Dame Helen Mirren's Hollywood Pied-a-Terre Still for Lease

OWNERS: Dame Helen Mirren and Taylor Hackford

LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $40,000/month

SIZE: 6,699 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: One of the things that often flabbergasts celebrity real estate newbies is that scads of top-level stars who own multiple, multi-million dollar residences often lease them out, presumably to off-set the enormous costs of owning several high-maintenance homes or some other such unfathomable reason. Sacha Baron Cohen has his compound above Laurel Canyon quietly available for $85,000 per month; Dan Aykroyd recently put his picturesque spread in Pacific Palisades up for rent at $45,000 per month; Steven Spielberg has his ocean front compound in Malibu up for grabs at a $150,000 a month.

Another of the A-grade celebs who regularly leases out her Los Angeles pied-a-terre is the utterly sublime and sexy Oscar-, Emmy-, BAFTA- and Golden Globe-winning—not to mention Tony nominated—British actress Dame Helen Mirren (The Queen) and her equally accomplished Oscar-winning film director husband Taylor Hackford (Teenage Father, Ray, Proof of Life, An Officer and a Gentleman).

Property records suggest the two-parcel property was purchased by Mister Hackford back in 1986, a few years after he divorced his second wife and a decade before he and Miz Mirron were married. The double-gated and privately situated, Runyon Canyon adjacent estate sprawls across more than 6.6 acres directly above an aggressively lackluster if centrally located cluster of apartment complexes at the eastern edge of Hollywood. The hillside estate was once the home of silent film star Dustin Farnum, one of Cecil B. DeMille's first and greatest discoveries and the hastily chosen namesake of two-time Oscar-winning actor Dustin Hoffman.

A long gated driveway decadently zig-zags up the lushly planted hillside and sweeps around to the front of the house where there's a motor court able to accommodate parking for 10 or 12 cars. Listing details (and other online resources) indicate the main house, a Colonial-kissed Mediterranean villa originally built in 1911, spans a comfortably spacious 6,699 square feet with four bedrooms and seven bathrooms. A separate, house-sized guest cottage of 2,740 square feet has another four bedrooms and three bathrooms, as per the L.A. County Tax Man. (There are also at least two additional structures of unknown utility tucked discretely behind a high-hedge and a dense and mature copse.)

A double height, center hall entry with wood floors and impressive staircase connects to a lengthy and elegantly casual formal living room where there are a hefty handful of antique looking tables and sideboards and a pair of matching, roll-armed sofas that square face off against each other in front of a wood-burning fireplace surmounted by a swirly, gilt-trimmed mirror. Multiple sets of French doors open to stone terrace that runs the full width of the rear of the residence. Beyond the living room a less-formal library/den has another fireplace, at least one more set of French doors and built-in book shelves.

The roomy formal dining room has more French doors, more antique (looking) sideboards and a highly-polished, double-pedestal table surrounded by seven or eight rivet accented light caramel-colored leather wing back chairs that any fool can see were an effectively idiosyncratic choice by Miz Mirren and/or Mister Hackford and/or, possibly, their lady and/or nice-gay decorator.

The commodious if outdated eat-in center island kitchen has Mexican paver tiles on the floor, ordinary white cabinetry topped with thin slabs of specked gray granite, and a mixy-matchy suite of appliances that include a super-sized commercial grade range. (The children will note the original, wood-faced ice boxes in the back wall.) The mini-manse's service areas also include a secondary stair hall and a butler's pantry enviably larger than most suburban kitchens.

At least two of the upper level bedrooms open to a house-wide veranda with an over-the-tree-tops view across Los Angeles. Lower level rooms open to a deep terrace and wide, red brick stairway that leads down to a large, terrace-encircled rectangular swimming pool that still has, according to listing photos, a diving board. 

Some of the Mirren-Hackfords nearest neighbors include German-born producer Roland Emmerich, contemporary art world mover and shaker Margo Leavin, four-time Emmy-nominated producer-director Tony Krantz, boho-glam American oil heiress and yoga instructor Normandie Keith, and television writer/producer Anna Fricke and writer/producer Jeremy Carver who only a month or two ago shelled out a bit more than $3.4 million for an updated and upgraded turn of the (20th) century cottage.

