackson, Usher, Mary J. Blige and the Jennifers Hudson and Lopez. However, iffin Your Mama is being honest–and we always are–we'd confess to the children that we wouldn't know an R. Kelly ditty if it chewed the leg from our body and, in fact, before this morning just about the only thing we previously knew of Mister Kelly is that some years ago he was indicted on a slew of lurid charges related to a video tape that (allegedly) showed him as he fornicated with and peed on a minor female. Mister Kelly declared his innocence, the young female came out and said the activities were consensual, the case eventually went to trial, and in June 2008 a jury determined Mister Kelly was not guilty on all 14 counts. Case closed.

Anyhoo, the affluent Olympia Fields community sits about 45 minutes by car due south of downtown Chicago and a short sale, for any real estate neophytes who somehow don't already know, means Mister Kelly owes more on the property than it's currently worth.

Although Mister Kelly only recently put his big ol' crib on the market he did not just get on this-here real estate merry-go-round. Over the summer (2011) it was revealed a lender initiated foreclosure proceedings after Mister Kelly stopped making payments on a $2,900,000 mortgage he secured with his celebrity-style estate. At the time Mister Kelly it was reported the entertainer's failure to make mortgage payments was likely an executed strategy designed to induce the lender to renegotiate the loan. We're not sure if the strategy worked but as far as we can tell Mister Kelly still holds the deed on the property, which indicates the foreclosure was not finalized.

Property records and previous reports on the matter indicate Mister Kelly purchased the property in 1997 and custom-built (or custom-finished) the architecturally uncatagorizable stone, stucco and wood-accented mega-mansion. The approximately 22,000 square foot beast–the Cook County Assessor, for what it's worth, shows it as 11,140 square feet with a 2011 market value of $3,357,700–sits towards the back of six-ish fully-landscaped acres behind towering wrought iron and stone gates and 12-foot concrete-encased fencing.

Inside there are, as per listing information, all the expected formal and informal lounging and entertaining areas as well as 4 fireplaces, half a dozen bedrooms, and 8 full and 6 half bathrooms, a count that ensures Mister Kelly requires a full-time minimum wage crapper cleaner.

Listing photos that depict the mansion's vast innards are few (fuzzy and ill-framed) but we do catch a glimpse or two of a rather colossal kitchen complex with u-shaped center island/snack counter, top-grade commercial-style appliances, very ordinary beige tile floors and a soaring ceiling criss-crossed by heavy wood beams coarsely draped with hundreds if not thousands of twinkling white Christmas lights. Listing photos also show snippets of a wood-floored double-height family room with adjoining home theater space as well as a wee-looking wood-paneled room with fireplace which is probably the library but since we don't see any books (or bookshelves) we can't say for sure.

The humongous but otherwise stylistically ho-hum home's undisputed defining moment would surely be the truly troubling and jungle-themed indoor swimming pool about which current listing agent told the Chicago Tribune, "It's not a pool room, it's a tropical experience." Bitch pleeze. What we have to say matters little–none really–but we think that indoor pool place looks like the gawdamn Pirates of Caribbean at Disneyfuckingland.

Contrary to probably popular opinion–and some of those theme-fiend designers and decorators on Extreme Home Makeover–themed day-core is almost without exception verboten in any home that aspires towards any level of sophistication or style. We are off the mind that far more often than not themed rooms destabilize delicate (and even not-so-delicate) decorative equilibriums and just plain ol' make (most) people feel light headed with awe, and not the good kind of awe. Indeed, Your Mama's Big Book of Decorating Dos and Donts addresses the issue emphatically in Rule Number 27 which reads in part, "No person of refinement and/or style shall ever ever EVER do up the day-core of any room in any house with any overt theme such as (but not limited to) Arabian Nights, Hello Kitty, Hee-Haw Hoe-Down and Sally Collects Seashells by the Seaside." We digress.

The landscaped estate backs up to the Olympia Fields Country Club and includes a gated circular drive with secondary motor court, acres of flat lawns dotted with mature shade trees, an outdoor tennis/basketball court with adjacent pavilion, a murky-looking private lake-pond equipped with a fountain shoots water into the air like it's Las Vegas, a detached multi-car garage, and a tented structure (of unknown purpose) surrounded by various entertainment terraces. At the front of the property, just inside the electronically operated wrought iron gates, a log-cabin style shed acts as a private security center for the property.

