Monday, March 16, 2009

A South Park Executive Producer Is Moving On

SELLER: Anne Garefino
LOCATION: Coldwater Canyon Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $1,795,000
SIZE: 2,112 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Welcome to this inviting 3+2.5 fabulous home with a retreat-like backyard. Beautiful built-ins, hardwood floors and French doors throughout. Fantastically remodeled, large, eat-in kitchen. Lovely master with French doors. Most rooms look out to gorgeous greenery. Breathtaking tranquil backyard with stunning pool, lush landscaping and wonderful outdoor sitting areas.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Before we begin discussing this property, Your Mama needs to get our damn wooden spoon out of the drawer and swat it around a bit. Thanks to a large number of loyal and long time readers, it has come to our attention that there are a few disgruntled, bitter and hostile individuals hanging about the comments section making it unpleasant for the vast majority of the other children. So we spent bit of time perusing through the comments section the last couple of days–which we do not normally d0–and we were mor-ti-fied at some of the foul and offensive comments.

To those of you who seem to enjoy creating controversy and stirring up shit in our comments section, you are through messing with Your Mama's baby. Don't like it? Too damn bad. This is our house and we do not appreciate and will not tolerate you coming in here pissing on the floor and crapping on the carpets with a total disregard for Your Mama and everyone else. Take your free-floating anger and unrestrained bile and go elsewhere.

We love that the children talk to each other, have opinions about the properties we write about and otherwise form a sort of "community." However, if the comments sections is going to be ruined by a bunch of anuses making stoopid, aggressive and nasty comments about other children (and Your Mama), then screw it, we'll just turn the damn comments section off because we do not have time to police morons. Got it?

As for the rest of the children who play nicely in our sandbox...please ignore the imbeciles. Engaging him/her/them just provides the attention these people so desperately seek. Your Mama can hardly even believe that anyone would be so wrecked they need to come on to a stupid blog about celebrity real estate in order to get the attention they must be lacking in their "real" lives. Honestly! That is just pathetic.

Now then, back to our regular scheduled programming...

Comedy Central's award winning, sassy and seriously satirical animated sit-com South Park, which debuted in 1997, has made many people wildly rich including executive producer Anne Garefino who recently put her Beverly Hills (Post Office) home on the market with an asking price of $1,795,000.

Although we are not now nor ever been die-hard South Parkians who can claim to have sat through every episode, Your Mama is a devoted contrarian who can't help but love any tee-vee program that unflinchingly takes on the taboo, the sacred and the profane. South Park, created by comedy geniuses Trey Parker and Matt Stone, never shies away from controversy and although the celebrity skewering and religion bashing boob-toob program has many times landed the shows producers in boiling hot water with everyone from network censors to Tom Cruise to the damn Pope, it's also earned Miz Garefino 3 Emmys and 5 more nominations. Not bad for a show with a recurring character that is a talking piece of poo.

Property records show Miz Garefino purchased her Coldwater Canyon Drive property in May of 2000 for $740,000. A few flicks of the well worn beads our our bejeweled abacus reveals that if Miz Garefino gets anywhere near her asking price, she'll pocket nearly a million clams for her stewardship of the property. Records also show she bought the house from Steve Hermann, one of Los Angeles' more successful and well-known house flippers who may (or may not) be the person responsible for the updating and upgrading of what is essentially, from an architectural stand point, a very basic and banal Bevery Hills ranch house located on a very busy street.

Listing information indicates the single story house measures a modest for Beverly Hills 2,112 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. Fortunately, the house is accessed by a circular drive that allows Miz Garefino and guest to pull off the property moving forward because, let's be honest children, backing out of a driveway on Coldwater Canyon can be hazardous to one's health at any time of day or night.

The main living spaces face the rear of the property and include a sky lit living and dining room combination with a fireplace, sloping ceiling and two walls with wood framed pane-less French doors that open to the back yard. While the living room day-core is certainly functional if not particularly inspired, those dining room chairs are disruptive to our delicate design equilibrium. The only thing worse than the deeply disturbing dining room chairs which are upholstered in periwinkle fabric is the wonky "chandelier" light fixture thing that looks like five of those stoopid ghosts from Pacman hanging from the damn ceiling.

The renovated eat in kitchen looks very late 1990s to Your Mama, but all things considered, is far from terrible. There are flat fronted maple cabinets with long stainless steel pulls, over head cabinets with frosted glass fronts, some glass tile accents and speckled granite counter tops that we recommend the new owner replace because, well, because we think changing the counter tops would help save the kitchen from going the way of the belly button piercing which was crazy fashionable in 1992, but has become too common to be considered even remotely cool or stylish anymore.

In addition to the two secondary bedrooms, a small library/den/office where Miz Garefino has actual books (hooray!) and a nice view of the lushly planted hillside gardens. The master is adequately sized unless you're the type that requires a seating area with a couple of couches flanking a fireplace. There is a row of pane-less french doors that open to the rear deck and a too beige bathroom with tumbled limestone tile accents and round mirrors that hang over the double sinks and flank one of the well aerated terlit room's two windows.

A deck runs the length of the rear of the house some of which is tucked under the deep eaves and some of which is covered with a trellis with wisteria winding in and our of the slatted trellis. The kidney-shaped, heated lagoon like swimming pool and spa has been sunk into the lawn with a simple brick coping. Both Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter appreciate that the pool is somewhat small. Who needs one of these monster pools with a damn slide and shit?

