Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Ronne Wood's Ex-wife Lists Family Mansion


SELLER: Jo (and Ronnie) Wood
LOCATION: Greater London, UK
PRICE: £13,000,000
SIZE: 9-13 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: No band epitomizes the quintessential–and some might say cliché–rock and roll lifestyle of booze, drugs and loosy-goosy groupies than The Rolling Stones. In fact, they kind of invented it. In the 1960s and 70s the band happily wallowed in a life of debauchery and lasciviousness. In the process they became wildly rich and internationally recognized icons who are still so popular that even as senior citizens can fill stadiums around the world with thousands upon thousands of screaming fans that include frightfully young and scantily clad women willing to flash their chee-chees and fornicate with band members upon request.

In the mid-1970s The Rolling Stones were in need of a new guitarist and the scratch to that itch was Ronnie Wood. Although new to The Rolling Stones, Mister Wood was no stranger to the proverbial rock and roll lifestyle having previously picked, strummed, and laid it down something fierce for The Birds, The Jeff Beck Group, and Faces.

In the 1970s Mister Wood made his first baby with his first wife Krissy. They were divorced in 1978 shortly after he'd already met his next wife, the formidable and delicious looking Jo Wood (née Karslake) who he married in 1985 and who brought to the union a child of her own from a previous marriage. Ronnie and Jo had two children together and as of today they have 6 grandchildren. Ten or so years ago the blended, Brady-bunch style family settled into a gigantic house about 9 miles outside Central London in the leafy south west suburb of Kingston Hill.

Being married to a hard living rock star and horny groupie magnet can't be easy but to her credit Jo stuck it out for more than 20 years. However, in the spring of 2008 the grizzled and thin as a microphone stand Ronnie Wood started up with a barely legal Russian cocktail waitress named Ekaterina Ivanova. According to Mister Wood's publicist, he met the nubile and eager young blond in "a dodgy escort bar at four in the morning when he was boozed out of his mind." Oh, ouch. In July of 2008, shortly after getting with his 19 year old lover–some reports say she was 18, and others 20–Mister Wood checked himself into a rehabilitation facility for about the 112th time in an effort deal with his excessive drinking.

When he left rehab Mister Wood did not, reportedly, return to the family fold in Kingston Hill but instead ran into the arms of his Russian lover who is 3 times younger than the sixty-something year old Mister Wood. Lo-ward have mercy. Your Mama's all for a May-December romance poodles. The Dr. Cooter is, after all, a bit older that Your Mama. But as far as we're concerned, the gap between 19 and 60 is simply a chasm too wide to be traversed with any kind of dignity. Under no circumstances, puppies, can an age differential like that be anything but unseemly and embarrassing. Ever.

Anyhoo, Missus Wood, after 20-some years of marriage filed for a dee-vorce that was finalized towards the end of 2009. The out of court settlement reportedly grants the now ex-Missus Wood half of Mister Wood's estimated $37,000,000 fortune, plus a monthly allowance, and ownership of the family mansion in Kingston Hill. Long before the dee-vorce was finalized, much to the chagrin of his children, Mister Wood had moved into a mock castle with a turret in the Claygate area of Surrey with his dewy Russian waitress lover gurl.

Previous to the couple's dee-vorce being finalized, eco-conscious ex-Missus Wood–who created a line of organic beauty products and maintains extensive organic gardens at her home–gave an interview to The Sunday Times that indicated her plans for the future of the family mansion included renting the place out for "green" weddings and other events to the tune of £35,000–or about fifty grand in U.S. dollars–per day. However, thanks to Kitty Litterinlondon Your Mama has learned that ex-Missus Wood had a real estate change of mind and recently opted to list the dee-luxe family manse with an asking price of £13,000,000, a number that Your Mama's currency conversion contraption reveals amounts to $19,842,600 at today's rates.

Listing information for the rambling, elegant, and wonderfully quirky Wood mansion shows the property sprawls across 2.31 acres and includes a total of 9-13 bedrooms and 8 poopers spread throughout the 3-floor main house, cottage, lodge, garage building, and pool house.

A few minutes perusing the floor plans included with the listing materials, however, and Your Mama counts 3 kitchens, 7 bedrooms, 7 full and 6 half poopers or water closets in the main house, another 3 bedrooms and 1.5 poopers in the cottage, 2 bedrooms and a pooper in the lodge, a single half pooper in the garage, and what essentially amounts to 1.5 poopers in the building that houses the indoor swimming pool and spa. Altogether that adds up to 12 bedrooms and 10 full and 9 half poopers for a total of 19 terlits. That's more than enough, Your Mama imagines, to require the Wood family keep at least two full time minimum wage gals who do nuthin' but scrub the terlits and clean the damn kitchens.

Based on the marketing materials and according to our admittedly rudimentary calculations, the Wood house measures 11,590 square feet not counting the additional 675 square feet contained in the basement rooms that include a wine cellar and a couple of storage areas. The cottage, according to listing information, measures 1,414 square feet, the lodge 813 square feet, the garage and workshop 804 square feet and the detached building that houses the swimming pool another 3,425 square feet.

