Sunday, August 19, 2007

Vicki Lawrence's Wallpaper Border Madness in Long Beach

SELLER: Vicki Lawrence and Al Schultz
LOCATION: Lido Lane, Long Beach, CA
PRICE: $5,000,000
SIZE: 4,200 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Beautiful Custom home has 5 br, 5 ba, game room w/ built in bar & fireplace, renovated kitchen. Master suite w/ fireplace & vaulted ceilings. 1 br downstairs. Living rm w/ fireplace & wet bar. Balconies on each level w/ views of the bay. Includes nearby boat slip on open water that has 60' pierhead & accommodates large yacht. Perfect home for entertaining. 3-car garage w/ storage.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We love Vicki Lawrence. We loved her fiercely on the Carol Burnett Show in the 1960s and 70s, and even though she's not really the best singer to warble a tune, her 1973 number 1 hit song The Nights the Lights Went Out in Georgia is on regular rotation on our iPod. We loved her spin off show called Mama's Family (natch), and we loved every single one of her many, many appearances on game shows.

But we do not, can not, and will not appreciate her tri-level house in Long Beach, California that Los Angeles Times celebrity real estate gossip Ruth Ryon reported in today's Hot Properties column has been put on the market for a whopping $5,000,000. Yes, the place does have lovely views of palm trees and the Alamitos Bay, and it includes a 60 foot pier head to accommodate a large yacht, but otherwise this place makes Your Mama dee-pressed.

One need only step through the front door and run smack into that abomination that is the juke box to know that this house breaks all the rules of intelligent and satisfying interior design. Even though Your Mama is approaching 100 years old, we are still perhaps too young to appreciate the nostalgia of a juke box which hearkens back to a time of sock hops and roller skating waitresses. Which is all well and good for the Fonzies and Laverne Defazios of the world. None the less, it does not matter how old one is, a juke box should never ask for acceptance and appreciation in the damn entrance hall of a $5,000,000 house.

Next up, the game room, where we find a pool table, a humongous and old fashioned console television, a wet bar, and an extensive collection of kawkee brown leather furniture. We could easily and happily shred each of those choices and features, but far and away the most upsetting and disturbing element of this room is that hideous wall paper border at the ceiling.

Wallpaper borders appear to be a repeating and unfortunate decorating motif in Miss Vicki's house where we also find a ridiculous floral wallpaper border in the dining room and worst of all, the crazy sailing scene border in the guest bedroom with the quasi patriotic red and white quilt. Oh, no. Please tell me you did not do that Miss Vicki.

All you misguided wallpaper border fanatics out there need to listen up and listen hard because Your Mama is about to say something important. Those horrid wall paper borders, particularly those that depict sailing and beach scenes, are simply a bad joke that the wallpaper industry has perpetrated on hordes of unwitting consumers who don't have the good sense or design wherewithal to question what their local wall paper sales person tells them. Do not believe these monsters when they tell you wallpaper borders are cool, stylish, attractive, and worst of all, cute. Do not believe them. Ever. Do you hear Your Mama? Not ever. When was the last time any one saw a cheesy wallpaper border in a picture story of a gorgeous house in House and Garden, Dwell, or Architectural Digest magazines? When?

Phew! Oh Lawhd children, Your Mama has done exhausted ourselves on those damn wallpaper borders, so we do not have the appropriate energy to properly discuss the plethora of inexpensive Home Depot ceiling fans, the pot rack in the kitchen, the carpeted master bathroom, or the mirrored closet doors which have us just about ready to pull our eyes from their sockets.

According to Miz Ryon at the LA Times, Miss Vicki and her huzband are selling this 4,200 square foot tri-level house with 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms so that they can move up to Newport Beach where there park their 70 foot racing yacht.

Vicki, hunny, Your Mama knows that you and Mister Schultz are a couple of substantial means. You do have a 70 foot racing yacht after all. When you move to your new home in Newport Beach, please do Your Mama, your family and your guests a huge favor and hire yourself a nice gay decorator to do up your new digs in a manner appropriate for a game show queen and television icon. Do not make another person suffer the design indignity of a wallpaper border. Ever. Seriously, please.

Your Mama is so upset and overwhelmed by the wallpaper borders that we are taking to bed now, so please children, do not disturb us for at least 12 hours because we've just swallowed a big Percocet and a small Xanax to calm our frazzled nerves and fried mind.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow. and i said NO, NO, NO!