As far as we can tell from a rapid pass through a few property records databases Mister Kelly does not currently own any other private residences and we haven't any idea what Mister Kelly's real estate plans may be once he unloads his white elephant in Olympia Fields. At least one earlier report suggest Mister Kelly leases a high-floor spread at the Trump International Hotel & Tower in downtown Chicago.

listing photos: Century 21 Pro Team

Hollywood's Bronx-Born Brad Grey Buys Fancy Manhattan Co-op

2011-12-13T13:58:00.000-08:00

BUYER: Brad and Cassandra Grey
SELLER: Peter M. Schoenfeld
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE $15,500,000
SIZE: (nearly) 3,000 square feet, 2-4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Recently we've found ourselves mostly stuck in Bev Hills and it's environs, the 'burbs, beach communities and other celebrity locales in and around Tinseltown. This past week or more of vast expanses of luxuriously watered lawns and endless ocean views have left Your Mama, like Billy Joel, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, in a(n Empire) New York state of mind where the extreme high end real estate market is alive and well and where Bronx-born West Coast-based entertainment über-executive Brad Grey recently scooped up a pricey and impossibly swank co-operative spread situated high in the tower of The Carlyle, an elegant and impossibly sophisticated hotel and residence complex just off Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Diminutive in stature, as the current, successful and fearsomely powerful CEO and Chairman of Paramount Pictures Mister Grey looms large in the Big Bizness of Show. In his current post he's overseen the development, production and financial successes of scads of television programs and movies that include The Sopranos, Real Time with Bill Maher, Just Shoot Me, and The Larry Sanders Show, the Transformers, Star Trek and Paranormal Activity film franchises, Shutter Island, No Country Fro Old Men, Up In The Air, and True Grit. In the early Noughts, with then-married superstars Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, Mister Grey founded Plan B Entertainment, a film production company with credits that include Running With Scissors (which was really a much better book than movie), The Departed, and, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Mister Pitt is now the sole owner of Plan B but has a release deal with, no surprise, Paramount Pictures.

Probably some of the recent buying and selling of high-priced properties (on both coasts) has to do with Mister Grey's recent divorce from long-time wife Jill Gutterson and his subsequent glitzy, star-studded wagon hitching ceremony in April of this year (2011) to a gal named Cassandra Huysentruyt, a wispy, unusually beautiful high-end vintage clothing boutique owner who appears to Your Mama's boozy eyes to be significantly (if not even remotely surprisingly) younger than Mister Grey. This is after all Hollywood where, let's break it down to brass tacks and be real folks, a successful entertainment executive's mid-life (crisis) pretty much a priori includes a lithe and notably younger second and/or third wife.

Let's begin with Mister (and New Missus) Grey's latest real estate acquisition, the aforementioned full-floor apartment The Carlyle that encompasses about 3,000 square feet with 2-4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, and 4 multi-million dollar exposures. Records show the apartment, originally listed for $17,500,000 by hedge fund honcho Peter Schoenfeld, was scooped up by Mister and New Missus Grey in mid-November 2011 for $15,500,000, as was first revealed a couple weeks ago in the Hollywood Reporter. Mister Schoenfeld and his wife Charlotte, it should be noted, only bought the 26th floor aerie in in January 2007 for $6,451,250. That means, as anyone with an abacus can see, lucky Mister and Missus Schoenfeld are sitting pretty on a nine-plus million clam profit less about 5 years of carrying costs, renovations, decorations and real estate fees.

Speaking of carrying costs, listing information for the 8-room simplex apartment shows monthly maintenance for Mister and New Missus Grey's New York crib runs–we suggest y'all sit and stiffen your spines with a swig of your favorite hooch–an illusion-shattering $37,945. No babies, we did not make a mistake nor did your eyes fail you. Mister Grey's monthlies at The Carlyle run, as per listing information, a spectacular $455,340 per year or, seen another way, $1,247 and fifty cents every damn day of the year not counting upkeep, improvements, and/or maintenance of whatever mortgage he may (or may not) have taken on the place.

Of course, services at The Carlyle are many and impeccable and include twice daily maid service, in-suite room service as well as in-hotel dining options, a deluxe spa and beauty center, private garage with valet parking, 24-hour anything-you-want-or-need concierge services, and extensive security systems and operations that allow pooh-bahs, pashas and potentates from around the globe to feel completely at ease when their wives or lady-friends check in (or move in) with a hand-crafted, locked valise that holds five or ten million in jewelry and other glittery spoils often amassed and toted around by finely pampered and exceedingly wealthy women or sometimes by less-financially independent women who attach themselves to very wealthy and often older men. Before you all get to hooting and hollering about that last statement we suggest y'all hold on Sally. Your Mama insinuates nothing, nada, zilch about the relationship and marital affairs of Mister and New Missus Grey. We assume–as we have no other reason not to and suggest you do the same–the newly wedded May-December duo are madly in love for all the right reasons and plan to spend the rest of their natural and post-natural lives making soft cooing noises while swaddled in each others tender, loving arms.

