Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Let's Talk About Ashley Olsen For A Moment

By now all the children know all about the modest little Hancock Park adjacent home that mogulette Ashley Olsen recently purchased for $1,575,000. (All you Hancock Park boundary snobs please note the "adjacent.")

However, Your Mama has lately received dozens of emails and contacts about Little Miss Ashley Olson also buying a humongous house in Malee-boo. The real estate related gossip started to churn when the teeny tiny tycoon was photographed (see below) outside a not yet completed and monolithic mansion on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
But it just didn't make sense to us. So, being the no-zee bitch we are, Your Mama got on the horn to pick the brains of a few folks in our vast spider web of contacts. We emailed Mighty Mouse in Malee-boo, we contacted Jim Nasium, who knows a lot about a lot of things, we touched base with Mirakle Mike and we grilled the always well informed Lucy Spillerguts.

We combed the sold properties, we looked at aerial maps and we poured over the assessor records for Malee-boo. For quite some time we came up empty handed. Then it all shimmered into view. We're not ashamed to say that it was not Your Mama who located the exact property at which Little Miss Olsen was photographed, but rather one of our newer tipsters who we call The K-Man who pointed us in the right direction.

So here's what we know: The house at which the itsy bitsy high heeled fashion bug was photographed appears to be the old Mark Hughes mansion located way up the Pacific Coast Highway, beyond the Robert Meyer State beach, and near the ocean front compound owned by Madame Cindy Crawford and the palatial, royalty worthy Michael Eisner beach pad. Y'all know who Mark Hughes was, right? He was the four times married and fantastically rich founder of Herbalife who died in 2000 at the tender age of 44 from what was reported as an accidental overdose of prescription anti-depressants and large amounts of alcohol. In fact he died in the master bedroom of his Malee-boo monster mansion.

Property records show that in December of 1999 the perfectly coiffed and usually tan and blinged out Mister Hughes had paid a record breaking $27,000,000 for the 19,340 square foot house. Mister Hughes purchased the house from the widow Verna Harrah, a former cocktail waitress who acquired a considerable fortune when her hotel and casino magnate mate William Harrah passed over. Sadly, shortly after buying the gargantuan house, Mister Hughes met his big diet supplement supplier in the sky in the master bedroom of his Malee-boo manse, and property records reveal the house was next sold off to big time venture capitalist Howard Marks and his wifey Nancy. Since buying the property, they have embarked on a total gut renovation which has maintained the basic shape of the original house but completely altered the style and articulation of the facades.

Mighty Mouse in Malee-boo told Your Mama that he's heard, but can not confirm, that the place was going to be used as a corporate retreat and given it's multi acre parcel with hundreds of feet of beach frontage, the property would likely be valued in the $80,000,000 range. So while the usage of the property seems to be in question, what is not, at least according to current and accurate property records, is that mega-moneyed mini mogulette Ashley Olsen has not purchased this house.

And really, think about it kids, neither of the Olsen gurls seem the type to buy a monstrous and ridiculously expensive estate like this. A look at their real estate history shows they prefer to shack up in more low-key and modest digs. Yes, they did share Hal Levitt designed digs in Bel Air, and they are trying to unload that big place in the ass uglee Kostas Kondylis designed Morton Square in New York, but they intended to share that place too while they attended NYU (a folly they've both since given up).

If we're being honest, Your Mama does not know about all the properties these pint sized and filthy rich gurls own and/or lease. What we do know is that fashion risk taker Mary Kate leases a private but modest house in the Bird Streets in LA as well as a loft on Mercer Steet in New York's former artist 'hood SoHo. Previous to her recent purchase of a small house in Hancock Park (adjacent), Miss Ashley leased a not so big Nichols Canyon abode, and we think she's got a place she leases in the West Village in NYC, but don't quote us on that. According to Mighty Mouse, the teensy power players together leased a tiny house on Escondido Beach in Malibu last summer. There are undoubtedly other places in the mix that Your Mama doesn't know anything about. And certainly all that real estate costs a fortune to own, lease and maintain. But given these chicklets behemoth bank accounts, they could certainly afford much more expensive and lavish properties to crash and store their vast collections of Balenciaga boots and vintage furs.