The front door opens into an itty-bitty vestibule that opens into the commodious reception hall through a pointed Gothic arch door that introduces a vaguely ecclesiastical architectural theme that repeats itself throughout the Wood mansion. The reception hall doubles as the formal living room and has paneled walls, worn hardwood floors that lend the room a lovely patina, a leaded glass bay window, and a fireplace with fleur de lys accents that curves gently but forcefully out into the room.

Many of the ground floor rooms spoke off from the reception room including the formal dining room with fireplace and pretty but too-puny chandelier, a billiard room with beamed ceiling, fireplace, and raised seating area, morning room with a fourth fireplace that overlooks the rear terrace and gardens, a solarium with stone flooring, fireplace and dramatically peaked glass ceiling, and the stair hall with an antique chandelier, painted paneling, Easter-y lavender carpeting–at least we think it's carpeting or maybe it's painted hardwood–and towering arched windows that one might easily expect to find in a cathedral.

In addition to three powder poopers/water closets, the ground floor also contains a family room with extra wide plank hardwood flooring, fireplace, and playfully if not entirely pleasing colorful melange of upholstered furniture, a breakfast room with built in bar of reclaimed wood planks, and a colossal kitchen with a pressed tin ceiling, stone flooring, large larder, and walk-in refrigerator.

The second floor includes a study and gym with private facilities, 1 small bedroom and three larger bedrooms, two of which are suites and all of which claim their own crapper. One of the suites has a sitting room with kitchenette, bedroom and pooper, another has a fireplace and connects to the study through the pooper, and the third, the one Your Mama thinks is ex-Missus Wood's boo-dwar has an attached pooper with an exquisite copper soaking tub/shower, small balcony, and a custom fitted dressing room larger than most bedrooms.

The mansion's third floor contains two bedrooms each with private pooper, a large loft room of unknown usage, and a two-room suite with kitchenette, pooper, and private balcony. The home's 2-room laundry facilities are located on the third floor, a location that would aggravate our imperious house gurl Svetlana to no end unless a dumb waiter was installed to haul the linens and things up and down the three-floor mansion.

In addition to the cottage and lodge buildings that each contain additional bedrooms and poopers, there is a long, narrow garage and workshop as well as a detached indoor swimming pool enclosed in a glass roofed building that contains a couple of sinks and terlits, a shower, dry sauna, and steam room. The remainder of the grounds have expansive lawns, mature shade trees, a pond, and a extensive organic gardens where ex-Missus Wood grows her own vegetables.

Mister and ex-Missus Wood also own a six and some million dollar home in County Kildare, Ireland that is–allegedly and reportedly–still under dispute. Ex-Missus Wood is said to want to sell the property because it is where Mister Wood wooed, made hay, and fell in love with his exceptionally young Russian cocktail waitress ladee-friend. We don't know whether that's true or not but we do know that by late 2009 lecherous Mister Wood and his young Russian hussy had parted ways in a not particularly friendly way amid rumors that a drunken Mister Wood attacked and choked on Miss Ivanova and reports that she was two-timing Grandpa Wood with a much younger male model. Oh what a tangled web we weave...

Mister Wood quickly replaced Miss Ivanova with a hotsy-totsy Brazilian polo coach named Ana Araujo. Not surprisingly, the Russian waitress is hoping to cash in on her affair with the insanely famous Mister Woods and recently entered the Celebrity Big Brother house which is sort of odd because Your Mama thought you had to be at least a c-list celebrity to be on a show called Celebrity Big Brother and not just some gurl who did the dirty with a celebrity plenty old enough to be her damn grandfather.

Your Mama, who does not know a screw from an umbrella, would guess that ex-Missus Wood, an empty nesting dee-vorcée, plans to move to more modestly sized if not less luxurious accommodations, perhaps even something a little closer to the swinging central areas of London. As for Mister Wood, well, maybe he's still stuck up in his mock castle in Claygate or perhaps he's left that behind for a home with fewer memories of his former Russian waitress gurly-pal who is still young enough to be his damn granddaughter.

22 comments:

StPaulSnowman said...

Sadly, even in England, glorious architecture can become the victim of an incongruous conservatory which should be attached to an Arbys somewhere. At the risk of being flayed by the chillun..........too much here about the celebrity and too little about this interesting house.

Carla Ridge said...

For whatever reason, this house just makes me think of Nic Cage's big old pile of 'Frathouse Bordello'. Try "Copa De Oro" brand, it's the richest kind!

BritBitch said...

Wonderful post, hideous house. Victorian gothic with lots of ill-conceived add-ons by the looks of it. Stripped of the iffy decor (what's that picture of the child murderess Myra Hindley doing on a bedroom wall?), the best use would be as an old people's home...so perhaps Mister Wood should have stayed there. Pictures of him & the Brazilian babe at a recent polo match show him looking like an emaciated corpse. In fact, if he let his hair return to its natural color he'd be a dead ringer for another DOM, Hugh Hefner.

Anonymous said...