:)

Anonymous said...

My favs are the green canopies!

Anonymous said...

.. and the jukebox when you walk in!

who plays music in their foyer?

"party in the foyer everyone, gather 'round the jukebox!!"

:)

Anonymous said...

ooooh - and can't forget to mention the period piece in the master.. the TRACK LIGHTING!!!



:)

Anonymous said...

The horror! The doggy rug in the bedroom next to the bed! Who took these pictures and didn't at least drag that thing out of the shot?!

so_chic_darling said...

Talent and taste do not go hand in hand!
Oh Mama I'm still wiping the tears from my eyes over this one.A bit overpriced no?

Anonymous said...

Who in their right mind would live in Long Beach and claim to be a celebrity. The Rich and Famous live in the Hills. Oh Mama do help this child.

Anonymous said...

What's wrong with a home that actually looks like real people live there?

How quickly we forget the SaperPile.

so_chic_darling said...

Then price it like real people live there!

so_chic_darling said...

I thought you could buy an entire block for 5 mil in Long Beach?

Anonymous said...

This place is muy awful, and the exterior looks like an office building.

Anonymous said...

While I agree with you about the wallpaper border, I love me a good old-fashioned juke box.

so_chic_darling said...

A juke box,nobody even has CDs or stereo sytems anymore.I mean pleeeeeeeeeeeeeaze.

Anonymous said...

LOTS of folks had those wallpaper borders and busy wallpapers in the early '90s. The place doesn't appear to have been updated since about then and I beg you people...never put carpet in a bathroom. It's just GROSS.

Anonymous said...

oh no she didn't

Anonymous said...

shoes. she stores her shoes and handbags on the book shelves.

Anonymous said...

OMG, I just broke out in hives looking at these pictures...the wallpaper borders, the oak accents, the awnings and the track lighting...

Anonymous said...

Has this woman been buried alive for the past twenty years?? This is the condition in which she thinks her house is fit to be photographed, much less shown? For $5mil? In Long Beach?

The Newport Beach Town Council should put up a Vicki-proof fence around itself and call out its security volunteers. Somehow I don't think they'll have to worry, though. That LB monstrocity will never sell in that condition!

Anonymous said...

Nancypants says: "LOTS of folks had those wallpaper borders and busy wallpapers in the early '90s."

90's? That would be almost contemporary for Ms. Vicki. Try the 80's. The borders and the oak and the jukebox and everything that is awful about this place remind me of the terrifying country look that was the 1980's. Remember the dried flower wreaths and the blue and yellow ceramic ducks?

I will be having nightmares tonight. Nightmares, I tell you!

Anonymous said...

Yes, you're right Anon; It was more of a mid-to late '80s thing. At my age, the decades start to blur but at least I still have enough sense not to have any damn wallpaper in my house! ;-)

Anonymous said...

You go Mama! Tell it like it is!

Anonymous said...

Perhaps "backwoods southern lawyers" marry backwoods southern decorators?

Anonymous said...

...and the decorator in this town has wallpaper paste on his hands...

Anonymous said...

That house is only worth 1.8M on it's best day with street on 3 sides and another house on the fourth with zero lot lines all around, so 5M makes NO SENSE at all and they'll never get it.

I doubt seriously that they actually live in that house anyway, remember owning is not the same as living in. Probably a "yacht flop house" for the crew or something judging from the look of the place.

The decor, location and price really make me LAUGH.

Anonymous said...

$5 million to live in Long Beach, oh lord.

Anonymous said...

I live very close to Vicki. The house isn't impressive at all, but the location is nice. For those of you who don't know Long Beach (or for those who do), this is in a neighborhood called Naples, just north of the Orange County line, quite far from the hood. Vicki's not known for being a friendly neighbor, but her husband Al could not be nicer.

She won't get $5 mil, but she'll get close to $3 mil.

d2 - I can personally attest that she does live there.

Anonymous said...

I guess some of you have never been down there. That lot is in the Naples section of Long Beach and is 2 houses from the bay. It's a beautiful area without the pretentious people that typcially come along with other wealthy ocean front neighborhoods. The house, yeah it's ugly. But the lot alone is worth $3 million.