This is hardly the first time Dame Mirren and Mister Hackford have put their Tinseltown pied-a-terre up for rent. It was set out for let in 2007 at $40,000 per month and again in 2011 at $40,000 per month and yet again in 2013 for—You got it, brainiacs!—forty grand a month. Fun tidbit: A card carrying member of the (totally fictitious) Lavender Real Estate Club once told Your Mama that Tinseltown cashmere queens Max Mutchnick and his legal eagle husband Erik Hyman lived here before they bought their English Manor in Bev Hills in 2007 for almost $17 million. 

Until last August (2013), when property records show they sold it for $960,000 the Mirren-Hackfords owned a high-hedged and gated Craftsman style triplex property in a downtown adjacent neighborhood Santa Barbara, CA. In fall of 2006T, the couple have were reported by no less than The New Yorker (October 2 issue) to also keeps homes in London, Provence (France), and New York. Sorry, Charlies, but Your Mama doesn't have many specifics on these homes but their 19th century London townhouse, a "former customs house, near Tower Bridge, on the cobbled backstreets of East London," according to The New Yorker, stands four stories and backs up to communal gardens. However and for the record, Your Mama can't confirm or deny that the Mirren-Hackfords still own homes in London, Provence and/or New York.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker

Dolly Parton Lists West Hollywood Crash Pad

SELLER: Dolly Parton
LOCATION: West Hollywood, CA
PRICE: $1,395,000
SIZE: 1,091 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The long-legged blond at Trulia Luxe Living revealed today that Dolly Parton listed her West Hollywood crash pad for $1,395,000. (The house is remarkably small but it sorta makes sense Miz Parton maintains a West Coast pied-a-terre in the heart of Boys Town, don't it?)

The compact and extensively fenced and gated bungalow in the Norma Triangle 'nabe, is said to be the childhood home of Natalie Wood and was quietly acquired by the prodigiously talented and high camp country queen April 2007 for $1.2 million.

Listing details indicate the bantam bungalow was originally built in 1923 and currently has two bedrooms and two bathrooms in 1,091 square feet. There's off-street parking for several cars—a real bonus in this tightly packed 'hood—several porches, a small tiled terrace with a garden shed and a detached one-car garage turned into one of the strangest little guest cottages this property gossip has ever laid our boozy eyes. (More on that in a brief moment.)

We love us some Dolly Parton, children. We really do and, once upon a time in the not too distant past, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter paid big bucks for prime seats at Radio City Music Hall to watch the anatomically illogical superstar knock her Showbiz ball out of the damn park. But, seriously, how does this woman not knock all that tchotcke around with her giant personality and super-sized chest and/or snag her big ol' wigs on all that country crap that clings to ever surface available in the itty-bitty cottage?

And what about that room? You know which one we're talking about, the garage cum guesthouse one the buff-toned leather recliner and the toilet set out in the open right up next to the kitchenette. We don't mean to be crude, children, but a person could make microwave popcorn and take a dump at the same time. How–ahem—unusually convenient.

Miz Parton, according to The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial, owns several other homes and homesteads including a small cottage near the zoo in Nashville and a large estate surrounded by housing developments near Brentwood, TN. They also keep a wee place in rugged Idyllwild, CA, and a vast tract of land outside Pigeon Forge, TN, not so far from where Miz Parton grew up in extremely humble circumstances.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker

Sting and Trudy List London Townhouse

SELLER: Sting and Trudy Styler
LOCATION: London, U.K.
SIZE: 7,000 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms
PRICE: On Application

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Deep in the night Your Mama received a covert communique from an eagle-eyed informant we'll call Ozzy Anglophile who let us know that 11-time Grammy winning veteran rock star Sting and his producer/actress/philanthropist wife Trudy Styler hoisted their super-luxe central London townhouse on the open market with an undisclosed asking price.

We're not exactly sure when the music world mandarins acquired the extra-wide, 17th century townhouse that backs up to the tree-lined Birdcage Walk along St. James Park but we do know they had the place worked over and expanded Lee F. Mindel at the high-toned New York City-based Shelton Mindel & Associates before they had the people in from Architectural Digest (A.D.) to fawn, photograph and document the extensive and expensive renovation for their May 2010 issue.

Current digital marketing materials show the five-plus floor urban mansion spans 790.9 square meters—that's just over 8,500 square feet for all us non-metric Americans—and is currently configured with seven bedrooms and six bathrooms. (The A.D. article clocked it at 7,000 square feet but what's a 1,500 square foot discrepancy when big is big? Anyhoodles, poodles...)