We in Trenton can visually size a chandelier for a room; however, for the visually impaired, choose a single chandelier twice the diameter in inches as the room is wide in feet. Don't start in with the metric system.

Mama, you tease and intrigue: is there a link to the mentioned floor plans?

Patty O. and Verandah

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised that you didn't mention the harp in the corner of the living room / sitting room / lounge; its one of the rare times that you'd see one in a situation to which its appropriate.

I like it, but lordgodalmighty the cost of the upkeep must be staggering!

I wonder if Suzanne Saperstein would refer to this place as a "cottage"?

My "verification word" is "pensiat", and if you flip letters around, hmmm...

Baroness Cotilde Van Asperg-Angelli-Cates said...

That's a fantastic house! Except for that glassed in addition and that pool thing, it reeks old rock and roll!

Anonymous said...

It's on a main road and sited next to townrow flats. I'd much rather live in the prestigious Coombe Park neighborhood, whose entrance lies directly across the street from Mr. Wood's former house...

Jeannified said...

Too much house! However, I was surprised that Ron Woods fortune is only valued at 37 million. I'd expected it to me several hundred million at least!

Anonymous said...

I don't get the rustic rooms juxtaposed with the sorta French style in the room with the staircase. Aren't homes supposed to have some decorating consistency? Or is it just any period and style that strikes your fancy?

angie said...

Awesomely entertaining reading Mama. A fun old house too; just too much of it. I can easily imagine the bathroom count discrepancy occurring because the realtor lost count while taking the tour. It appears that jolly old England has their own version of Mel Gibson. Lucky them.

humanseed said...

It's not the worst house I've seen, and it's not the best either.

@BritBitch...The art on the wall is actually Kate Moss as Myra Hindley by Russell Young. Here.

Anonymous said...

Anyone got a link to the real estate listing and floor plan?

Aunt Gina said...

the Russian tot was indeed on Celebrity Big Brother, the UK version, which I am deeply ashamed to admit I watched. Even the other C-list celebrities in the house questioned what she was doing there,
with her only claim to fame being briefly molested by an aging Rolling Stone, and she was one of the first to be evicted, mostly for being incredibly stupid.

It doesn't surprise me that his taste in homes seems no better.

Anonymous said...

[URL=http://search.knightfrank.com/wmb100065]Listing[/URL]
[URL=http://resources.knightfrank.com/getres.ashx?id=c5d1b640-7310-4a72-842d-ad6fbab96df6&type=1]Floor plans[/URL]
[URL=http://resources.knightfrank.com/getres.ashx?id=88956e12-a6a1-44d6-b98a-b5d04f31e23a&type=1]Brochure[/URL]

McGarrell Reilly said...

£13,000,000 ....
A lot of money in this tough time.

Bob said...

@Jeannified: Woods was basically an employee of the Rolling Stones during the 70's and 80's, which means he made a fraction of what the other members made. He was only made a full partner and member of the band in about 1990.

He also -famously- spends money like water, especially when he's drinking.

lil' gay boy said...

I think BritBitch was being much too charitable with the "iffy decor" comment; I see a parallel between Mr. Wood and the house ––– good bones draped in carrion.

I know Russians are supposed to be known to have a sensitivity to mysticism, which is how she probably communicated with that walking corpse; she must have mistaken the smell of carrion for cash.

Aunt Gina said...

after googling myself silly, estimates of R. Wood's net worth range from $90 to $140 million.
Mick Jagger on the other hand is estimated at $225 million.

StPaulSnowman said...

A provincial guy's architectural orgasm!

lil' gay boy said...

Snowman, you might want to look at this before you shoot that load . . . this is not what it means to be of the manor born.

I see Anon 2:59's point about the locale; I'm all for adaptive reuse of large residences when necessary, but I'd be good goddamned before I'd throw away close to $20MM (like I'd ever have it) on less than two and a half acres wedged between a housing estate & a church. At least, despite the riot of color, the Wood family did not promulgate the same penchant for that particularly putrid pea-green pigment for their master suite that the Dimon's did in Chicago.

Be right back; I have to pee.

;-)

Who wants to bet that we see more than one karate chop to the asking price before this manor shifts?

I can see Brabbinger spinning in his grave right now; even Audrey fforbes-Hamilton would view this as a comedown.

Anonymous said...

'estimates of R. Wood's net worth range from $90 to $140 million. Mick Jagger on the other hand is estimated at $225 million."

Are you sure you don't mean sterling rather than dollars? Mick Jagger's fortune is always estimated at £200M+ which with todays rates would be $300M+ ... Ronnie Wood is usually around £70M-£100M or $105M-$150M U.S.

StPaulSnowman said...

LGB, nothing gets by you. I actually meant to post that comment under the Dimon House but goofed. This Wood House is too rambly and "concocted". I wasn't going to make a correction but I couldn't let the Audrey Forbes-Hamilton reference pass without a nod. She was and is a great favorite...........the kind of woman I would kill to have as First Lady........no......president! I wonder if there is a support group for inveterate anglophilia?