Anyhoo, whatever kind of conniptions, indignations and indigestions the sale price and monthly maintenance costs will certainly invoke in many, Mister and New Missus Grey's apartment at The Carlyle is really something to behold. This, children, is a plum example of one of the many high-priced real estate ways the very rich do it in New York City, enveloped in refined and sumptuous luxury with attentive white-glove services available at a moment's request, and knee-wobbling wrap-around views that include sunrises over the East River, Midtown's crush of twinkling city lights at night, and sunset views over Central Park.

Floor plans included with the original online listing show a private elevator landing opens into a vast entrance gallery that stretches 36-feet from end to end and is divided only by a chunky support column set smack in the not-quite-center of the room. It's an impressive and ambitious if somewhat superfluously huge space perfect for displaying artworks, doing group calisthenics or hosting a small cotillion.

A wide corridor extends off the gargantuan gallery, passes a sizable bedroom with en suite facility–used by the seller as a library/tee-vee lounge–and whisks quickly by a windowless guest pooper before it flowers open in to a commodious, 420-ish square foot corner living/dining room where horizontally-striped curtains make (maybe too-) busy frames for the over-sized windows that dip nearly to the floor and provide all but unobstructed views north and west over Central Park's pleasantly lumpy carpet of tree tops.

The adjacent kitchen is tiny even by the standards by of fifteen and some million dollar apartments in New York City but it is none-the-less well equipped and efficiently designed to include a full-suite of high-grade Euro-style appliances, sleek blue-grey cabinetry with wintery-white counter tops, and two stools for quick snacks in front of a pair of large windows with oblique park views. A potential bedroom/live-in domestic suite off the kitchen (also with access from the main bedroom corridor and marked "office" on the floor plan) has a private windowed bathroom and a stacked washer and dryer tucked into the closet.

The current layout of the apartment would allow for four complete bedrooms suites but was configured by the seller with just two proper bedrooms: a guest bedroom with walk-in closet and small windowed facility and a considerably larger 323-square foot master suite with eastern morning and southern city views, decent-sized but not particularly huge walk-in closet, and windowed bathroom with double sinks and built-in linen/toiletry cabinet.

Back on the west coast Mister Grey's real estate portfolio remains in a bit of flux. In November 2010 he acquired through a trust a magnificent if somewhat bedraggled hacienda-style Monterey Colonial mansion in the highest of Bel Air's high-holy real estate grounds. Property records show the 2.15 acre estate (above), once owned by Frank Sinatra and the childhood home of his fab daughter Nancy, was purchased for a hefty $18,500,000 and is surrounded by the sizable estates of Danny DeVito and Rhea Pearlman and couture collector Suzanne Saperstein who has had her hyper-opulent 35,000-plus square foot residential beast Fleur de Lys on the market with a bombastic asking price of $125,000,000 for, literally, years.

Although he never moved into the house it was here where in April of this year (2011) Mister Grey and Miss Huysentruyt hosted an elaborate multi-tented event during which they made their marital vows of chastity (and whatever) in the witness of God, government, family, friends and a small army of expensively attired a-list celebrities.

Mister Grey, in classic Hollywood style, soon caught a nasty case of The Real Estate Fickle and in September 2011–without, as far as we know making any significant improvements to the property–flipped the still-a-diamond-in-need-of-a-multi-million-dollar polish back on the market with a much higher price tag of $23,500,000.

Current listing information shows the 2-story mansion, built in 1936 around a massive, piazza-like brick motor court that gives way to a second rear motor court, measures in at a small for the neighborhood 8,631 square feet with 7 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, and at least 4 fireplaces.

In April 2009, about the time it became know a soon-to-be-divorced Mister Grey spent a considerable $22,000,000 to snatch up a newly built Colonial-style mansion in a swank section of Bel Air, next door to Nic Cage's old spread and across the street from Rick and Kathy Hilton's long-time west coast abode. As far as we know the house was never on the open market but the Los Angeles County Tax Man's records shows the black-shuttered L-shaped mansion measures 10,616 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms.

For many years Mister Grey and First Missus Grey–who giddily signed their divorce papers with a happy face!–lived in a 13,143 square foot mansion in the ritzy Riviera area of the affluent coastal Los Angeles community of Pacific Palisades. In June 2009, shortly after all us property gossips prattled on about Mister Grey's new digs in Bel Air, he and First Missus Grey heaved and hoisted their hulking 7 bedroom and 12 bathroom family residence on the market with an equally hulking $29,900,000 asking price.

Property records are a bit vague and, in some cases, incomplete, but it appears to Your Mama that Mister and Ex-Missus Grey sold the property in August 2010 for a reported $21,500,000 to Christine and Jordan Kaplan, a well-compensated real estate industry executive who heads up a publicly traded company called Douglas Emmett, according to its website one the largest corporate owners of office buildings and multi-family housing communities in Los Angeles County.