So what was Miss Ashley Olsen and her big black Geländewagon doing at that big ass estate in The Boo-Boo? Who knows? But if Miss Olsen or any of her people would like to clue your Mama in, on or off the record, be sure to give us a ringy-dingy.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

I live in the Bird Streets and have never seen Mary Kate. Any idea what street or house she lives in?

Anonymous said...

The Malibu house they rented in summer is stunning [from the outside anyway] ... Ashley was always at the Trancas Starbucks.

Who knows why she was at this house, but like you said mama ... I doubt it's for herself. Dualstar corporate retreat? Parents retirement home? Closet? ... One question though, why do they lease so many properties when they're worth hundreds of millions & earning $40M+ annually? It's not like there is a lack of suitable properties in L.A / N.Y for them to purchase ...

Anonymous said...

ohh, my favorite bird is the bluejay.

what is yours?

Anonymous said...

Who'd she rent from on Blue Jay?

Anonymous said...

I don't think it's blue jay - is it?

Anonymous said...

Maybe she is going to open the Jon Bonet Ramsey School for child starlets with Lynne Spears as the headmistress.

Anonymous said...

I can't imagine the O-Twins would rent on any street other than Oriole, the best in my book. Anyways, I suppose they (like others) rent because they're indecisive about what to buy. That may be the smart way to go: take a short term lease and see if you really love the place before shelling out $5M +. (BTW, shouldn't the shot of her G55 with the license plate in plain view have been touched up with a Sharpie?)

Anonymous said...

Maybe they're going to open The Olsen Twins Scientology Compound; for identical twins only.

They can teach Tag Team Thetan Cleasing, Good Cop/Bad Cop interrogation of lying tomatoes, or just creeping people out with their patently alien, otherworldly 1000 yard vacant stare.

Hmmm, Big Gay Decorator has an identical twin brother; perhaps I could get them to infiltrate the compound . . .

Nah, his brother's straight.

Anonymous said...

ya mama!

run her plates, maybe it will reveal a new residence!!??

you surely have a contact at the LA/NYPD!

so_chic_darling said...

Great reporting Mama.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone have any dirt on the land Mark Hughes owned in Beverly Hills?

Anonymous said...

Hughes lived at Grayhall, a 14,765 square foot mansion built in 1915 for Silsby Spaulding, an early L.A. real estate developer. He was married to Carolyn Canfield, whose father was partnered with Burton Green in the early development of Beverly Hills (the flats) and the BH Hotel. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford allegedly lived there while building Pickfair (unlikely though) and George Hamilton lived there. Wired financier Bernie Cornfield lived there in the 1960s-1970s with, among a live-in harem of young women, Vickie Morgan, who would later have an affair with Alfred Bloomingdale and be the victim of a bizarre murder involving reported government cover-ups and such because of the alleged tapes of their big sex parties. Go Alfred, I love a love story, although the little gray-haired missus... not so much. Hughes lived there in the mid-1990s and was living there when he died in Malibu.

Anonymous said...

Forgot to mention, today Grayhall is owned by an Iranian investment guy named Mousa Mehdizadeh.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the Olsen twins aren't as rich as everybody thinks they are (a-la) Rick, Kathy, Paris, Nicky and the rest of the disinherited Hiltons? Truth be told, the more you tell or have reported of your wealth, the less probability it is that you actually have that much...at least that's been my experience; the richest people I know are usually the most low-key (though that statement could also support the twins being as rich as everyone says they are, since when you are that rich you often don't care about money or showing it off anymore....) I can go either way (don't get too excited, L'il Gay boy, I don't mean it that way ;-) Just some random ramblings, LOL

Anonymous said...

Not to worry bigdaddy, although I always thought the "J" referred to some sort of curvature.

;-)

It's true; the more they talk about it, the less they seem to have, with nothing left to show for it but cashing in on their once-esteemed family names. Oh, the bodies spinning in various family crypts right about now.

E.J., where do you get such a fount of information? Are you as addicted to local estates in your area as I am to mine?

Anonymous said...

Hi E.J., Thanks for the info on Grayhall. I was referring to the 150+ acres at the end of (I think) Summitridge that he bought from Merv Griffin. Last time I was up there it was still sitting undeveloped.

Anonymous said...

PS. Grayhall has also been on and off the market a few times in recent years.

Anonymous said...

lol mama at the ~slight~ alter you made to the photo

:)

Anonymous said...

where is this house???