Miz Garefino's South Park is contracted for 14 episodes per year through 2011, so she'll have some sizable checks rolling in for another few years after which she'll start making the real money, the re-run residuals money that can turn an ordinary rich person in a filthy stinking rich person practically overnight. Well, bra-vah! We should all be so lucky to get ridiculously rich working on such clever and irreverent fare.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

the ghosts from pacman! lol... Love it mama. Nothing could convince me to buy a home on Coldwater Canyon-too treacherous indeed

Anonymous said...

Thank you Mama! Lawd knows, it was straight up turning into a damn 3-ringed circus around here!

As for this little place...nothing I can say could match your thoughts. So I'll just shut the hell up!

Anonymous said...

Rather lovely. My solicitor is looking at it as an investment property.

justlovely said...

I lived in Coldwater for years (up away from the road, fortunately) and I can tell you that you do not want to live on Coldwater. It's either a noisy freeway or a parking lot.

Anonymous said...

The house is gorgeous, inside & out. Unfortunately its on Coldwater, which means AM traffic south and PM north. Otherwise, I like it.

Anonymous said...

I am baffled.
Do these people realize that this is a down housing market?
Who advises them?
Gweneth Paltrow?

Anonymous said...

12:13 - They know. That is why the price isn't 2.4m

Anonymous said...

Do my eyes deceive me or is there no hardscaping connecting the house to the pool? While maybe not such a concern in dry California, I would think that a few afternoons use would result in a muddy path from the pol to the house. I despise those dining room chairs, but otherwise can't find any fault with the decor.

Anonymous said...

Levenger sends me the same catalogue.

Her decorator bought and I didn't.

Yay me!

Anonymous said...

I like the frosted number on the entry "gate"... and thanks for gettin out yer spoon, Mama!

pch said...

I'll echo everyone's thoughts on Coldwater. Nowhere you want to be during commuting hours.

Perfectly serviceable ranch house, could do something cool with it. I really dislike all the interior finish materials. Personal taste thing, not saying it's inherently bad. I just have this urge to change everything.

Anonymous said...

Geez, Mama, all I said was that I wish people would put a hyphen in Bel-effing-Air. Anyway, about this house: ditto about Coldwater Freeway. As for the house itself--love the back yard...but the interior is rather cheap-looking and dated--very beige, like a Princess phone in beige or white instead of pink or turquiose...who would choose such a banal palette?...oh nevermind. Poor comparison. Let's just say that white walls and wood-framed windows don't do it for me. I am just hoping that this was staged for r/e pics and that the owner didn't actually choose the furniture herself.

Anonymous said...

An' all I says iz you neid a fitty for some ov dis fyne lurvin'

Anonymous said...

I think Coldwater is a tough sale right now. Warren Christopher has been trying to unload his house on Coldwater for close to a year. (And they've dropped the price considerably, from $3.25 to around 2.5M)

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Anonymous said...

I don't understand this new trend of not having hardscape between the pool and the house. You're gonna have muddy feet when you walk inside! Also, who wants a lounge chair in the dirt?

Anonymous said...

I don't think it's a "new" trend to have grass around a pool.

I know several people who have grass (and have had for years). Mud has never been an issue at any of their houses. Maybe if you live in a swamp/wetter climate than Los Angeles?

Anonymous said...

I completely understand why some want or like hardscaping around swimming pools, but it's very common to see pools like this in the Hamptons. I've swum (swam?) in many pools like this and mud was never a problem...at least is the grass is kept thick and healthy around the pool. I think it's very pretty to do a pool this way.

Anonymous said...

coldwater canyon is a nightmare and this house is very close to the street. i live close by in Trousdale Estates and drive by it often.

Anonymous said...

First of all, it's on Coldwater, so it's way too busy. So count me out.

Second of all, I am a firm believer in hardscaping around a pool. To me, it's a MUST. Without it, I feel that the pool just looks like a glorified 'ceeement pond'...

That said, I do appreciate how livable the house is. It's a house for real people, a nice kitchen, decent bathroom. Overall, it's OK.

Anonymous said...

I don't get the blue notes and especially the baby blue chairs in the dining room in a house with blond oak woodwork. I would think black, orange, chocolate with a touch, perhaps, of green here and there would be much more attractive.

Anonymous said...

Are those IKEA kitchen cabinets? If not, they look like them.

Anonymous said...

I absolutely love the pool surrounded by grass. All you 'hardscaping' fans need to remember back when you were a kid. You won't get yelled at for running around this one while chasing your cousin with a water hose.

The interiors aren't horrible, but not to my taste at all. Furniture & paint are easy to change, but the kitchen needs to be updated big time.

Anonymous said...

The other factor about grass vs. hardscaping around a pool is heat during the summer. You don't burn your feet on grass.

Anonymous said...

I like the house, but I can't tell you how much I passionately hate that big frosted gate thing w/ the street address on it. That thing has got to go!

Anonymous said...

oh my god imagine a story about a SOUTH PARK producer and being scared of Mama's wooden spoon - oh, the mind reels.............

Unknown said...

One of the houses in Sydney whose owner engaged our storage services look like this house featured in Real Estalker. One of my staff came back saying the house look very spacious and huge and has ample storage space. I wouldn’t mind living in such but I think the maintenance costs are quite high.

edward said...

I find it very amusing that a lot of people expect the houses to be live-in or move-in condition once they acquire the house. I personally would want to rip stuff out, move things into a self storage unit or at the very least put some sort of personalisation on a new house when I get my hands on it.