Like many big-shit players at the top of the Hollywood heap, Mister Grey also owns and maintains an ocean front house on celebrity-lined Broad Beach in Malibu.

listing photos (New York City): Brown Harris Stevens via Curbed
listing photos (Los Angeles): Westside Estate Agency

Renée Zellweger Lists Connecticut Country Crib

2011-12-12T14:25:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Renée Zellweger
LOCATION: Pomfret, CT
PRICE: $1,500,000
SIZE: 3,400 square feet (approximately, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While snacking on some dry toast backed up with a stiff, mid-day gin & tonic pick-me-up Your Mama received an unexpected press release that announces Oscar-winning actress Renée Zellweger has listed her rural retreat in puny and purdy Pomfret, CT on the market with an asking price of $1,500,000.

Miz Zellweger has been a bright light in Tinseltown for quite some time and is best known perhaps for her roles in Cold Mountain, Jerry Maguire, Chicago, Nurse Betty and the Bridget Jones's Diary franchise and for her long list of high-profile man-friends and who include Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Jack White, Kenny Chesney–to whom she was married for about 8 minutes–Luke Perry, John Krasinski, André Balazs, Dan Abrams and, for about 2 years until their March 2011 bust up, Bradley Cooper who People magazine named as "The Sexiest Man Alive" for 2011.

Anyhoo, property records show the sinewy and squinty-eyed movie star procured her pastoral Pomfret property in November 2004 for $1,320,000. The press release we received reveals Miz Zellweger acquired the 39 acre farmlette, located in the northeastern corner of Connecticut about 3.5 hours by car from Midtown Manhattan, as a "vacation retreat." She renovated, updated and upgraded the property's primary structures, which include a vintage main house, separate guest house, and fully detached recreation barn while retaining respect and admiration for the age and integrity of the antique structures. The actress also spent handsomely on extensive landscaping improvement that include various gardens, terraces and dry-stone walls that look as if they pre-date the late-18th century spread.

The main house, a quirky and humble but dignified Federal-style Colonial built around 1770, measures around 3,400 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms that include a commodious (if casual) master suite with vaulted ceiling with heavy, exposed rough-hewn beams, private en suite facility on a dressing area with, as per press release, "an extensive suite of closets."

Visibly aged and pleasantly worn wide plank wood floors–either original or reclaimed–spread throughout the main lounging and entertaining areas that spoke off around the center stair hall and include a cozy formal living room with fireplace and an army of 9-over-9 pane sash windows, a formal dining room with fireplace and antique crystal chandelier, and a ebony-paneled library also with fireplace plus floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases.

A fourth fireplace–this one with brick fireplace original built-in bread oven–warms the family room/media room and the well-equipped (and surprisingly over-sized) and natural light bright kitchen has custom white-painted cabinetry, butcher-block counter tops, high-grade commercial-style appliances, a massive center island lorded over by a heavy-duty pot rack laden with a cacophony of pots and pans that could easy ensnare a bouffant hair do and/or mentally incapacitate an elderly person if it were to fall unexpectedly from the white-painted wood-paneled ceiling.

A sunny sun porch with pitched ceiling and original (or antique reclaimed) wide-plank wood floors looks out past the mature tree branches, through a mossy split-rail fence, down a gentle planted slope to a tree- and lawn-ringed amorphous swimming pool with wide flagstone coping.

A separate guest house has a living room, bedroom, kitchenette and full bath while an antique barn located across the large gravel motor court from the main house has been re-purposed into an airy entertainment pavilion with soaring exposed wood vaulted ceiling, hardwood floors, a old-timey (but probably new-fanged) wood stove and hefty, rough-hewn posts that anchor the massive antique timbers that cross the interior of the capacious space.

The high-profile but low-key Miz Zellweger has owned a number of other prominent properties that include a secluded ranch-style residence in the Hollywood Hills she bought in March 2000 for $1,875,000 from The Wallflowers front man Jakob Dylan and sold a few years later when she snatched up a 6,410 square foot mansion in a plum section of Los Angeles' hoity toity Bel Air 'hood that she owned only briefly and sold in July 2003 for $7,000,000 to Will & Grace alum Debra Messing. Most recently she sold a pair of rambling apartments–or a trio of contiguous units, depending on how one counts, that comprise about 5,000 square feet in a grand Beaux Arts townhouse building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for a combined $7,950,000.

As far as we know Miz Zellweger still owns a charming farmhouse in East Hampton, NY she acquired in April 2003 for $2,150,000. In early 2010 there were scads of rumors and reports Miz Zellweger and her then man-beau Bradley Cooper picked up a contemporary house in the Rustic Canyon area of Pacific Palisades but to be honest children, we don't know anything about this house at this point...meaning it's not clear if it was purchased by Miz Zellweger, Mister Cooper or if they bought it together, which we sort of doubt. We have no inside intel about whether or not Miz Zellweger plans to continue to lighten her real estate load or if she'll hang on to her house in the Hamptons.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker Previews International