In addition to a marble-floored and pine-paneled stair hall with an elegant, corkscrew spindled staircase that will surely stop visitor dead in their tracks with it's, listing details describe a handful of amply proportioned reception rooms, including a fully paneled living room that spans the full width of the house with wood floors, a wood-burning fireplace and a delicious quartet of over-sized, six-over-six sash windows that peer into the tree tops of the rear garden. The couple, as per the A.D. article, furnished the room with a pair of Yves Klein coffee tables—each nowadays go for well upwards of $20,000, a Diego Giacometti side table—we can't even fathom the cost, a colorful clutch of Matisse prints and, over the fireplace, a cubist portrait by Pablo Picasso.

A sinuously graphic rug and a wood-burning fireplace anchor an upper floor music/media room that also stretches the full width of the house and—again as per the A.D. article—was outfitted with faux-pine paneling interspersed with sound baffling fabric panels. Four more, although slightly smaller, six-over-six sash windows overlook the tree tops towards Birdcage Walk and St. James Park.

Like is being done with vast engineering derring do and great expense in the finer neighborhood all over London, Mister and Missus Sting's extensive renovation included a generous expansion of the (somewhat subterranean) ground floor into previously unused space under the house's rear garden. The newly created area includes numerous storage and mechanical rooms, a home office accessible from a separate below grade street entrance. Smack in the center of the plan is a sleek, if windowless, all-white center island kitchen fitted and kitted with some of the best appliances and fixtures money can buy.

The kitchen links through to a capacious dining area that's flooded with natural light by a massive sky-light. Open to but two steps down from the dining room is a cozy and low-key, if still buttoned up, family room space. The architect's tucked A discrete half bathroom tucked up into one corner and installed a tightly spiraled staircase that leads up to we don't know where. Four, 15-pane glass doors that open to a lower level of the rear garden.

The couple's upper level bedroom—Let's keep the Tantric sex jokes to a bare minimum, shall we?—also has fabric paneled walls and an attached, wood floored and fully paneled bathroom that includes a soaking tub for two and a separate shower. (We'd have preferred the crapper be enclosed in a well ventilated cubicle of it's own but, alas, nobody asked Your Mama what we thought.)

There's direct access to the grand, tree-lined Birdcage Walk from the rear garden that includes a shaded dining terrace. Listing details also call out a roof terrace that Your Mama imagines provides a stellar view over St. James Park and, maybe, a glimpse of the roof tops of Buckingham Palace just half a mile up the road.

In addition to the London townhouse and an 800-acre country estate with a late 16th century Elizabethan manor house near Andover in Wiltshire—featured in Architectural Digest in 2007—Mister and Missus Sting keep a swanky place in New York City and an ocean front getaway in Malibu, CA.

In New York they sold an exceptionally roomy, low-floor duplex at The Brentmore building at 88 Central Park West in July 2010 for $17,750,000 to San Francisco-based businessman Michael Naify. The duplex had previously been owned by Billy Joel and, as it turns out, the 6,000 square foot duplex back up for sale at $19.8 million, reduced from it's original $21.5 million asking price. The couple downsized (a bit) and decamped just a few blocks to the south where, in March 2008, they shelled out $26.983,625 million for a mid-floor duplex with just over 5,400 square feet at the lordly and surpremely pricey 15 Central Park West.

On the Left Coast, in Malibu they own a spacious, quasi-pueblo style residence with 5,549 square feet inside the guarded gates of The Colony enclave that they bought in 1997 for $5,375,000 from the late actor Larry Hagman. (They previously owned another ocean front abode in The Colony that they sold in April 1999 for $4.45 million to semi-retired sitcom actor Paul Reiser.)

listing photos: Knight Frank

Pick Up Stick: El Fureidis

El Fureidis, the architecturally multi-cultural villa in Montecito, CA, originally designed by architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue for New York banker James Waldron Gillespe that was featured in the magnificent and magnificently violent Al Pacino movie Scarface, was hoisted on the open market last week with a $35 million asking price.

Our perusal of property records show the 10.39 acre estate is currently owned by a corporate entity directly connected to Russian-born and U.S. naturalized billionaire businessman Sergey Grishin who picked it up in October 2009 for just $6,230,000. The mansion has four bedrooms and four full and five half bathrooms in almost 10,000 square feet. Mister Grishin extensively restored and remodeled the mansion and in 2012 it popped up for rent at $30,000 per month.

The listing agent told to the Wall Street Journal that Mister Grishin wants to sell the painstakingly maintained El Fureidis because the estate "isn't his primary residence he isn't using it as much as he would like."

listing photos: Village Properties